Bovie Movie

This weak, unevenly plotted story of a con artist and his helper features Gregg Henry as Ben who works as a lounge pianist in a London hotel, and Elizabeth Daily as Cass, a fellow American out looking for some fun in life. The two team up to fraud hotel guests by stealing and using the guests’ credit cards, with Ben showing Cass the tricks of the trade. Their scam is not foolproof, so the daring duo may be living free on borrowed time unless they just happen to change their ways.

A mute American working on a low-budget movie runs afoul of the Russian mafia in this internationally produced thriller. Billy (Marina Zudina), a special-effects makeup artist who is unable to speak, is in Moscow working on a cheapie slasher flick directed by Andy (Evan Richards), her sister’s boyfriend. Late one night, Billy returns to the set to pick up some equipment and stumbles on what appears to be the filming of an actual snuff film. Watching, unseen, as an “actress” (Olga Tolstetskaya) is bludgeoned to death before her very eyes, Billy flees the set, pursued by the snuff film’s crew. Eventually, she escapes and tells her story to her sister, Karen (Fay Ripley), and Andy. The film crew convinces the police that it was simply some special effects that Billy witnessed, then they start a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the hapless Americans. The intrigue soon leads Billy and her friends to “The Reaper” (Alec Guinness), the shadowy financier of an entire snuff-film underground. Director Anthony Waller’s screenplay for Mute Witness began as a tale of gangsters in 1930s Chicago, but he rewrote it to take advantage of Russia’s analogous present-day climate — and the country’s cheap sets and labor. Unexpected problems, from a diptheria epidemic to unexpected fines at the customs gate, nearly sank the production. The director convinced Guinness to appear in the film several years before principal photography began; the veteran thespian was paid nothing for his scenes, which were shot in a single morning in Germany.

Geena Davis stars in this adventure saga as the most swashbuckling female pirate to ever lay waste to the seven seas. Morgan Adams (Davis) is the daughter of a pirate who has followed in her father’s footsteps. When he dies, he passes along his ship, a crew of bandits, and one third of a treasure map (which happens to be tattooed on his skull). Morgan is eager to search out the rest of the map and retrieve the riches, but the fragment she holds is in Latin. Morgan then buys a well-educated slave, William Shaw (Matthew Modine), who can read the ancient language and already has a taste for the criminal life. However, Morgan and William are not long into their search when they discover that someone else is following the same trail for the rest of the treasure map: Dawg Brown (Frank Langella), Morgan’s uncle and as black-hearted a scurvy dog as ever boarded a ship. As Morgan and Dawg battle each other over the fragments of the map, a British journalist (Maury Chaykin) covers their feud for the penny press. William Shaw was originally to have been played by Michael Douglas, who dropped out in the early stages of this troubled production.

A mother is caught in a race against time to save her child in this taut suspense thriller. Dr. Will Jennings (Stuart Townsend) and his wife, Karen (Charlize Theron), find their world has been turned upside down when they’re taken hostage and held in different cities while their young daughter is kidnapped by the same band of ruthless criminals. Joe Hickey (Kevin Bacon) has hatched a seemingly foolproof plan with his wife, Cheryl (Courtney Love), and cousin, Marvin (Pruitt Taylor Vince): while Dr. Jennings and Mrs. Jennings are under guard and unable to contact the police, Hickey will demand a massive ransom for the return of their daughter. If the payment is not arranged in 24 hours, the girl will be killed. Will and Karen realize it’s imperative that they find their daughter as soon as possible, as she suffers from a medical condition that could claim her life if she doesn’t receive her medication within a day, but as Karen plots a way to get away from Joe and rescue her little girl, she discovers money isn’t the only reason Joe has chosen the Jenningses as his victims. Trapped was based on the novel 24 Hours by Greg Iles; 24 Hours was also announced as the film’s title before it was changed to avoid being confused with the popular television series 24.

Chuck Jones’ animated version of the classic Dr. Seuss book How the Grinch Stole Christmas originally aired on television in 1966 and has since become a holiday family favorite. Voiced by Boris Karloff (who also narrates), the Grinch lives on top of a hill overlooking Whoville with his dog, Max. Each year at Christmas time, the Grinch’s hatred grows stronger toward those insufferably cheerful Whos down in Whoville. Content to exchange presents, eat large banquets, and sing songs in the town square, the Whos live in a blissful ignorance of the Grinch’s contempt. One year, he gets the idea to stop Christmas from coming by dressing up as Santa Claus. He cobbles together an outfit and makes his dog drag him around on a sleigh while sneaking into the Whos’ homes and stealing their presents, food, and decorations. After he has stolen every last thing, the Whos wake up on Christmas morning to sing in the town square, causing the Grinch to question the basis of his nefarious plan. Thurl Ravenscroft (the voice of kid cereal mascot Tony the Tiger) provides the vocals for the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” This story was remade into a live-action movie in 2000 by director Ron Howard starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch.

A turning point in 20th century war history is the focus of this fact-based account of the 1942-1943 battle of Stalingrad, in which the Germans were finally defeated by Russian influence — one of the bloodiest battles in World War II history. The film stars Jude Law as Vassili, a marksman from the Urals who is transported to Stalingrad in 1942, and a master German sniper, Major Koenig (Ed Harris). Koenig, an expert German sniper, is determined to eliminate his formidable opponent by any means necessary; meanwhile, Vassili has joined forces with Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), a young Russian political adversary, who is impressed by Vassili’s skills and raises his profile in the Soviet Union. Both Vassili and Danilov become involved with Tanya (Rachel Weisz), whose Jewish parents have been captured by the Germans and have forced her to take up with the men on a sniper expedition. Koenig and Vassili begin to develop traps for each other, until fate inevitably must bring the two sharpshooters together. This large-scale production, financed mostly by Teuton companies, also features Bob Hoskins as Nikita Krushchev and Ron Perlman as an aging Russian sniper.

The second sequel to the 1984 sci-fi action classic, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the first film without the involvement of director James Cameron. Instead, Jonathan Mostow, the man behind Breakdown and U-571, has stepped in to fill the shoes left vacant by Cameron. In addition, the role of John Connor from the second film has been recast, with In the Bedroom’s Nick Stahl taking over for Edward Furlong. Set ten years after the events of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the film finds Connor living on the streets as a common laborer. Sarah Connor, his mother, has since died, and their efforts in the second film have not stopped the creation of SkyNet artificial intelligence network. As he will still become the leader of the human resistance, Connor is once again targeted by a Terminator sent from the future by SkyNet. This new Terminator, T-X (Kristanna Loken), is a female and is more powerful than any of her predecessors. To protect Connor, the human resistance sends a new T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back from the future. Also starring Claire Danes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had its world premiere when it showed out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

Based on the comic book miniseries by Alan Moore, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen takes place in an alternate universe where the characters of several literary classics exist in reality. As if that weren’t enough, they’ve been assembled together in 1900 by Queen Victoria as a team of evil-fighting heroes. Among them are Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery) from H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines; Mina Harker (Peta Wilson) from Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Tom Sawyer (Shane West) from several works by Mark Twain; Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray; Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah) from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; The Invisible Man (Tony Curran) from H.G. Wells book of the same name; and several others. Working together, the odd assortment of characters must combine their powers to defeat a mysterious villain and save the world from certain destruction. Directed by Stephen Norrington (Blade), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also stars Jason Flemyng, Tom Goodman-Hill, and David Hemmings.

Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrilio) in L.A. after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped — and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month’s salary as “commission,” Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody), a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience — it was shown a month after a massive janitor’s strike ground L.A.’s business community to a halt.

Jonathan English’s action-adventure film Minotaur concerns a young man who sets out to slay the title creature after the man’s love was sacrificed to the half-man, half-bull.