Sister Act

Sister Act is a 1992 American comedy film released by Touchstone Pictures. Directed by Emile Ardolino, it features musical arrangements by Marc Shaiman and stars Whoopi Goldberg as a Reno lounge singer who has been put under protective custody in a San Francisco convent and has to pretend to be a nun when a mob boss puts her on his hit list. Also in the cast are Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy, Wendy Makkena, Mary Wickes, and Harvey Keitel. The film is #83 on Bravo's The 100 Funniest Movies list.

The film was followed by a 1993 sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. It also inspired a musical stage version that premiered at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California in 2006.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a musical drama with music by composer-lyricist Paul Gordon and a book by John Caird, based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë.

The premiere of the musical took place in Wichita, Kansas in the autumn of 1995. Minor roles and the large ensemble of schoolgirls for the scenes at Brocklehurst's school were cast locally, while the directors brought several members of the principal cast from New York. The musical was well received, and a recording of this rendition allowed the creative team and their backers to slowly move the project towards an opening on Broadway.

The musical debuted at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on November 9, 2000, with an official opening on December 10, 2000. It enjoyed 36 previews and 209 regular performances before closing on June 10, 2001. Marla Schaffel, who played the title character, won a Drama Desk Award for her performance. The production was directed by John Caird and Scott Schwartz, with choreography by Jayne Paterson.

A revised version is currently in the works, with an expected regional debut in the 2008 or 2009 season.

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code is a 2006 feature film, which is based on the bestselling 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The film was starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen. It was one of the most anticipated films of 2006, and was previewed at the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2006. The Da Vinci Code then entered major release in many other countries on May 18, 2006 and was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on May 19, 2006.

Because of some controversial interpretations of Christian history in both the book and movie, they were criticized by the Roman Catholic Church. Some bishops urged members to boycott the film. Many of the early showings were accompanied by protesters outside the movie theaters, and early critical reviews were decidedly mixed. However, in its opening weekend, the film earned over US$224 million worldwide, second only to the opening of 2005's Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It is the second highest grossing movie of 2006 worldwide — having reached US$758,239,851 as of November 2, 2006. The film's soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer, was nominated for the 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

Charlie Brown

Charles "Charlie" Brown is the main character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

Moulin Rouge!

Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 musical film directed by Baz Luhrmann, based largely on the Giuseppe Verdi opera La Traviata. It tells the story of a young British poet/writer, Christian, who falls in love with the star of the Moulin Rouge, cabaret actress and courtesan Satine, played by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, respectively. It uses the musical setting of the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, and won two: for art direction and costume design. It was shot at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia.

In 2006, Moulin Rouge! ranked twenty-fifth on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.

Saturday Night Fever

Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 film starring John Travolta as Tony Manero, a troubled Brooklyn youth whose weekend activities are dominated by visits to a local discothèque. While in the disco, Tony is the king, and the visits help him to temporarily forget the reality of his life: a dead-end job, clashes with his unsupportive and squabbling parents, tensions in the local community, and his associations with a gang of dead-beat friends.

A huge commercial success, the movie significantly helped to popularize disco music around the world and made Travolta a household name. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring disco songs by the Bee Gees, became the best selling soundtrack at that time and held the record until 1999 when soundtrack to The Bodyguard overtook it. The film is also notable for being one of the first instances of cross-media marketing, with the tie-in soundtrack's single being used to help promote the film before its release and the film popularizing the entire soundtrack after its release.

The story is based upon a 1976 New York magazine article by British writer Nik Cohn, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night." In the late-1990s, Cohn acknowledged that the article had been fabricated. A newcomer to the United States and a stranger to the disco lifestyle, Cohn was unable to make any sense of the subculture he had been assigned to write about. The characters who were to become Tony Manero and his friends sprang almost completely from his imagination. The film also showcased aspects of the music, the dancing, and the subculture surrounding the disco era: symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute-couture styles of clothing, sexual promiscuity, and graceful choreography.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom which was created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a satirical parody of the middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its titular family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield, and it lampoons many aspects of the human condition, as well as American culture, society as a whole, and television itself.

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after members of his own family, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and was an early hit for Fox, becoming the first Fox series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1992-1993).

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, the show has broadcast 420 episodes and the twentieth season will commence airing in on September 28, 2008. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and July 27, 2007, and has grossed approximately US$526.2 million worldwide to date.

The Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 24 Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. Time magazine's December 31, 1999 issue named it the 20th century's best television series, and on January 14, 2000 it was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom and the longest-running American animated program. Homer's annoyed grunt "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English lexicon, while The Simpsons has influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms.

The series' distinctive theme song was composed by musician Danny Elfman in 1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro style piece. This piece, which took two days to create, has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.

Amelie Poulain

Amélie is a 2001 French film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. Its original French title is Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain ("The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain"; poulain is French for foal). Written by Jeunet with Guillaume Laurant, the film is a whimsical and somewhat idealised depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in Montmartre. It tells the story of a shy waitress who decides to change the lives of those around her for the better, while struggling with her own isolation.

Amélie won best film at the European Film Awards; it won four César Awards (including Best Film and Best Director), two BAFTA Awards (including Best Original Screenplay), and was nominated for five Academy Awards.

Star Wars

Star Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded since that time. The events depicted in Star Wars media take place in a fictional galaxy. Many species of alien creatures (often humanoid) are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a Galactic Republic, later reorganized as the Galactic Empire.

One of the prominent elements of Star Wars is the "Force", which is an omnipresent form of energy which can be harnessed by those with that ability. It is described in the first produced film as "an energy field created by all living things binds the galaxy together." The Force allows users to perform a variety of supernatural feats (such as telekinesis, clairvoyance, precognition, and mind control) and also can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and reflexes; these abilities can vary from user to user and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, it has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence. The six films feature the Jedi, who use the Force for good, and the Sith, who use the dark side for evil in an attempt to take over the galaxy. In the Expanded Universe many dark side users are Dark Jedi rather than Sith, mainly because of the Rule of Two.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is a 2007 adventure film, the third film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. The plot follows the crew of the Black Pearl rescuing Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), from Davy Jones' Locker, and then preparing to fight the East India Trading Company, led by Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), who plan to extinguish piracy. Gore Verbinski directed the film, as he did with the previous two. It was shot in two shoots during 2005 and 2006, the former simultaneously with the preceding film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

The film was released in English-speaking countries on May 24, 2007 after Disney decided to move the release date to a day earlier than originally planned. Critical reviews were mixed, but At World's End was a box office hit, becoming the most successful film of 2007, grossing approximately $960 million worldwide, and making it the second most successful in the series, behind Dead Man's Chest. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Makeup and the Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Enchanted

Enchanted is a 2007 musical film, directed by Kevin Lima and produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Josephson Entertainment. It premiered on October 20, 2007 at the London Film Festival before it was released on November 21, 2007 in the United States. The film, both homage to and a self-parody of conventional Disney animated features, makes numerous references to Disney's past and future works, and blends live action filmmaking, traditional animation and computer-generated imagery. The plot focuses on Giselle, an archetypal Disney Princess who is forced from her 2D-animated world of Andalasia into real-life New York City.

The film heralds the return of traditional animation to a Disney feature film after the company's decision to move entirely to computer animation in 2004. Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who had written songs for previous Disney films, produced Enchanted's songs, with Menken also composing its score.

Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, and Susan Sarandon, the film was well-received critically and garnered two nominations at the 65th Golden Globe Awards and three nominations at the 80th Academy Awards. The film also proved to be a commercial success, earning more than $340 million worldwide at the box office.

The Chorus

The Chorus (Les Choristes) is a 2004 French drama film directed by Christophe Barratier. Co-written by Barratier and Philippe Lopes-Curval, it is a remake of the 1945 film A Cage of Nightingales (La Cage aux Rossignols), which was adapted by Noël-Noël and René Wheeler from a story by Wheeler and Georges Chaperot.

The film explores the pain of a child's separation from his parents and the transcendence of music as the greatest form of expression.

Hairspray

Hairspray is a 2007 musical film produced by Zadan/Meron Productions and distributed by New Line Cinema. It was released in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on July 20, 2007. The film is an adaptation of the Tony Award-winning 2002 Broadway musical of the same name, and a remake of John Waters' 1988 comedy film of the same name. Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, the film follows a "pleasantly plump" teenager named Tracy Turnblad as she simultaneously pursues stardom as a dancer on a local TV show and rallies against racial segregation.

Adapted from both Waters's 1988 script and Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell's book for the stage musical by screenwriter Leslie Dixon, the 2007 film version of Hairspray is directed and choreographed by Adam Shankman. Hairspray stars John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Queen Latifah, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley, Allison Janney, and introduces newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad. Hairspray features songs from the Broadway musical written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, as well as four new Shaiman/Wittman compositions not present in the original Broadway version.

Opening to mostly positive reviews, Hairspray met with financial success, breaking the record for biggest sales at opening weekend for a movie musical, which the film held until July 2008 when it was surpassed by Mamma Mia!. Hairspray went on to become the fourth highest grossing musical film in U.S. cinema history, behind the film adaptations of Grease, Chicago, and Mamma Mia!. Available in a variety of formats, Hairspray's Region 1 home video release took place on November 20, 2007. The USA Network has purchased the broadcast rights to Hairspray and is scheduled to debut the film on cable television in February 2010.

Adam Shankman and John Waters are currently working on a sequel to the film.

I Am Legend

I Am Legend is a 2007 post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith. It is the third feature film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name, following 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man. Smith plays virologist Robert Neville, who is immune to a vicious man-made virus originally created to cure cancer. He works to create a cure while living in Manhattan in 2012, a city inhabited by animalistic victims of the virus.

Warner Bros. began developing I Am Legend in 1994, and various actors and directors were attached to the project, though production was delayed due to budgetary concerns related to the script. Production began in 2006 in New York City, filming mainly on location in the city, including a $5 million scene at the Brooklyn Bridge, the most expensive scene ever filmed in the city at the time. Warner Bros. launched a tie-in comic and an online multiplayer game on Second Life as part of its marketing campaign. I Am Legend was released on December 14, 2007 in the United States. It opened to the largest ever box office for a non-Christmas film released in the U.S. in December. The film's commercial success "cemented standing as the number one box office draw in Hollywood."

The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada is a 2006 comedy-drama film, a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andrea "Andy" Sachs, a recent college graduate who goes to New York City and gets a job as a co-assistant to powerful and demanding fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci co-star, with Adrian Grenier, Simon Baker and Tracie Thoms playing key supporting roles. Wendy Finerman produced and David Frankel directed; the film was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Streep's performance drew rave reviews from critics and later earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Blunt also drew favorable notice and nominations, as did many of those involved in the film's production. While critical reaction to the film as a whole was more measured, it was well received by the public becoming a surprise summer box-office hit following its June 30 North American release. The commercial success and critical praise for Streep's performance continued in foreign markets, with the film leading the international box office for most of October.

Titanic

Titanic is a 1997 disaster film directed, written, co-produced and co-edited by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It features Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, two members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ill-fated 1912 maiden voyage of the ship. The main characters and the central love story are fictional, but some supporting characters (such as members of the ship's crew) are based on real historical figures. Gloria Stuart plays the elderly Rose, who narrates the film in a modern day framing device. Titanic became at the time the most expensive film ever made, costing approximately US$200 million with funding from Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox.