SUN AVD

VANITY FAIR'S PREVIEW OF THE SUMMER'S HOTTEST FILMS

Thunderbirds 8/6 UNIVERSAL/WORKING TITLE

In our perilous age. how comforting to imagine that there exists a top-secret, high-tech organization such as International Rescue, led by JcfTTracy (Bill Paxton)— ready, at a moment's notice, to zip off on "Thunderbird" vehicles to save the world from criminals like "the Hood" (Ben Kingsley). Based on the hit British TV series of the 1960s, Thunderbirds is a space-age adventure for Trekkies and Austin Powers fans alike.

WARNER BROS.

Q rad Pitt stars as Achilles, the legendary Greek Ls warrior famed for more than 3,000 years as the prototype of manly valor, in this estimated-$ 150million Trojan War extravaganza, directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Orlando Bloom is the Trojan prince Paris; Peter O'Toole is Paris's father, King Priam; and

Diane Kruger reigns as Queen Helen of Sparta, the woman whose face launched a thousand ships. Brad's got his long blond hair back, and he's never been buffer or bronzer. All that and Homer too—what more could you ask of an epic?

The Bourne Supremacy

7/23 UNIVERSAL

Supersecret C.I.A. assassin Jason Bourne was wandering around Europe with amnesia and a hot German girlfriend in 2002's The Bourne Identify, which turned out to be one of those taut, authentically suspenseful thrillers that you thought Hollywood couldn't make anymore. Now Matt Damon is back as Bourne, still zipping around scenic locations and still haunted by his past. Paul Greengrass directs.

Spider-Man 2 COLUMBIA

Tobey Maguire returns as your favorite neighborhood nerd turned arachnoid superhero. With Sam Raimi aboard once again as director, and Kirsten Dunst reprising her role as the sometimes-wet-T-shirted love interest, this is a sequel that seems certain to deliver the same punch as the original. The villain this time? Doc Ock, played by Alfred Molina.

Collateral

DREAMWORKS/PARAMOUNT

Master of intensity Tom Cruise teams up with director Michael Mann, also no slouch in the intensity department, to create this atmospheric thriller set in the seedierthan-usual crannies of Los Angeles. Jamie Foxx plays a taxi driver forced to act as a chauffeur for a contract killer (Cruise) as he conducts a string of hits. Mark Ruffalo is the detective who must stop the killings before events spiral out of control— and before Cruise's taxi bill goes through the roof.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

6/25 PARAMOUNT

I t's 1939, a mad scientist is trying to take over the world, and the I only people who can stop him are famed flying ace Sky Captain (Jude Law) and his ex-gal pal reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow). What we get are dogfights in the skies over Gotham and giant robots clonking through her granite canyons. Throw in some zeppelins and big-shouldered women's suits, and you've got a pulpDeco blockbuster. The director is a first-timer, Kerry Conran.

The Terminal DREAMWORKS

Tom Hanks plays a visitor from Eastern Europe whose country undergoes a coup while he's midflight. Trapped at J.F.K. International Airport, with a useless passport, Hanks's character finds life there to be far from dull. Instead,

what opens up before him is a world of intrigue, action, and romance in the bodacious form of

Catherine Zeta-Jones.

King Arthur 7/7TOUCHSTONE

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer

shines his klieg lights on the Dark Ages with a definitive, "historically accurate" version of the ageold Arthurian legend. This time the fabled Knights of the Round Table and their reluctant King, played here by Clive Owen, assemble to protect Britain from bloodthirsty Saxons. Nineteenyear-old Keira Knightley plays everybody's favorite damsel in distress, Guinevere.

Code 46

8/6 UNITED ARTISTS

On this back-to-the-future trip, director Michael Winterbottom gives a whole new meaning to the term Big Brother. And we're not talking about security checkpoints and intrusive surveillance (though there's plenty of that here). Let's just say that in a world of human cloning and identity theft it becomes possible, as Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton discover, to accidentally indulge one's Oedipal desires.

The Manchurian Candidate

PARAMOUNT

T he 1962 original starring Frank Sinatra and Angela I Lansbury is retold in the form of a modern-day psychological thriller. Denzel Washington stars as army major Bennett Marco, a career soldier who grows suspicious about his experience in Desert Storm after Squad Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), son of the powerful Senator Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep), becomes a candidate for vice president of the United States. Jon Voight and Jeffrey Wright also star.

me Tinuge TOUCHSTONE

In the latest thriller from director M. Mi«ht Shyamalan, isolated villagers live with the knowledge that some unseen evil resides in the surrounding woods. One man (played by Joaquin Phoenix) must confront his deepest fears in order to learn the truth. Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, and William Hurt also star.

Before Sunset 7/2 WARNER INDEPENDENT

This is Richard Linklater's sequel to a near perfect movie he made nine years ago. In the original, Before Sunrise, twentysomethings Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy hook up for one night in Vienna. Now they're thirtysomethings remeeting in Paris and maybe a little worse for wear but still with a serious mutual jones.

The Stepford Wives

PARAMOUNT/DREAMWORKS

The Notebook

6/25

NEW LINE CINEMA

Nicholas Sparks brings his bestselling debut novel about love lost and found, which was inspired by his wife's grandparents, to the screen. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams star as two young lovers separated by W.W. II who are unable to forget each other. Cut to 50 years later, and we find the incomparable James Garner reading from a faded notebook to Gena Rowlands, an Alzheimer's patient. She is the love of his life but no longer remembers him-until he re-creates their story for her. Rowlands's real-life son Nick Cassavetes directs.

k I icole Kidman exercises her coI N medic muscles in this remake of the satirical 1975 thriller. If the wives in the immaculate suburb of Stepford seem a little too poised, a little too pliant, a little too perfect, well, that's how their husbands like it. Can the town's latest newcomer (Kidman) get to the sinister bottom of things before her neighbors roll out the ultimate welcome wagon? Co-stars include Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close, Faith Hill, and Christopher Walken. Frank Oz directs.

We Don't Live Here Anymore 8/13 WARNER INDEPENDENT

Starring Naomi Watts, Mark Buffalo, Peter Krause, and Laura

Dern, We Don't Live Here Anymore tells a tale of two couples embroiled in a doubles match of strained love and adulterous lust. With tensions drawn in ever decreasing circles, it's no surprise that this complex drama is based on two stories by the late Andre Duhus.

Shall We Dance I MIRAMAX

Richard Gere stars as a workaholic lawyer who despite his relationship with his wife (Susan Sarandon) finds that something in his life is lacking. When he passes by the window of a dance studio one evening, he is mesmerized by a compelling dancer (Jennifer Lopez). He signs up for lessons and ends up falling in love, not with his teacher but with the joy of ballroom dance. His wife's extramarital-affair suspicions are heightened as he clandestinely trains for a major dance competition.

Around the World in 80 Days

6/16 WALT DISNEY/WALDEN MEDIA

T rank Coraci helms Disney/Walden's updated version of the 1956 I Academy Award-winning classic about a crew of zanies circumnavigating the world by land, sea, and air. Steve Coogan takes on the David Niven role of eccentric London inventor Phileas Fogg. Also along for the bumpy ride: Kathy Bates (as Queen Victoria!), Owen and Luke Wilson (as Wilbur and Orville Wright!), and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A Cinderella Story

7/16 WARNER BROS.

The little girl from the ashes is back in this contemporary retelling of the classic fairy tale. Hilary Duff stars as the cinder girl who wants to go to Princeton, but is kept down by her selfish stepmother and wicked stepsisters. She connects with her Prince Charming (Chad Michael Murray) over the Internet. Instead of a glass slipper she's got a cell phone with text messaging. They meet at the Halloween Ball, but she leaves before he can learn who she is—dropping her cell phone on the way out. He spends the rest of the film in search of "Princeton Girl"— her user name.

Garfield: The Movie

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

Adding meow to the mix, Bill Murray stars as the voice of Garfield, the lasagna-loving, coffee-drinking cat, in a liveaction/C.G.I. feature that brings the famous feline to celluloid life. Peter Hewitt directs. Breclcin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Debra Messing, and Alan

Shrek 21

DREAMWORKS

After honeymooning, newlyweds Shrek and Princess Fiona (voiced again by Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz) travel to the land of Far, Far Away, with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) in tow. Trouble comes not from fire-breathing dragons this time but from Shrek's aghast in-laws, voiced by Julie Andrews and John Cleese. Will Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) bust up the marriage? New favorite character: Antonio Banderas's swishy Puss in Boots.

Princess Diaries 2: he Royal Engagement

8/11 WALT DISNEY

lilarious sequel to The Princess Diircctor Garry Marshall brings rointo the royal palace. Just as Mia Jathaway) has settled into her role cess of Genovia she learns that she hcrit the crown sooner than ex-immediately. The catch is, before i take the throne, she must take on Will Princess Mia find her Prince ing in time?

New York Minute WARNER BROS.

inuteBB>

America's favorite twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have this time found themselves in a major mix-up in the Big Apple. Seventeen-year-old sisters Jane (Ashley) and Roxy (MaryKate) couldn't be more different, and neither could the reasons behind their venture to New York City. Straight-A student Jane is there to deliver the speech of her life, and rabble-rouser Roxy intends to slip her demo to a punk-rock band. Their master plans are jinxed from the *** get-go as the sisters accidentally become entangled in a black-market transaction and are accused of kidnapping a senator's dog.

FAMILY FUN

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 6/4 WARMER BROS.

r\ irector Alfonso Cuaron (T U Tu Mama Ihmbien), choreographer of one of the most vivid threesomes in recent screen memory, moves on to a more family-friendly threesome in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) return to Hogwarts for their third year, as an escaped convict, Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), wreaks havoc in the wizard world.

Bright Young Things SASTHINKFILM

Stephen Fry directs this saucy whirlwind of a film, adapted from Evelyn Waugh's satirical novel Vile Bodies. In 1920s-30s London, gorgeous young specimens spin frantically in a world of endless parties, oblivious to all but champers and glitter. Emily Mortimer and newcomer Stephen Campbell Moore star in this merciless, frenetic survey of trivial excess played out in the shadow of war.

ans of Japanese director Takeshi Kitano's gunblazing yakuza films won't be disappointed with this flashy take on the 19th-century samurai epic. Zatoichi is a wandering blind man—and lightning-quick swordsman who stumbles

across a mountain village tormented by a local

extortion ring. A box-ofiice draw in Japan, Zatoichi is perfect for those left unsatisfied by The Last Samurai (and kind of grossed out by Quentin Tarantino'sKill Bill). Sec with adrenaline-junkie friends who like their foreign films with swordplay and splatter.

INDEPENDENT FILM

Maria Full of Grace HBO FILMS/FINE LINE

Maria Full of Grace takes one immigrant journey and turns it into ' jflk universal tale of loss and dis-

r ⅜ covery. Maria, a Colombian

^ teenager, becomes a drug

mule to escape her confining life in Bogota. From the hills of Colombia to the streets of Jackson Heights, N.Y., director and writer Joshua Marston ex poses worlds rarely captured so vividly.

Riding Giants 7/9 SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Riding Giants documents the history of big-wave riding, from its Polynesian roots to the height of its popularity today. With a surfer's enthusiasm and spirit, director Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys) introduces the key players: Greg "the Bull" Noll, big-wave pioneer of the 50s and 60s in Hawaii; Jeff Clark, the humble founding father of Northern California's massive-break Mavericks; and Laird Hamilton, the ever present king of the sport.

Catwoman

See Halle Berry all duded up dominatrix-style in a black leather thingamabob with strategically placed holes. Meow. As always, Catwoman is on the prowl, balanced on the line between good and evil. Benjamin Bratt provides male hunkage as the copper who lovesher-hates-her-loves-her-hates-her. Visual flair created by one-name wonder-boy director Pitof.

7/23 WARNER BROS./VILLAGE ROADSHOW

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

6/18 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

A man. A ball. Another man. Being hit by the ball. Yes, it's the game that gym teachers love and kids loathe. And now, out of this most absurd of sports, comes an absurd comedy. Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are the major players in this story about a bunch of rejects who chuck balls at other rejects in a battle for a grand prize.

I, Robot

7/16TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

Set in 2035 and based on stories by sciencefiction legend Isaac Asimov, I, Robot features Will Smith as a techno-wary Chicago detective investigating a murder amid a world overrun by sleek "domestic assistants." (Think Minority Report meets The Jetsons, with design by Apple.)

Anchorman 7/9 DREAMWORKS

ere's Will Ferrell in his most Ferrellish film yet. He cowrote it with director Adam McKay, for one thing, and the character he plays—an unenlightened 70s-era anchorman whose whole world goes kablooey when an ambitious newswoman shows up—allows him to go full force with the deadpan absurdity that has become his comedy trademark.

GUILTY PLEASURES

Contributors for the June 2004 movie insert: Leslie Bennetts. Justin Bishop. Emily Creed. Bruec Handy, Ashley Herb. A. M. Homes, Puneh I lutton. Christopher Israel, Adam Laukhuf. Emily Poeniseh. Mike Saeks. Gabriel Sanders. Anderson Tepper. Jim Windolf. Cover illustration by Risko. Photographs: Erik Acdcr (Ruling Giants), David Appleby (Around the World in HO Days). Alex Bailey (Troy), Ron BatzdorfT (A Cinderella lory, Princess Diaries 2). Tracy Bennett (Dodgehalt,), John Clifford (The Door in the Floor), Murray Close (Harry Poller and the Prisoner of zkahan), Frank Connor (Collateral). Chrislobal Corral Vega (Maria Fall of Grace). Emilie dc la Hosserayc (Before Sunset). Kimberly French IK' Don't Live Here Anymore). Ava Gerlitz (/. Robot), Doane Gregory (Catwoman), Jonathan Hession (King Arthur). David Jones (Shall We

R. Risko. Photographs: Erik Aeder (Riding Giants), David Appleby (Around the World in 80 Days), Alex Bailey (Hoy), Ron Batzdorff (A Cinderella

Star. " ' *'"• ~ •**".. * 1 "• •' • -• • **~

(We Don't Live Here Anymore), Ava Gerlitz (/. Robot). Doane Gregory (Catwoman). Jonathan Hes:

Dance), Gemma La Mana (Garfield), Jay Maidmcnt (The Bourne Supremacy), Frank Masi (Anchorman, The Village). Merrick Morton (The Terminal). Melissa Moseley (The Notebook). Peter Mountain (Code 46. Tltunderhirds). Ral'y (New York Minute). Ken Regan (The Manchurian Candidate), Andrew Schwartz (The Stcnford Wives).