Bovie Movie

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story revolves around amiable underachiever Peter LaFleur (Vince Vaughn), whose rundown gym, Average Joe’s, is populated by a less-than-average clientele including a self-styled pirate, an ultra-obscure sports aficionado, and a pining high school nerd. It soon becomes apparent that Joe’s is in financial trouble and will soon be foreclosed by attractive attorney Kate Veach (Christine Taylor) - unless Peter can cough up $50,000. Despite Average Joe’s posing little threat to Globo Gym, a fitness Goliath across the street that is owned by egomaniacal White Goodman (Ben Stiller) - Goodman senses an easy acquisition and decides to take over the facility. Peter’s ragtag group of regulars, however, are less than thrilled with the prospects, and mobilize a showdown, winner-takes-all Dodgeball tournament against Globo Gym. The film also features Missi Pyle, Rip Torn, Stephen Root, and Alan Tudyk.

A hotshot thirtysomething record executive tries to win over the girl who once liked him only “as a friend” in this slapstick comedy. In high school, Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) was an overweight, maladroit teen who spent every waking moment with his co-ed pal Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart). On the verge of graduation, Chris is humiliated when his yearbook confession to Jamie — that he wants to be more than “just friends” — is read aloud. Jamie is flattered, but rebuffs his advances, and Chris spends the next decade transforming himself into a buff, callous ladies’ man. Assigned by his boss to sign his pop star ex-girlfriend Samantha James (Anna Faris), Chris finds himself stranded in New Jersey for the holidays, where he promptly sets out to find Jamie. But winning back the love of his life proves difficult, as Chris not only has to get back in touch with the sensitive teen he once was, but also fend off competition from another former geek, the guitar-playing Dusty (Chris Klein).

The title refers to the radioactive fallout which descended upon ruined city of Hiroshima after the dropping of the first atomic bomb. Young bride-to-be Yoshiko Tanaka has the misfortune to be visiting Hiroshima on the day of the explosion. Incredibly, she is unhurt; she returns to her own village, across the bay from Hiroshima. Unfortunately, her townsmen have been profoundly affected by the “black rain”; over the next five years, the poison in their systems slowly but surely erodes their souls. In a tragic state of denial, Yoshiko’s former friends insist that they can’t be sick-it must be the girl who is bringing sickness to them. Now a pariah, Yoshiko’s life is shattered as surely as if the bomb had disintegrated her upon impact. Director Shohei Imamaura, a onetime assistant to the great Ozu and the director of such Japanese classics as The Insect Woman and The Ballad of Narayama, never sensationalizes his material; the story is effective told in a muted, subdued fashion, allowing the horror to arise from the inner torment of the characters rather than being artificially imposed by camera trickery or “shock” cutting. Based on a novel by Masuji Ibuse, the black-and-white Black Rain won the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Award, along with several other honors.

Andrew Stanton, who helped write Toy Story and Monsters, Inc., co-wrote and directed this computer-animated comedy-adventure about finding a very small fish in a very large ocean. Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks) is a more-than-slightly paranoid Clown Fish who is extremely devoted to his young son, Nemo (voice of Alexander Gould), the only survivor after an undersea predator swallowed up Nemo’s mother and her other offspring. It’s not Marlin’s nature to explore unfamiliar waters, but when he and Nemo are accidentally separated near the Great Barrier Reef en route to Nemo’s first day of fish school, Marlin gathers his courage and sets out to find his son. What Marlin doesn’t know, however, is that while Nemo was looking at a boat passing on the surface, he was caught in a net and given a new home in a dentist’s aquarium. As Marlin searches for his son, he makes friends with a friendly but absent-minded Regal Blue Tang named Dory (voice of Ellen DeGeneres), a Great White Shark named Bruce (voice of Barry Humphries) who is trying to cut fish out of his diet, a beach-rat Sea Tortoise named Crush (voice of Andrew Stanton), and Nigel (voice of Geoffrey Rush), a Pelican who can take Marlin’s search from the ocean to dry land. Finding Nemo’s impressive voice cast also includes Willem Dafoe, Allison Janney, Eric Bana, Stephen Root, and Brad Garrett.

A young man trying to break out of his blue collar life in New Jersey finds himself snared by a web of crime and deceit in this independent drama. Just released after an 18-month stretch in prison, 20-year-old Eddie Dolan (Billy Crudup) has few prospects and nowhere to go, so he appears on the doorstep of his older brother Terry (Paul Schulze). Terry takes him in, giving him a place to stay and helping him get a job at the factory where their dad Nick (Frank Vincent) has worked nearly all his adult life. However, times are not happy around the Dolan household; money is tight, and Terry’s relationship with his wife Janey (Adrienne Shelly) has been rocky since the birth of their first child six months before. Eddie starts earning some extra cash by joining up with a group of car thieves pulling insurance scams, and in time, he makes enough money to buy a muscle car, which he races in his spare time. On the night shift at the factory, Eddie spends his days working on his car, while Janey, bored with her new role as a stay-at-home mom, starts spending more and more time with him; eventually they move past friendship into an affair, which like Eddie’s involvement with the carjackers becomes only more dangerous in the weeks to come. Grind marked the feature debut for writer/director Chris Kentis; Billy Crudup’s appearance predated his breakthrough roles in Inventing the Abbotts and Everyone Says I Love You, though both of those films were released before Grind could find a distributor.

A team of “sub-zero heroes” band together to save a human infant in this digitally animated feature from Oscar-winning director Chris Wedge, whose unique lighting software (called “Ray Tracing”) sets his visual style apart from earlier CGI efforts. Twenty thousand years ago, the Earth is overrun by freezing temperatures in an Ice Age that is sending all manner of critters scattering in the path of encroaching glaciers. When a lost human infant is discovered, an unlikely quartet of misfits forms to return it to its mother: Manny, a depressed woolly mammoth (Ray Romano); Sid, a fast-talking sloth (John Leguizamo); an acorn-crazed squirrel named Scrat (Wedge); and the devilish saber-toothed tiger named Diego (Denis Leary). Before they can complete their mission, the reluctant compatriots will brave pits of boiling lava, dangerous caverns of ice, and even a traitorous plot within their midst. Ice Age (2002) also features the voices of Jack Black, Jane Krakowski, and Goran Visnjic.