Bovie Movie

1963’s The Sword in the Stone is Disney’s animated take on Arthurian legend. In the midst of the Dark Ages, when England has no rightful ruler, a sword imbedded in a stone mysteriously appears in a London churchyard, bearing the inscription “Whoso pulleth out the sword of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of England.” Scores of would-be kings travel to London to attempt the feat and thereby claim the throne. They all fail. Years later, in the English countryside, an 11-year-old squire nicknamed Wart (Rickie Sorensen) is devotedly helping his incompetent foster brother, Kay (Norman Alden), train to become a knight, when he meets the great magician Merlin (Karl Swenson). The well meaning, but absentminded, wizard declares himself Wart’s mentor and claims that he will lead the boy to his destiny. Spirited and full of spunk, Wart (whose real name is Arthur) approaches Merlin’s lessons with the same determination that he applies to Kay’s hopeless training and to the monotonous chores he is assigned by his guardian. He soon finds himself accompanying Kay to London for a jousting tournament that will determine England’s new king. There, Wart forgets to bring Kay’s weapon to the joust, but finds an abandoned sword in a nearby churchyard — which he effortlessly pulls out of a stone.

Almost 50 years after Walt Disney brought James M. Barrie’s classic children’s tale Peter Pan to the screen in one of the best-loved animated features, the studio that bears his name revisits the story of the magical boy who doesn’t grow up in this sequel. In London during World War II, Wendy (voice of Kath Soucie) comforts her children with stories about her youthful adventures with Peter Pan (voice of Blayne Weaver) in the fantastic world of Neverland. Young Danny (voice of Andrew McDonough) loves the stories and believes that they’re real, but his older sister, Jane (voice of Harriet Owen), isn’t so certain. Jane soon discovers her mother is indeed telling the truth when she’s kidnapped by the evil Captain Hook (voice of Corey Burton) and spirited away to his lair in Neverland. Hook is still trying to capture his nemesis, Peter Pan, after all these years, and is certain he’ll come to the rescue of his old friend, Wendy; however, Hook realizes too late that he’s carried away Wendy’s daughter instead. Peter comes to the aid of young Jane, but as they do battle with Hook, he realizes it will take some work before Jane will fit in with the Lost Boys. Return to Neverland includes original songs from Jonatha Brooke and They Might Be Giants.

Cinderella was Walt Disney’s return to feature-length “story” cartoons after eight years of turning out episodic pastiches like Make Mine Music and Three Caballeros. A few understandable liberties are taken with the original Charles Perrault fairy tale (the wicked stepsisters, for example, do not have their eyes pecked out by crows!) Otherwise, the story remains the same: Cinderella, treated as a slavey by her selfish stepfamily, dreams of going to the Prince’s ball. She gets her wish courtesy of her Fairy Godmother, who does the pumpkin-into-coach bit, then delivers the requisite “be home by midnight” warning. Thoroughly enchanting the prince at the ball, our heroine hightails it at midnight, leaving a glass slipper behind. The Disney people do a terrific job building up suspense before the inevitable final romantic clinch. Not as momentous an animated achievement as, say, Snow White or Fantasia, Cinderella is a nonetheless delightful feature, enhanced immeasurably by the introduction of several “funny animal” characters (a Disney tradition that has held fast into the 1990s, as witness Pocahontas), and a host of a sprightly songs, including “Cinderelly,” “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” and — best of all — “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.”

John Waters does a quirky spin on ’50s nostalgia in Cry-Baby, his musical homage to Rebel Without a Cause and Romeo and Juliet. Set in Baltimore in 1954 at the birth of rock & roll, the film features Johnny Depp as Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker. Depp is pure charisma as a juvenile delinquent with a permanent tear slithering down his cheek, a reminder of his state-executed parents. In the depths of his despair appears goody-goody girl Allison (Amy Locane), who has a sexual crush on Cry-Baby. But Allison’s Pat Boone-like boyfriend, Baldwin (Stephen E. Miller), the leader of the squares, is dead set against Cry-Baby and the rest of the juvenile delinquents and leads a revolt against them. In the resultant riot, the juvenile delinquents are blamed for the chaos, and Cry-Baby finds himself dispatched to reform school.

“Christmas in South Park” has all the Christmas episodes of South Park up to date. And they’re all great (of course). There isn’t a show better then South Park, and even though there are regular episodes better then the christmas ones, i still can’t think of any holiday show as good as South Parks.

Robin Williams’s dizzying and hilarious voicing of the Genie is the main attraction of Aladdin, the third in the series of modern Disney animated movies that began with 1989’s The Little Mermaid and heralded a new age for the genre. After a sultan (Douglas Seale) gives his daughter, Jasmine (Linda Larkin), three days to find a husband, she escapes the palace and encounters the street-savvy urchin Aladdin (Scott Weinger), who charms his way into her heart. While the sultan’s Vizier, Jafar (Jonathan Freeman), weaves a spell so that he may marry Jasmine and become sultan himself, Aladdin discovers the Genie’s lamp in a cave, rubs it, and sets the mystical entity free, leading the Genie to pledge his undying loyalty to the dazzled youth. Aladdin begins his quest to defeat Jafar and win the hand of the princess, with the Genie’s help. Monsters, Disney’s trademark talking animals, and a flying carpet all figure into the ensuing adventures, but Williams’ Genie, who can change into anything or anybody, steals the show as he launches into one crazed monologue after another, impersonating figures from Ed Sullivan to Elvis Presley.

Disney’s animation team dipped into the rich well of ancient mythology for this musical comedy. The son of Greek gods Zeus (voice of Rip Torn) and Hera (Samantha Eggar), Hercules (voice of Josh Keaton) is stolen as a boy by the minions of Hades (voice of James Woods), lord of the underworld. Forced to live among humans, Hercules is turned into a half-god and half-mortal after drinking a forbidden potion brewed by Hades’ right hand men, Pain (voice of Bob Goldthwait) and Panic (voice of Matt Frewer). Now Hercules has the remarkable strength of a god, but is trapped in the body of a human, and before he learns how to use his power properly he goes through a typically adolescent awkward period. In order to become a god and return to his home on Mount Olympus, Hercules must prove himself a true hero on Earth. With the assistance of Philotes (voice of Danny De Vito), a plucky satyr known as “Phil,” the grown-up Hercules (voice of Tate Donovan) learns to use his strength to his advantage and becomes a famous and benevolent protector of those around him, successfully battling a variety of gods and monsters. However, Hades, wanting to cut Hercules down to size, sends his secret weapon after him — Megara (voice of Susan Egan), a seductively beautiful woman under Hades’ control, who is to win Hercules’ heart and render him helpless against the forces of the underworld. Acclaimed British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe served as production designer for this project, while Alan Menken wrote the musical score. Incidentally, for the Spanish language version of the film, Latin pop singer Ricky Martin provided the singing voice of Hercules, two years before he became a chart-topping sensation in America with his hit single “Livin’ la Vida Loca.”

Adam Shankman’s adaptation of the stage musical Hairspray, itself an adaptation of the non-musical John Waters film of the same name, stars Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad, an overweight high-school student whose only dream is to be on a local Baltimore teen dance program. While her father (Christopher Walken) tells her to follow her dreams, her mother Edna (John Travolta in drag) reminds her that she doesn’t look like the girls on that show. After impressing the show’s host (James Marsden), Tracy earns a coveted spot on the program, but when she becomes a popular addition to the cast, she earns the wrath of the prettiest girl in school — a girl whose mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) just happens to operate the local television station. Tracy’s visit to detention hall opens her eyes to the racial tension on the show, as does the budding relationship between her best friend (Amanda Bynes) and an African-American boy named Seaweed (Elijah Kelley). Thus empowered, Tracy attempts to integrate the races on her favorite program.

Second-billed Marilyn Monroe is the blonde in question in this second film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Miss Lorelei Lee, whose philosophy is “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Together with her best human friend Dorothy (top-billed Jane Russell), showgirl Lorelei embarks upon a boat trip to Paris, where she intends to marry millionaire Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan). En route, the girls are bedeviled by private detective Malone (Elliot Reid), hired by Esmond’s father (Taylor Holmes) to make certain that Lorelei isn’t just another gold-digger. When Dorothy falls in love with the poverty-stricken Malone, Lorelei decides to find her pal a wealthier potential husband, and that’s how she gets mixed up with flirtatious diamond merchant Sir Francis Beekman (Charles Coburn) and precocious youngster Henry Spofford III (George “Foghorn” Winslow). Most of the Leo Robin-Jule Styne songs from the Broadway show remain intact, including Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a production number later imitated by pop icon Madonna.

The made-for-cable musical satire Reefer Madness is based on the award-winning play of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the notorious — and deliciously awful — 1936 anti-marijuana film originally titled Tell Your Children. A smarmy lecturer (Alan Cumming in the first of his three roles in the film) arrives in a typical small town of the late ’30s to warn the populace of the dangers of the “evil weed,” bringing along a lurid propaganda film to dramatize his message. In broad, unsubtle, and hilarious strokes, the movie-within-a-movie shows how even a squeaky-clean pair of highschoolers named Mary Lane (Kristen Bell) and Jimmy Harper (Christian Campbell) can become hopeless dope addicts by succumbing to the lure of marijuana. Reefer Madness is not only a savage skewering of the original black-and-white movie (some of the musical’s campiest lines are taken directly from the earlier script!), but also a devastating attack on what playwrights Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney consider to be the real reason that the 1936 movie was made: to frighten the public out of their wits in order to keep them under the thumb of an oppressive government. Thus, the musical manages to take a number of not-so-veiled swipes at xenophobia, racism, McCarthyism, the Bush Administration’s Homeland Security policy, and even the recent FCC clampdown on “offensive” TV fare (one of the film’s highlights is a garish nightclub number featuring Jesus Christ). The ebulliently staged songs include “The Stuff,” “Down at the Ol’ Five and Dime,” “Lonely Pew,” “Listen to Jesus Jimmy,” “Mary Jane/Mary Lane,” “The Brownie Song,” “Tell ‘Em the Truth,” and the title number. Officially titled Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, this film first aired April 16, 2005, on the Showtime cable service.