Bovie Movie

Five men desperately try to recover their memories and piece together the traumatic events of the past several days in this independent thriller. In an abandoned warehouse, a handful of men slowly regain consciousness, but they’ve been stricken with amnesia and have no idea who they are, where they are, or what has happened to them. All five seem to have been in some sort of serious scuffle; one is tied up (Joe Pantoliano), another has been handcuffed (Jeremy Sisto), a third has a broken nose (Greg Kinnear), and the other two have their share of scrapes and bruises (Jim Caviezel and Barry Pepper). As the men compare the tiny shards of memory they can pull from their minds, one finds a newspaper from two days before which features a front-page story about the kidnapping of a wealthy and well-known businessman. The men begin to suspect that they were involved with the kidnapping, but no one is sure if they’re on the right or wrong side of the law – or if one of them might happen to be the victim. The first feature film from veteran music video director Simon Brand, Unknown also stars Peter Stormare, Bridget Moynahan and Clayne Crawford.

Paul (Greg Kinnear) and Jessie Duncan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) have barely begun the grieving process when Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) attends the funeral of the Duncans’ eight-year-old son, Adam (Cameron Bright), with a pressing question in tow. Head of the Godsend Fertility Clinic, Dr. Wells claims he can use Adam’s rapidly dying cells to clone a replica of the boy, though the necessary DNA will only be viable for another 24 hours. The process in itself is completely illegal; not only must Jessie and Paul be forced to relocate, but they will also be forced to sever all ties with friends and family in order to ensure the secret remains so. Within the space of a day, the Duncans consider the legal and ethical implications of such a procedure, ultimately deciding that their love for Adam is enough to trump the law and any high-minded philosophical questions. After resettling in an idyllic town near Dr. Wells’ clinic, Jessie is impregnated with the late Adam’s living cells, while Paul is given a beautiful home and a more than suitable job. Shortly afterward, the new Adam — seemingly identical to the original Adam in every way — is born and lives a life quite similar to his predecessor until the morning of his eighth birthday. A series of night terrors is the first thing to disturb the Duncans’ otherwise serene lifestyle. Adam’s violent visions eventually mutate to ill temper, and an aura of menace permeates the aura of a boy who had otherwise been sweetness incarnate from the day of his birth. Eventually, Paul discovers that Dr. Wells is not a pediatrician, but a geneticist, and that their playing God may have been a Faustian bargain of epic proportions.

From the producers of The Rookie and Remember the Titans comes an inspirational sports drama detailing the true story of a down-on-his-luck football fan whose dreams of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of the gridiron became a once-in-a-lifetime reality when he took part in an open tryout organized by Philadelphia Eagles coach Dick Vermeil. Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg) was a 30-year-old substitute teacher and part-time bartender who had never even played college football. When Coach Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) made the unprecedented announcement that he would be holding open tryouts for the Philadelphia Eagles, Papale would go against incredible odds to live the dream and experience every fan’s biggest fantasy. With a position on the Eagles secured and a new life path forged out of little more than determination and persistence, Papale takes to the field to experience the life-altering rush of running yards as a stadium full of cheering fans burst from their seats to support the hometown hero who proved it’s never too late to take control of your own destiny.

The life and sordid, untimely death of Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane are explored by director Paul Schrader in this biopic, which marks one of the few times the filmmaker has not scripted his own film. Auto Focus chronologically traces the meteoric rise of Crane’s show business career, beginning with his early success as a jokey deejay on Los Angeles morning radio in the early ’60s. A devout family man, Crane lives in Southern Californian comfort with his wife Anne (Rita Wilson) and their young children, relishing the modicum of celebrity his job provides him. His life begins to change, however, when his agent Lenny (Ron Leibman) proposes that he take a breakthrough role on the CBS POW-camp sitcom Hogan’s Heroes. Initially reluctant to take the job, Crane signs on with the production and, to his and everyone else’s surprise, the show becomes a smash hit. With celebrity comes a new set of friends, and Crane falls in with audio-visual guru John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a Sony sales rep who spends his days setting up home entertainment systems for the Hollywood elite, and his nights cruising strip clubs for anonymous sexual encounters. Already a pornography buff, Crane starts using his fame to secure him and Carpenter an endless parade of affairs, which they videotape and then obsessively review. It isn’t long before Anne demands a divorce, and Crane marries his Hogan’s co-star Patti Olsen (aka Sigrid Valdis, here played by Maria Bello), who’s more accepting of his escapades. When the sitcom is canceled, however, Crane has trouble securing acting jobs, and recedes further and further into his life of amateur porn with Carpenter. Auto Focus premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals before its art-house run in the fall of 2002.

A chance meeting between two middle-aged men leads one into a life of crime in this offbeat comedy. Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) is an American businessman whose life has been going through a sour patch after he and his wife, Carolyn (Hope Davis), lost their young son. During a business trip to Mexico City, Danny strikes up a conversation in a hotel bar with fellow out-of-towner Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan), and while Julian’s loud and brassy manner initially puts Danny off, in time the two become friends, and Julian feels comfortable enough with Danny to tell him what he does for a living. It seems Julian is a hired killer working under the auspices of underworld kingpins Lovell (Dylan Baker) and Mr. Randy (Philip Baker Hall), and Julian tries to persuade Danny to help him with his latest assignment. Danny refuses, but a few months later a distraught Julian appears unannounced on Danny’s doorstep. It seems Julian has blown his two most recent assignments due to a variety of psychosomatic illnesses, and now Lovell and Mr. Randy want him dead. Julian has also done something to put Danny in his debt, and the previously non-criminal businessman is forced to help his friend stage a hit, with Julian’s presence in his home upsetting the precarious balance of Danny and Carolyn’s marriage.

James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News) directed this $50 million-plus romantic comedy, set in Manhattan. Dysfunctional, acid-tongued romance novelist Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson), who suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder, takes pride in his ability to offend. At a nearby cafe, the only waitress willing to stand up to his sarcastic tirades is Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt), a single mother struggling to raise her chronically asthmatic son. In Melvin’s West Village apartment building, talented contemporary artist Simon Nye (Greg Kinnear) lives across the hall from Melvin. Simon is the current darling of the New York art world, reason enough to draw Melvin’s verbal fire, but Simon’s gay lifestyle is further grist for the novelist’s malicious mill. These three New Yorkers, none of whom appears to have a chance in hell at finding true happiness, discover their fates intertwined because of the fourth complicated character in the piece, Verdell, a tiny Brussels Griffon dog (played by newcomer Jill, after a 15-week training program). Melvin seems to have no friends or family, and he lives alone, working on his 62nd book.

When Simon goes into the hospital after a brutal mugging, Melvin has to take care of Verdell, and the dog actually warms Melvin’s cold heart — to the degree that he sets up unsolicited medical care for Carol’s son. Eventually, Melvin is cornered into driving Simon and Carol to Baltimore, and during a hotel stopover, Melvin confesses to Carol, “You make me want to be a better man.” The trip becomes an odyssey of self-realization for all three. Locations included Brooklyn’s Prospect Park (Carol’s neighborhood) and Greenwich Village (where Melvin’s building is on 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues). Other exteriors were shot in downtown Los Angeles, where a dilapidated transient hotel at the corner of 4th Street and Main was transformed into the chic cafe where Carol works. Sets for the Simon/Melvin apartment interiors were erected on a soundstage at the Sony Pictures lot. Simon’s paintings were created for the film by New York artist Billy Sullivan, whose work is part of the modern art collection at NYC’s Metropolitian Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Sleepless in Seattle director Nora Ephron originally made a name for herself as the writer of romantic comedies such as Heartburn and When Harry Met Sally. She continues the genre with You’ve Got Mail, marking her second collaboration with actors Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The story brings romance and courtship into the electronic age of the World Wide Web via e-mail and chat rooms. Joe Fox (Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Ryan) live and work blocks from each other on New York City’s Upper West Side. Their lives are practically intertwined. They both shop at the same place, frequent the same coffee shop, and even own competing bookstores on the same street. They also both have significant others of their own. Joe has the overly hyper book editor Patricia Eden (Parker Posey), while Kathleen lives with the scholarly newspaper columnist Frank Navasky (Greg Kinnear). Then they meet in a chat room. Though they keep their identities secret (they’re known only by screen names “NY152″ and “Shopgirl”), they tell each other everything about their lives, including their private feelings, which slowly turn into affection for each other. When Joe decides to open a new branch of his “Foxbooks” chain that risks putting Kathleen’s “Shop Around the Corner” out of business, the tension between them escalates. Surely her boutique business will be lost to the conglomerate with a built-in newsstand and coffee bar. When Joe sees Kathleen waiting for him in the restaurant where they agreed to meet up, he puts two and two together, but cannot face her, given their agreement not to reveal each others’ names and professions. How can he reveal himself to her now, knowing that he is the cause of her misery? Hopefully, love will conquer all.

Randall Wallace directs Mel Gibson in the Vietnam War drama We Were Soldiers, which comes to DVD with a widescreen anamorphic transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Closed-captioned English soundtracks are rendered in both DD-EX 5.1 and Dolby Digital Surround, while a French soundtrack has also been recorded in Dolby Digital Surround. English subtitles are accessible. Supplemental materials include a commentary track recorded by the director, ten deleted scenes with director commentary, and a making-of featurette. This is a strong disc from Paramount.