Bovie Movie

A remake of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes (1997), this thriller from director Cameron Crowe bears one of several discarded titles for his previous, Oscar-winning film Almost Famous (2000). Tom Cruise stars as David Ames, a womanizing playboy who finds romantic redemption when he falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend Sofia (Penelope Cruz, reprising her role from the original film). Before that relationship can begin, however, David is coaxed into a car driven by an ex-lover, Julie (Cameron Diaz), who turns out to be suicidal. Driving her car off a bridge, Julie kills herself and horribly disfigures David. Reconstructive surgery and the loving support of Sofia seem to reverse David’s luck, but eerie incidents are soon making him question the reality of his existence and his control over his life, even while he is suspected of complicity in Julie’s death. Vanilla Sky (2001) bears the expected Crowe trademark of an obsession with recent pop culture and particularly rock music, a more important element of the remake than the original film. That project’s writer/director, Alejandro Amenabar, crafted his own supernatural hit the same year with The Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman, the soon-to-be-ex-wife of Cruise.

An amoral young man wends his way into the lives of a handful of damaged souls in this adaptation of British Beat Generation writer Alexander Trocchi’s first novel. Written for the screen and directed by David Mackenzie, Young Adam begins with the discovery of a barely dressed woman’s corpse by two barge workers, Joe (Ewan McGregor) and Leslie (Peter Mullan). A taciturn drifter, Joe hoists the body ashore with little distress, and the ensuing police investigation does little to ruffle his day-to-day existence on the barge. But his behavior becomes more and more erratic, and as he begins a torrid affair with Leslie’s downtrodden wife Ella (Tilda Swinton), flashbacks reveal a similarly cruel encounter he once had with a young woman named Cathie (Emily Mortimer). Young Adam premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival before securing berths at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals later that year.

A high-school senior finds that fate (and modern medicine) plays some interesting tricks with his personality in this dramatic comedy. Justin Conn (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a neurotic teenager who has a difficult time with his peers, especially Rebecca (Kelli Garner), a cute girl in his debate class with whom he is somewhat mutually infatuated. It isn’t much better at home with his obnoxious younger brother Joel (Chase Offerle), his father, Mike (Vincent D’Onofrio), who is busy having a midlife crisis, and mother Audrey (Tilda Swinton), who’s infatuated with one of her favorite TV actors (Benjamin Bratt). All this anxiety has to go somewhere, and Justin’s manifestation of his troubles comes in the form of sucking his thumb, which makes him even more of an outcast. Dr. Perry Lyman (Keanu Reeves), an orthodontist who seems to double as a new age therapist, treats Justin with hypnosis; meanwhile, the school psychologist decides he has Attention Deficit Disorder, and treats him with medication. Suddenly, Justin stops sucking his thumb and becomes an outgoing overachiever, single-handedly taking his school debate team to the state championship. But Justin’s relationshop with his debate coach, Mr. Geary (Vince Vaughn), becomes strained, and the boy tries to mold yet another new identity for himself. Thumbsucker was the first feature film from Mike Mills, who previously distinguished himself in commercials and music videos.

An ordinary man with an extraordinary gift must save the planet from evil in this action-packed fantasy. Unknown to most people, the world is crowded with spirits both good and evil who walk among us in human guise. One of the few who can see these spirits is John Constantine (Keanu Reeves), but the responsibility of his vision is more than he can stand, and he tries to kill himself. Saved from death, Constantine must now atone for his actions by acting as a guardian in the middle ground between Paradise and Hell. Constantine also makes the acquaintance of Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz), a police detective who becomes aware of his unusual gift while looking into the death of her sister; he leads her into the unknown world of the spirits and soon circumstances demand that they join forces in a desperate bid to save humanity from evil. Constantine also features Tilda Swinton, Peter Stormare, and Gavin Rossdale, the latter best known as the lead singer of the rock group Bush.