A Walk to Remember (2002)
How to Deal (2003)
All I Want (2003)
Saved! (2004)
Chasing Liberty (2004)
The princess diary
A lot of us wonder what it's like to be royalty. Well, for San Franciscan schoolgirl Mia Thermopolis (Anne hathaway), it's something of a shock.
Mia is the class geek and outsider, with bushy eyebrows and frizzy hair. Her only ally against the taunting of bitchy Lana (Mandy Moore) is her equally bizarre-looking friend, Lilly (Matarazzo). Then one day, she gets a surprise visit from her granny (Julie Andrews), who announces that Mia's dead dad was actually a European Prince and that Mia is the Crown Princess of a little-known country called Genovia. The time has come for her to fulfil her birthright.
So, you've got makeovers, deportment lessons, and new-found fame. More importantly, you've got a young girl trying to learn about her family, while wrestling with the dilemma of giving up her life for a selfless, foreign existence. Of course, this being a Disney flick, you can imagine how it ends...
A walk to remember
Each Spring in the little port town of Beaufort, North Carolina, when the wind smells of pine and salt and the sea, Landon Carter remembers his senior year at Beaufort High and Jamie Sullivan, the girl who changed his life.
Jamie was the last person Landon was likely to fall for. Serious and conservative, she was as far from cool as she could possibly be, and didn�t care. The daughter of the town�s Baptist minister, Jamie was not afraid of letting people know that her faith was the most important part of her life, even if it cost her some friends. Landon hung with the in-crowd -- an aimless, moody, reckless guy who breezed through school on looks and bravado. He had no plans, no future and no faith in himself.
One night a prank that he and his buddies set up goes terribly wrong and lands a kid in the hospital. As punishment, Landon must tutor a young student at a poor school and participate in the Drama Club�s Spring play � two activities the principal hopes will teach him some humility. They also happen to throw him into close contact with Jamie. Clearly in over his head, Landon is forced to ask her for help.
Soon, against his own expectations, Landon finds himself falling in love with this outwardly plain girl who possesses a passion for life he never imagined possible. But it isn�t easy. For reasons of her own, Jamie does everything she can to run away from romance until it becomes impossible to deny.
Being together will test everything that they believe in. Most of all, it will test the power of love and faith to transform a life into something worth living.
Being together will test everything that they believe in. Most of all, it will test the power of love and faith to transform a life into something worth living.
How to deal
Mandy Moore stars as Halley, a young high school student who is disillusioned with love after seeing the many dysfunctional relationships around her. Her father has a pretty new girlfriend who she can't stand. Her mother can't seem to find anyone. Her sister is so dumbstruck with the planning of her marriage that she has become a non-person, and the shallow cheerleaders at her school and their jock boyfriends are beyond comprehension. All these have combined to convince Halley that love is a ridiculous impossibility. But when a tragic event in her life leads to a romantic encounter with a young man, Halley realizes the possibility of true love can sometimes lie in the most unconventional of places.
All I want
After 17-year-old misfit Jones Dillon (Wood) drops out of college on his first day, he moves into an old apartment building where he soon becomes entangled in the lives of his kooky new neighbors, including a temperamental photographer (Potente) and a self-absorbed aspiring actress (Moore). When he's not busy flirting with the ladies or learning to live on his own, would-be writer Jones divides his time between fending off queries from his alcoholic mother (Perkins), penning letters to an absentee father, and indulging in an overactive fantasy life. An auto accident forces a reality check, however, nudging Jones to grow up & decide what he really wants.
Saved!
Mary (Jena Malone) is a good Christian girl who goes to a good Christian high school in Baltimore where she has good Christian friends, mainly Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), and a perfect Christian boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust). Her life seems perfect, until the day that she finds out that Dean may be gay. After "seeing" a vision of Jesus in her pool, she does everything in her power to help him turn straight, including offering up her virginity. But none of it helps because Dean's caught and sent to a "degayification" center and Mary ends up pregnant. It's during her time of need that she becomes real friends with the school's set of "misfits," including Cassandra (Eva Amurri), the school's only Jewish girl; Roland (Macaulay Culkin), Hilary Faye's wheelchair bound brother, and Patrick (Patrick Fugit), the skateboarder son of the school's principal, Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan); whilst Hilary Faye turns her into a social outcast.
Chasing Liberty
Chasing Liberty is story of growing up and letting go. Most parents begin giving their 18-year-old daughters the freedom that comes with reaching adulthood. Not Anna Foster's (Mandy Moore). Her father is the President of the United States (Mark Harmon). Her life is followed by the media and guarded by the Secret Service.
When the First Family is in Prague for the G8 Summit, Anna finally persuades her parents to allow her free time to tour Europe without her bodyguards. She wants to see the Berlin Love Parade. Ooops. Her father says absolutely no to seeing an "orgy." A compromise is hammered out. Anna can have a night alone at the opera with her childhood friend, Gabrielle (Beatrice Rosen), the French Ambassador's daughter, whom she hasn't seen in several years and who her parents remember fondly as "Pierre's little girl."
Gabrielle, however, has grown up quite a bit, tongue studs and all. The "opera" is really the "Opera Club," a hot underground hip-hop nightclub. Anna's father is shocked. But before he can veto the evening, the girls are gone. Dad sends the Secret Service after them. At the over capacity club, where alternative jazz/fusion hip-hop group The Roots are playing, the bodyguards keep Anna from having the fun she craves. Anna is livid. Her father lied to her. He promised her a night of freedom and now she sees that he refuses to see her as a young woman. It's time to take a stand. Anna runs away. She'll come home eventually ... on her own terms.
With Gabrielle's help, the over-protected First Daughter makes a quick wardrobe change and slips past her bodyguards. Spotting a Vespa curbside, she works the damsel-in-distress angle and, moments later, makes a speedy getaway on the back of the scooter, leaving the club and her cloistered life behind. Her driver is Ben Calder (Matthew Goode), a strikingly handsome British guy. But for the moment, she just wants to get away for a few days to see what life is really like and to see the Berlin Love Parade! For the first time, she is free from schedules, plans, and obligations. She can breathe. As she becomes more comfortable, the teen decides to take Europe by storm. To do so, she must dodge the Secret Service who are hot on her heels. Soon, she'll have to tell Ben who she really is. What Anna doesn't know is that her dashing companion is hiding his own secrets.
The handsome Brit with the Vespa who appeared right when Anna needed him is actually a young British field agent for the Secret Service with an impeccable record. His attentiveness to Anna is just his job duties. Ben's new assignment is a direct order from the American president. Calder is to pretend he's a regular guy having a spontaneous encounter with a pretty American. He is to stay with Anna until she gest her little independence thing out of her system and wants to return to her life of luxury. By the time they both realize they have strong feelings for one another, Anna is afraid to tell Ben who she really is and he's twice as scared to tell her who he really is.
Love is contagious. As Anna and Ben follow the First Daughter and her "companion" to Berlin, agents Alan Weiss (Jeremy Piven) and Cynthia Morales (Annabella Sciorra) , scramble heroically to keep up with them. Their assignment is made more difficult as Ben's cell phone is constantly on the fritz. This leaves the agents a great deal of time to indulge their constant bickering, a running exchange which began long ago in D.C. and shows no sign of letting up. It also presses them into close quarters for long hours, at night, in some of the most romantic settings in Europe. Ultimately the partners begin to think about the real underlying problem in their professional relationship: Weiss and Morales may be falling in love.
Screenwriting team Derek Guiley and David Schneiderman first got the idea for their story while watching a Stanford basketball game and seeing then-First Daughter and Stanford undergrad Chelsea Clinton in the stands, being hounded by cameras. "She was trying to live the life of a normal college student, despite the fact of who her father was," says Guiley. "You knew that nearby there must have been Secret Service agents watching her every move. We couldn't help but imagine how frustrating it must be for someone to go through his or her teenage years like that. It's not something she asked for, but something she was stuck with." Adds Schneiderman, "we wondered what her life would be like behind the curtain, and that's what the story is about."
Chelsea Clinton may have inspired the writers, but the storyline has strong elements of Audrey Hepburn and Peter Lawford in Roman Holiday. Chasing Liberty may not reach that level of film classic. However, it should be highly entertaining. Mandy Moore is a talent worth watching. Evidently, she has chosen a title that she hopes will strengthen her film career as a leading lady and continue moving her away from teen music queen.
Racing Stripes
(2005)
In the middle of a raging thunderstorm, a traveling circus accidentally leaves behind some very precious cargo--a baby zebra. Horse farmer Nolan Walsh, who takes him home to his young daughter Channing, rescues the gangly little foal. Once a champion thoroughbred trainer, Walsh has given up horse training for a quiet life with Channing on their modest Kentucky farm. The little zebra, or "Stripes," as Channing calls him, is soon introduced to the farm's misfit troupe of barnyard residents, led by a cranky Shetland Pony named Tucker and Franny, a wise old goat who keeps the family in line. Goose, a deranged big-city pelican who's hiding out in the sticks until the heat dies down in Jersey, joins the group. The un-aptly named bloodhound Lightening keeps a lazy eye on goings-on at the farm - in between naps. The Walsh farm borders the Turfway Racetrack, where highly skilled thoroughbreds compete for horse racing's top honor, the ultra-prestigious Kentucky Crown. From t! he first moment Stripes lays eyes on the track, he's hooked--he knows that if he could just get the chance, he could leave all those other horses in the dust. What he doesn't know is--he's not exactly a horse. But with characteristic zeal, he devotes himself to training for the big time, with a little help from Tucker, who has coached a host of champion racehorses in the past.
Romance and Cigarettes
(2005)
This big-screen musical is being described as "Pennies From Heaven" meets "The Honeymooners," as set in Bensonhurst, N.Y. In it, a two-timing husband must choose between his mistress and his beleaguered wife.
