Bovie Movie

As the writer of Taxi Driver and writer/director of American Gigolo, Paul Schrader has always been drawn to the dark side of sexuality — mostly in order to chart its corrosive effects on character — and this is his most sustained and successful treatment of the subject so far. Based on the experiences of actor Bob Crane (star of 1960s US sitcom Hogan’s Heroes), it charts his descent into a libidinous hell as he becomes addicted to casual sex, videotaping an endless succession of meaningless encounters (aided by Willem Dafoe’s noxious video technician). Greg Kinnear is excellent as the vacuous hedonist who can’t see his repellent behaviour as anything but “healthy”, and there’s also a standout performance from Ron Leibman as the tender-hearted agent who watches with horror as his client’s life implodes. The subject matter may be too raw for some — Schrader doesn’t spare us the numerous, often depressing sex acts — but in the end Auto Focus is an intensely moral and often unexpectedly funny tour de force. 

This biopic television miniseries features Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as the King of Rock-n-roll, the story traces all his life from the very boyhood in 1950’s Memphis to the pinnacles of his worldwide glory and the depths of isolation and drug addiction of his life’s end.

Director Oliver Stone continued his Vietnam trilogy with this biographical drama, a masterpiece of film-making that occupies a much broader canvas than its predecessor, Platoon. It stars Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, the all-American boy who enlists in the marines because he loves his country. The Stars and Stripes flies proudly in his home town. Then he is hideously wounded, endures the rat-infested hell of a veterans’ hospital and comes home to find the Stars and Stripes being burned in the streets. He drops out and goes to Mexico, then returns to America to conduct an antiwar campaign from his wheelchair. The story is based on the autobiography of Kovic and Stone himself did two tours of duty in Vietnam, and the movie fairly reeks of their experience and regret. Stone had won the director’s Oscar for Platoon and he won it again for his powerful work here. Sadly, Cruise had to settle for a nomination, but his transformation from golden boy to ravaged and embittered paraplegic is utterly convincing. 

Ron Howard makes pictures of quality if not always distinction. So after years of being ignored by the American Academy as a director, it seems that with this biographical drama he decided 2002 would be his Oscar year. The true story of maths genius John Forbes Nash Jr, who battled paranoid schizophrenia at the height of his academic success and eventually won the economics Nobel Prize, is tailor-made Oscar fare. It has the triumph-over-tragedy, against-all-odds theme going for it, plus a powerhouse performance from Russell Crowe as Nash. Any film that traces nearly 50 years of an influential man’s life is making a claim to some celluloid glory, but underneath all the impressive ageing make-up, what exactly do we have here? A difficult man with a complex psychological condition — reduced to a series of delusional episodes to furnish a thriller subplot — who has devoted his life to an almost insurmountably dry subject, namely advanced mathematics theory. This is in no way a badly made picture, and there’s reliable support from Ed Harris, Adam Goldberg and Paul Bettany. However, the film’s overweening desire to be taken seriously gets in the way of the story. That said, the film won the best picture Oscar, Howard walked away with best director and Jennifer Connelly won a best supporting actress statuette for her well judged performance as Nash’s wife, though Crowe lost out as best actor to Denzel Washington in Training Day. 

Based on Antonia Fraser’s book about the ill-fated Archduchess of Austria and later Queen of France, ‘Marie Antoinette’ tells the story of the most misunderstood and abused woman in history, from her birth in Imperial Austria to her later life in France.

This unflinching depiction of the attraction and brutal reality of the Mafia lifestyle from Martin Scorsese is a masterwork on every artistic level. Direction, script — based on Nicholas Pileggi’s non-fiction book Wiseguy — photography, ensemble acting (Joe Pesci won a deserved Oscar, but he’s matched by Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta) and driving pop and rock soundtrack seamlessly combine to dazzling effect in this instant classic. Crackling with raw energy, Scorsese’s fascinating new take on themes explored in his earlier Mean Streets enthrals from the first violent frames to the stunning final sequence. Be prepared to be completely bowled over by a director at the peak of his talents and in full control of top-notch material. 

Stacy Peralta, who directed the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) that charted the rise of three young skateboarders in California in the early 1970s, provides the script for this dramatisation of the same events. It’s a quick-moving, good-looking movie and its strengths are very much thanks to Thirteen director Catherine Hardwicke, who utilises kinetic hand-held camerawork and rhythmic editing to give the film an intense immediacy. The weaknesses are all down to the script: the young heroes tread a well-worn path of tough childhoods, inspiring early successes and eventual heartache and betrayal, while trading dialogue such as “So, you’re like really famous now, huh?” However, the positives include the charismatic leads (with Heath Ledger delivering a broad and entertaining turn as skateboarding svengali Skip Engblom) and an outstanding soundtrack, as in the original documentary. 

The chemistry between lead actors Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor lights up this vibrant biopic about ex-con Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene, who became an iconic radio DJ in 1960s Washington DC. In the hands of director Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) the story of Greene (Cheadle) evolves into an emotionally rewarding journey, from his hustling a morning slot at a conservative radio station and becoming a shock jock sensation, to defusing street riots in the aftermath of the Martin Luther King assassination — the DJ’s defining moment and the movie’s highlight. It’s when programme director Dewey Hughes (Ejiofor) tries to broaden his appeal into national celebrity that it all comes unstuck. What makes this superb portrait of a self-destructive free spirit work equally well beyond the magnetic performances is the director’s sociopolitical sensitivities, their placement against the turbulent civil rights backdrop of the era and a clear understanding of the rise in “Black is Beautiful” culture that followed. The classic soul music soundtrack couldn’t be bettered either. 

Mel Gibson directs this 13th-century saga of Scottish revolt against English tyranny with a claymore-like flourish, defying the criticism that there are moments as bogus as plastic haggis. He also stars, portraying William Wallace as a medieval, woad-smeared Mad Max-like hero, a rebel leader and rabble rouser, an intrepid champion from the mould of Hollywood heroes, made believable by the grace of the star. However, if he’s a wartime resistance leader in the style of Robin Hood with a comely Maid Marion in the shape of Sophie Marceau then Patrick McGoohan as the villainous King Edward “Longshanks” is a jeering, sneering cliché too far — the Sheriff of Nottingham with his own portable torture chamber. As director, Gibson’s control over thousands of extras, in the swift succession of gruesome hand-to-hand battles, is as effective as anything in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V. But when the action moves in for the emotional kill, the film loses credibility — Wallace’s disdain at his own disembowelment being a prime example. Yet, for all its stereotypes and disparities, there is a nicely judged air of political cynicism, as noblemen switch allegiances as easily as horses. It succeeds in bringing to life the reality of Scottish patriotism and brilliantly captures the spirit of revolution. Little wonder it won an Oscar for best picture. 

The fourth film to chronicle the life of fourth-century B.C. ruler Alexander the Great, Oliver Stone’s Alexander stars Colin Farrell as the titular Macedonian conqueror. The film follows the young king as he leads his forces on a bloody empirical conquest across the known world, taking large parts of Asia and the Middle East to amass a giant empire, all by the time he turned 25. Anthony Hopkins co-stars as Ptolemy I along with Rosario Dawson as Roxane, Angelina Jolie as Olympias, Jared Leto as Hephaistion, Val Kilmer as King Philip II, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Cassander.