Bovie Movie

Despite the use in this film of voices dubbed by greats of English theater, the casting of long-haired cats to play the roles of Romeo and Juliet seems somewhat perverse. Nonetheless, the lines are well read, and the movie contains some fine original musical compositions. Among the voices: Maggie Smith, Ben Kingsley, Vanessa Redgrave, and John Hurt.

A previously pampered society mouse must fight his way back to the comforts of Kensington after he is sent spiraling into an underground world filled with scavenger rats and villainous toads in a fun-filled family adventure produced by DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Features and featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, and Jean Reno. Roddy (Jackman) was living the high life when he first met Sid the sewer rat (Shane Richie), but that’s all about to change when Sid decides to send the hapless mouse down the pipes and stealthily take his place in the lap of luxury. Though the bustling sewer city of Ratropolis isn’t without its fair share of kind citizens, it is certainly no place for a pampered mouse with a taste for life’s finer things. Upon making the acquaintance of scavenger rat Rita (Winslet), Roddy is certain that the pair can navigate their way back to the surface in Rita’s trusty boat, the Jammy Dodger, but Rita’s help doesn’t come cheap, and the nefarious Toad (McKellen) is determined to rid Ratropolis of all things rodent. When Toad’s hapless hench-rats Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy) fail to achieve acceptable results, the green meanie is forced to call in the cavalry in the form of legendary French mercenary Le Frog (Reno) to get the job done.

A gifted artist wages a personal war against his demons as well as a world that refuses to accept his creative vision in this biographical drama based on the true story of Amedeo Modigliani. Modigliani (Andy Garcia) was an Italian Jew who was living in Paris in the 1910s, when the city’s bohemian community was in full flower. While Modigliani was a uniquely gifted painter and sculptor, his friend and rival Pablo Picasso (Omid Djalili) had already found fame and fortune; Modigliani’s work had yet to reach a significant audience beyond the city’s creative inner circle. Though Modigliani stubbornly refused to compromise his vision for the sake of sales, he was alternately troubled and enraged by the lack of acceptance for his art, and was known to buffer his bruised ego with alcohol and opium, which made his often unpredictable and sometimes violent behavior all the more volatile. Modigliani also had a mistress, Jeanne Hebuterne (Elsa Zylberstein), who had been disowned by her wealthy family for falling in love with a Jew and having his child out of wedlock. When Hebuterne discovered she was pregnant again, Modigliani faced pressure to marry her, and had to face the practical question of how to support his offspring. Modigliani’s fate rested upon winning an annual art competition in Paris, which would have given him a needed influx of cash, leaving him understandably enraged when Picasso also chose to enter a work in the contest.

Inspired by a familiar Chinese folk tale, this $90 million animated Disney drama follows the adventures of a young woman in ancient China. Character animator Tony Bancroft and 17-year Disney veteran Barry Cook (Captain EO, Tron, Trail Mix-Up) formed the directing team with production design by Hans Bacher (Balto), and work on the film began 2 January 1995 under the working title The Legend of Mulan. While the merciless Shan-Yu (Miguel Ferrer) leads invading Huns over the Great Wall, young Mulan (Ming-Na Wen, with singing by Lea Salonga) sees a matchmaker about her matrimonial future. Mulan’s views on accepted marriage traditions prompt the ballad, “Reflection,” as she hopes for a recognition of her true self. To repel the Huns, a man from each family is required to join the Imperial Army. When Mulan’s elderly father Fa Zhou (Soon-Tek Oh) volunteers, she objects. He warns, “I know my place. It is time you learned yours.” Mulan, however, cuts her hair, dresses as a man, and is ready for military camp, prompting the concern of her First Ancestor (George Takei), who converts an inanimate incense burner into the 18-inch high comedic dragon Mushu (Eddie Murphy). With Mushu hidden in her clothing, she joins a group of raw recruits under the command of Captain Shang (B.D. Wong, singing by Donny Osmond). During an ambush by the Huns in a mountain pass, Mulan steps in to turn defeat into a victory. Mulan was the first Disney feature from the company’s 200,000-square-foot Orlando facility (now known as Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida).

Youthful wizard Harry Potter returns to the screen in this, the second film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s wildly popular series of novels for young people. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) return for a second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Headmaster Dumbledore (Richard Harris), Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith), and Hagrid the Giant (Robbie Coltrane) are joined by new faculty members Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), a self-centered expert in Defense against the Dark Arts, and Sprout (Miriam Margolyes), who teaches Herbology. However, it isn’t long before Harry and company discover something is amiss at Hogwarts: Students are petrified like statues, threats are written in blood on the walls, and a deadly monster is on the loose. It seems that someone has opened the mysterious Chamber of Secrets, letting loose the monster and all its calamitous powers. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione set out to find the secret chamber and slay the beast, speculation is rife that one of the heirs of Salazar Slytherin, the co-founder of the school, opened the chamber as a warning against the presence of “mudbloods” (magic-users of impure lineage) at the school — and that the culprit may be fellow student Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets featured Richard Harris’ second and final appearance as Headmaster Dumbledore; he died less than a month before the film was released in the United States.

This talking-animal action comedy from Lawrence Guterman, the co-director of Antz (1998), follows on the heels of the Babe and Dr. Dolittle films. Unknown to humans, a secret war has been raging between cats and dogs for eons, but a fragile truce has long held the order of the animal kingdom in place. Now the balance of power has tipped, as a researcher, Professor Brody (Jeff Goldblum), is about to invent a vaccine that will erase all human allergies to dogs. This is too much for the autocratic Mr. Tinkles (Sean Hayes), a white Persian kitty bent on world domination. The Brody home becomes ground zero for the renewed conflict between feline and canine, with a young Beagle puppy named Lou (Tobey Maguire) caught in the middle as the new point man for his species’ cause. Cats and Dogs co-stars Elizabeth Perkins and Alexander Pollock, as well as the vocal talents of Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Jon Lovitz, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Joe Pantoliano.