Bovie Movie

Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play a pair of lovers on the run in David Lynch’s surrealist road movie Wild at Heart. Cage’s Sailor Ripley is a violent ex-convict with an Elvis Presley fixation who falls in love with Dern’s Lula Pace Fortune, the daughter of a rich, but mentally unstable, Southern belle named Marietta (Diane Ladd, Dern’s real-life mother). Just after Sailor is released from prison, where he was jailed for brutally killing one of Marietta’s thugs, he and Lula take off on a wild cross-country trip, pursued by his parole officer, her mother, criminals, bounty hunters, and detectives. Along the way, Sailor and Lula have a lot of sex, share their pasts, share their respective obsessions for Elvis and The Wizard of Oz, and meet a lot of bizarre characters, including a seedy ex-marine (Willem Dafoe) who persuades Sailor to participate in a bank robbery.

Self-involved corporate raider Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) has recently split up with his girlfriend. Seeking directions to the Beverly Hills Hotel, he makes the acquaintance of free-spirited hooker Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and decides to put her on a 3,000-dollar retainer as his “date.” He Cinderellarizes her by bankrolling a full wardrobe and cosmetic makeover. Of course, the setup will be strictly platonic. A disarming modern-day fairy tale, Pretty Woman was the picture that made Julia Roberts a superstar. As charming as she is in her “giggling” sequences, Roberts’ best scene is her triumphant return to a posh Rodeo Drive shop where she’d been previously snubbed. Keeping Pretty Woman afloat throughout is the buoyant direction of Garry Marshall and the always welcome presence of Marshall’s stock company of actors, including Hector Elizondo as a stuffy but golden-hearted concierge. Pretty Woman began its life as a much darker story of prostitutes and homicidal drug dealers, but more box-office-savvy heads ultimately prevailed.

The first of several films based on Tom Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” technothrillers, Hunt for Red October stars Alec Baldwin as eccentric CIA analyst Ryan and Sean Connery as Soviet submarine commander Marko Ramius. Ramius sets the plot in motion when he murders his political adviser, burns his orders, and steers his sub Red October towards American waters, hoping to defect. The CIA, aware that the Red October was about to embark on an evasive mission to demonstrate its ability to avoid detection and fire its nuclear missiles upon U.S. installations, believes that Ramius is insane, and that he plans to start World War III. To cover their own behinds, the Russians back up the CIA’s suspicion. Only Jack Ryan believes that Ramius’ mission is not as apocalyptic as it seems — and it is Ryan who is assigned to infiltrate the Red October to prove his theory. The sort of film that in an earlier era would have been called a “thinking man’s thriller,” The Hunt for Red October ushered in a new series of Hollywood-produced post-Cold War adventure films, including 1995’s Crimson Tide.

Action star Steven Seagal crosses Rip Van Winkle with Clint Eastwood in this belabored revenge odyssey. Seagal plays L.A. Detective Mason Storm and, over the opening credits, Storm is seen busily eavesdropping on crooked politician Vernon Trent (William Sadler). Once he has the goods on Trent, Storm phones his partner Kevin O’Malley (Frederick Coffin) to report on his progress. Unfortunately, crooked cops in the same room pick up the extension phone and listen in, thereby dooming Storm. Soon killers show up at Storm’s home and blow away Storm’s wife Felicia (Bonnie Burroughs) and their young son. Storm himself is also assumed dead, but when he is taken to the hospital, he lapses into a coma. O’Malley spirits him away, and everyone else, for all intents and purposes, thinks Storm has died. Seven years later, under the tutelage of incredibly beautiful nurse Andy Stewart (Kelly LeBrock), Storm rises from his coma and plots his revenge. With the able assistance of Andy, Storm heads off on a killing spree, becoming (as one character describes him), “the most unstoppable sonuvabitch I ever met.”

Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a rookie cop who witnesses a robbery in progress on her first night on the job. With her more experienced partner using the men’s room, Megan decides to take action on her own. She creeps into the supermarket where a man (Tom Sizemore in a small role) is holding the clerk at gunpoint. Megan gets close enough to shoot the gunman, and calls out for him to drop his weapon. He spins the gun toward her, and she unloads her service revolver into his chest. His gun goes flying, and a bystander, Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver), surreptitiously picks it up and takes it home. Megan’s superiors, unable to confirm that the man she shot was armed, suspend her. Eugene, a wealthy commodities broker, becomes obsessed with Megan. He sets up an “accidental” meeting between them and begins dating her, romancing her with fancy restaurants and helicopter rides over Manhattan. He also carves her name into the bullets he uses to gun down strangers in the street. A tough homicide detective, Nick Mann (Clancy Brown of The Shawshank Redemption), gets Megan’s gun and badge back so she can help him track down the psycho killer. Eventually, Megan realizes that Eugene is the killer, but he uses his money and influence to elude the law, and he starts coming after Megan’s friends and family. Megan’s determination to bring Eugene to justice quickly becomes a very personal obsession. This intense cop drama, Blue Steel, was director Kathryn Bigelow’s major studio follow-up to her well-received indie vampire flick, Near Dark. Bigelow co-wrote both films with Eric Red (The Hitcher).

Only three of the original five “young guns” — Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez), Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), and Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland) — return in Young Guns, Part 2, which is the story of Billy the Kid and his race to safety in Old Mexico while being trailed by a group of government agents led by Pat Garrett (William Petersen). Along the way, Billy’s crew gains three new recruits: Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh (Christian Slater), Tom O’Folliard (Balthazar Getty), and Hendry French (Alan Ruck). Though the film suffers from an uneven script, many performances — particularly Slater’s — are surprisingly strong, and the movie looks great. The theme song, “Blaze of Glory”, is performed by Jon Bon Jovi in his first solo appearance; the rocker also has a cameo in the film.

An interesting hybrid of popular film genres, Ghost showcases the talents of its entire cast. While out on the town one evening, New York couple Sam (Patrick Swayze) and Molly (Demi Moore) are confronted by a mugger. After submitting to his demands, Sam is murdered anyway. He then finds himself a disembodied spirit, invisible to the living world, wandering without hope until he finds a spiteful spirit aboard the subway (Vincent Schiavelli) who gives him some helpful pointers on how to co-exist. Soon Sam comes back into contact with those he knew in life, and he begins to learn piece-by-piece of his close friend and co-worker Carl’s (Tony Goldwyn) embezzling plot which caused his death; the apparent mugging was, in fact, a premeditated murder. In the meantime, Carl has designs on Molly, and Sam is determined to extract revenge. He contacts a psychic (Whoopi Goldberg), and together, the two set out to serve justice and stop the maniacal Carl from getting to Molly. Blending comedy, romance, action, and horror, Ghost was a box-office smash and managed to garner five Academy Award nominations, including “Best Picture,” “Best Supporting Actress” (Goldberg), “Best Original Screenplay,” “Best Editing,” and “Best Score”; Goldberg won her first Oscar.

In return for Warner Bros. greenlighting his pet project White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this more commercial film, an action caper about a mismatched pair of auto theft cops. Eastwood is grizzled veteran detective Nick Pulovski, who’s determined to bring down the chop-shop operation being run by a pair of German crooks, Strom (Raul Julia) and Liesl (Sonia Braga). Although he’s been officially removed from the case and partnered with a green, recently promoted detective, David Ackerman (Charlie Sheen), the hard-drinking Nick’s not about to let the car thieves get away with murder. David, in the meanwhile, is dealing with his own issues, including the death of his brother (for which he was responsible), his unhappy girlfriend Sarah (Lara Flynn Boyle) and his estrangement from his wealthy father Eugene (Tom Skerritt).

Michael Cimino's remake of the hostage drama Desperate Hours comes to DVD with a widescreen anamorphic transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. English and French soundtracks are rendered in Dolby Digital Surround. English, French, and Spanish subtitles are accessible. Supplemental materials include the original theatrical trailer. MGM/UA has done a solid job with this film, especially when one considers the inexpensive list price.

Herbert Ross directed this Nora Ephron-scripted buddy comedy starring Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, and Joan Cusack. Steve Martin plays Vinnie Antonelli, a street smart mobster who agrees to turn state’s evidence and is forced to move to Fryburg, California as part of the witness relocation program. Rick Moranis plays the nebbish FBI agent Barney Coopersmith, who is assigned to help Vinnie adjust to small town life. Instead, Vinnie helps Barney come out of his shell, much to the consternation of divorced mother and relentless district attorney Hannah Stubbs (Joan Cusack).