Bovie Movie

This take on one of the most popular TV shows of the 1970s by director McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) is nothing more than a gossamer-thin, pop culture patchwork. Beginning on a low note of self-referential camp, the movie never aims higher than star and co-producer Drew Barrymore’s plunging neckline.?he’s part of the vampy super agent trio, alongside Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, hired to find a kidnapped software genius — a storyline that twists to jeopardise the life of reclusive head honcho Charlie (voiced as ever by John Forsythe). With its reheated plot, trashy single-entendre humour and ho-hum thrills, this rickety adventure charmlessly sashays its bland way from one kitsch set piece to the next. If a way had been found to spread the good time Diaz is clearly having with her role over this entire disaster, then Charlie’s Angels might have been a lot more fun. But it wasn’t, leaving this as little more than stultifying eye-candy, brimful of skin-tight costumes, lightweight Bond action and slow-motion hair flips. Thank heavens for Bill Murray, whose reliable presence as Bosley rescues the whole thing from total doom. 

Director Martin Scorsese brought his fascination with the New York underworld back to its bloody, primal roots with this brutal, occasionally muddled but always riveting dream project that centres on Manhattan gang warfare in the 1860s. It begins with a gruesome street battle between the Nativists (gang members of Anglo-Saxon descent) and the Dead Rabbits (more recently arrived Irish-Americans), during which the latter’s leader, Priest Vallon (a brief but striking appearance from Liam Neeson), is slaughtered in front of his young son. Sixteen years later, Priest’s son, Amsterdam (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a disappointingly one-note performance), returns to the Five Points district in New York where the Nativists now rule supreme and insinuates himself with the gang in order to avenge his father. However, his evolving relationship with Nativist boss Bill “the Butcher” Cutting (a searing performance from Daniel Day-Lewis) tempers his anger and provides the young man with a dilemma. If the film never marries its complex political intrigue with the more simplistic personal stories — the surrogate father-son set-up between Amsterdam and Bill or Amsterdam’s spiky romance with pickpocket Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz) — the epic sweep is breathtaking, the attention to detail intoxicating and Daniel Day-Lewis’s turn is unmissable. 

Those kings of bad taste Peter and Bobby Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin) surpassed themselves with this defiantly non-PC but wickedly funny Hollywood smash. Ben Stiller plays a writer (Ted Stroehmann) who, 13 years later, is still obsessed by his prom date Cameron Diaz, even though the occasion ended in disaster. The problem is that a queue of fellow misfits has also fallen under her spell, including British comic Lee Evans and the seedy private eye (Matt Dillon) Stiller hired to find her. With gags about the mentally and physically disabled, dead dogs and serial killers, not to mention the now infamous “hair gel” scene, this is unwholesome entertainment for older members of the family. The hapless Stiller uncovers a previously unseen gift for slapstick, although none of the cast can be faulted in this area. There’s also an inspired musical commentary from American cult singer/songwriter Jonathan Richman. 

Oliver Stone offers his multi-camera perspective on American football in this bruising “us and them” drama. Essentially it’s North Dallas Forty with a racial subtext, coated in Jerry Maguire feel-good sentimentality. But this ensemble masterclass is also a hybrid of Platoon and Wall Street, with Al Pacino even delivering a teamwork variation on Michael Douglas’s “Greed Is Good” speech. It’s no accident that the tin-helmeted players thunder into encounters resembling the beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan, for Stone considers them the cannon fodder in a militaristic stratagem, to be patched up and returned to the front by generals stationed safely away from the conflict. It’s overlong, but has moments of explosive inspiration. 

Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet headline this romantic comedy for the festive season. Watching it is like unwrapping an attractively packed gift only to discover it’s socks again. Writer/director Nancy Meyers should have observed the advice of her previous film, Something’s Gotta Give, and let a few scenes go. She spends far too much time lingering on humdrum episodes, such as Diaz and Winslet emailing each other to arrange a house swap for the holidays. They’re both fleeing the fallout of broken relationships, but hopping across the pond inevitably leads both of them to unexpected romance. Diaz and Jude Law make a fairly engaging couple, although sadly the early stages of their relationship are clumsily knitted together, while Winslet and Jack Black remain an awkward pairing throughout. But the film’s funny moments are as thinly scattered as the English snow, which mysteriously keeps appearing and disappearing throughout the movie. 

Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, The Fisher King) directed this colorful, stylized, pseudo-psychedelic $21-million adaptation of the 1971 Hunter S. Thompson classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream, about stoned sportswriter Raoul Duke, Thompson’s alter ego, on a wild drug-crazed road trip, a paranoid plummet into the belly of the beast, with his pal, lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta. Originally serialized in Rolling Stone (November 1971), the book catapulted Thompson headfirst toward the Kerouac-Mailer-Capote pantheon and jump-started the entire movement of “gonzo journalism.” Carrying a suitcase of drugs, Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp with shaved pate) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) drive a red convertible across the Mojave from L.A. to Vegas, where Duke has an assignment to cover the Mint 400 desert motorcycle race. As the drugs kick in, Duke ventures into voiceover, filling in the blank spots and narrative gaps. “This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs,” says Duke, but even so, they consume vast quantities, eventually escalating to ether. Duke notes that with ether “you can actually watch yourself behaving this terrible way, but you can’t control it.” The two trash their hotel room, and Gonzo goes back to L.A. Thinking the hotel room holocaust will lead to an arrest, Duke begins a drive back to L.A., but after an odd encounter with a highway patrolman (Gary Busey) and a telephone conversation with Gonzo, he returns to Vegas to cover the District Attorney Convention on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in the glitzy Flamingo Hotel. This time the drugged-out duo trash their Flamingo room. The crazed carnival atmosphere segues into a carney casino, Bazooko’s Circus, where a barker (Penn Jillette) spiels amid aerialists, clowns, and a rotating carousel bar. Gonzo worries over runaway teen Lucy (Christina Ricci), who paints portraits of Barbra Streisand. Soon the hallucinations begin: Duke sees Gonzo transmogrify into a demon with breasts on its back, and an acid vision of a Vegas bar features large legit lounge lizards (courtesy of monster makeup man Rob Bottin). Flashbacks depicting Duke’s intro to the drug scene jump back to love-Haight relationships in San Francisco’s Summer of Love. Cameos and guest stars include Mark Harmon, Cameron Diaz, Flea, Lyle Lovett, Harry Dean Stanton, Ellen Barkin, Tobey Maguire, and Hunter S. Thompson himself. The film features a Geffen Records soundtrack mixing rock of the period with Vegas lounge tunes. Over the years, various script adaptations came and went as did numerous talents; people connected with past efforts to film Thompson’s book include Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and writer-director Alex Cox. Shown in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.

The first two Shrek movies were packed with fairy-tale send-ups and warm humanity, and proved an absolute delight for young and old alike. The third outing shows signs of franchise fatigue as it struggles with a half-baked storyline in which the grumpy green ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) goes in search of a young King Arthur as heir to the throne of Far Far Away. The breathtakingly innovative wit of the earlier films may be lacking, yet there’s still plenty here to enjoy, from Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas’s manic double act as Donkey and Puss-in-Boots to some sly, “Once upon a time” in-jokes. But in keeping with the film’s less certain direction, entertaining scenes of adorably cheeky baby ogres are upstaged by a blandly mirthless human teenager in Artie (Justin Timberlake), who appears to have been brainstormed by marketing department suits eager to extend their audience demographics. 

This welcome follow-up is every bit as cute, clever and funny as the original — if less of a surprise, as we expect its technical brilliance this time and are perhaps less dazzled by it. The sequel picks up after the marriage of Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz), and follows their trip to her homeland of Far Far Away. If Fiona’s parents, King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews), are shocked to discover she’s an ogre, that’s nothing compared to Harold’s reaction to her new husband. The king wants Fiona to marry the foppish Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), so he hires assassin Puss-in-Boots (marvellously voiced by Antonio Banderas) to kill his new son-in-law. The parodies, pop references, Disney-baiting and Hollywood send-ups (the kingdom of Far Far Away is etched as a medieval Tinseltown) are hilarious — as is Eddie Murphy, who’s on great form as Donkey — and there’s plenty of subtle satire and double entendres for young and old alike to savour. 

The three most glamorous and butt-kicking private detectives in the business are back and ready to take on bad guys in this sequel to the 2000 blockbuster screen adaptation of the once-popular television series. Dylan (Drew Barrymore), Natalie (Cameron Diaz), and Alex (Lucy Liu) are once again summoned to the office of their boss Charlie (voice of John Forsythe), where they’re introduced to his new right-hand man Jimmy Bosley (Bernie Mac) and given their latest assignment. It seems a pair of rings have gone missing and need to be recovered, but this was no ordinary jewel heist — the rings have been coded with special information that can be used to access a list of every person in the FBI’s Witness Protection Program, and when a handful of protected informants are murdered, the Angels are brought in to help crack the case. As the women search for the culprits, they encounter Madison Lee (Demi Moore), one of Charlie’s former agents who decided that the wrong side of the law pays better, and Seamus (Justin Theroux), who once dated Dylan and wants revenge for her decision to turn him over to the police. Luke Wilson and Matt LeBlanc return as (respectively) Natalie and Alex’s love interests, as does Crispin Glover as the Thin Man; John Cleese, Robert Forster, and Eric Bogosian also appear in supporting roles.

This animated fantasy comedy from DreamWorks is an irreverent, occasionally scatological fairy tale with state-of-the-art computer-generated images that almost steal a march on Toy Story. Shrek is an ugly, antisocial green ogre (voiced in a variable Scottish accent by Mike Myers), who must rescue a human princess (Cameron Diaz) in order to appease evil Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) and rid his swamp of an infestation of traditional fairy-tale characters: three little pigs, a Pinocchio-style character and so on (the disrespectful treatment that they receive suggests a sly dig at Disney orthodoxy). The animators achieve a startling level of reality (grass, leaves, dirt and fur are particularly lifelike), but it’s the characters that carry what is an incredibly slight beauty-and-the-beast story. The only problem, and it’s very minor, is the degree to which Eddie Murphy’s Donkey — a partly-improvised vocal turn to match Robin Williams’s in Aladdin — steals the film. Children will love it, while adults can enjoy the action-movie homages and Disney-mocking.