Bovie Movie

Despite his status as a major action star, Sylvester Stallone has made a number of attempts to remodel himself as a comic actor; one of his more infamous efforts in this direction was Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot!. Police detective Joe Bromowski (Sylvester Stallone) has just broken off his relationship with his girlfriend (and fellow police officer) Gwen Harper (JoBeth Williams), so Joe’s mother Tutti (Estelle Getty) decides it’s time to pay him a visit. Tutti proceeds to make Joe’s life miserable by nagging him about his clothes, cleaning his apartment, washing his gun, tagging along on investigations, and somehow getting involved with a gun-running organization that the police have been trying to infiltrate. After this film, Stallone would stay away from comedy until 1997, when he played a cameo in another unenthusiastically received film, An Alan Smithee Film — Burn, Hollywood, Burn.

After he is framed for the death of several colleagues and falsely branded a traitor, a secret agent embarks on a daring scheme to clear his name in this spy adventure. Though it drew its name from the familiar television series, director Brian DePalma’s big-budget adaptation shares little more with the original show than the occasional self-destructing message and the name of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). The film focuses not on Phelps but his prot?g?, Ethan Hunt (a reserved Tom Cruise), who becomes a fugitive after taking the blame for a botched operation. He responds by banding together with a group of fellow renegades, and he is soon maneuvering his way through a twisted series of double crosses that mainly serve as excuses for spectacular high-tech action sequences. Much of the activity revolves around a missing computer disk, with the film’s most famous scene depicting Hunt’s delicate efforts to retrieve the disk from a secure, well-alarmed room in CIA headquarters.

Director John Woo brings Hong Kong-style martial arts action to this comic book-flavored sequel that eschews the complicated plot and political maneuverings of its predecessor in favor of pure, adrenaline-charged thrills. Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, an operative for the top-secret government agency IMF (Impossible Missions Force). Fellow agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) has gone rogue, stealing a sample of a deadly synthetic virus named Chimera that could rapidly wipe out the world’s population. Ambrose’s plan is to sell Chimera to the highest bidder in exchange for shares of stock in the winner’s company. Summoned by the new IMF chief (Anthony Hopkins in an uncredited cameo role), Ethan is assigned to recruit the help of Ambrose’s former lover Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton), a gorgeous woman who left Ambrose broken-hearted and who may be able to quickly regain his confidence. Once he meets and spends a night with Nyah, however, Ethan is smitten, and now must both capture Ambrose and keep Nyah alive as she infiltrates a nest of vipers. Sophisticated disguises, gun battles, and high-speed chases are the order of the day, very much in the James Bond mold. Mission: Impossible 2 is based on a story by Star Trek: The Next Generation writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, with a script polish by Robert Towne.

After a long career playing good guys, Sean Connery gets to have some fun playing a crook for a change in the romantic crime thriller Entrapment — and he even gets to break the law with the lovely Catherine Zeta-Jones. When a priceless Rembrandt painting is stolen from a New York skyscraper in a daring and technically sophisticated robbery, ace insurance investigator Virginia “Gin” Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) begins looking into the matter and is soon convinced it’s the work of master art thief Robert “Mac” MacDougal (Sean Connery). Gin thinks the best way to get the goods on Mac (and perhaps recover the painting) is to work her way inside his operation, so she locates him in London and, posing as a fellow art thief, offers to work as his partner. While Mac is smart enough to not accept an offer like that from just anyone, most thieves don’t look as good as Gin does in a leotard, and she soon proves an able assistant in a shakedown robbery where they pinch a rare Chinese mask from a British museum. After this success, Mac agrees to join forces with Gin for what is literally the heist of the millenium — as Midnight rolls around in Kuala Lumpur on December 31, 1999, the security computers in a major multinational banking facility will be breached for a split second as the computers roll over to a new program for Y2K. Is that long enough for Gin and Mac to nab $8 billion in bank transfers? Is 14 days long enough to prepare for a robbery of this scale? And will Mac and Gin’s professional relationship pave the way for some capers in the bedroom? In addition to playing the male lead, Sean Connery also co-produced this film; the supporting cast includes Ving Rhames and Maury Chaykin.

Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s. Director and co-screenwriter Quentin Tarantino synthesized such seemingly disparate traditions as the syncopated language of David Mamet; the serious violence of American gangster movies, crime movies, and films noirs mixed up with the wacky violence of cartoons, video games, and Japanese animation; and the fragmented story-telling structures of such experimental classics as Citizen Kane, Rashomon, and La jet?e. The Oscar-winning script by Tarantino and Roger Avary intertwines three stories, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, in the role that single-handedly reignited his career, as hit men who have philosophical interchanges on such topics as the French names for American fast food products; Bruce Willis as a boxer out of a 1940s B-movie; and such other stalwarts as Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Christopher Walken, Eric Stoltz, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, whose dance sequence with Travolta proved an instant classic.

The third entry in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible film series involves super Impossible Mission Forces (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) being forced back into the field just when he was planning on marrying his girlfriend, Julia (Michelle Monaghan). The agency asks Hunt to save an operative (Keri Russell) he trained after weapons dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) kidnaps her. With the help of his field team — played by Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and Maggie Q — Hunt achieves his goal, but becomes involved in a web of double-crosses that leave him wondering if he can trust his superiors (Billy Crudup and Laurence Fishburne). Eventually Davian threatens Julia’s life in order to get away with his evil plan. Simon Pegg appears as an IMF tech expert.

A cop’s personal code of justice begins to change after a number of incidents lead his city to a tragic wave of violence in this police drama. Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) is a veteran cop with the LAPD’s Special Investigations unit, a man who isn’t above bending the law if it means putting people behind bars who deserve the treatment. As Los Angeles waits on the verdict in the Rodney King police beating trial, Perry is presenting testimony to Assistant Chief of Police Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames), who is well aware of the corruption in the SIS unit and wants to stop it. Perry, however, twists some facts as he speaks in the defense of his new partner, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), who is being investigated for inappropriate use of deadly force. For lack of honest testimony, Keough is let off the hook, and soon he and Perry have a new case to investigate — a robbery at a liquor store than turned into a quadruple homicide. Perry and Keough quickly track down two likely suspects, Orchard (Kurupt) and Sidwell (Dash Mihok), but Perry is surprised when the head of SIS, Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson), tells him to let Orchard and Sidwell go, and instead points the finger at two ex-cons who should be taken off the street, even though they’re innocent of this crime. Perry follows Van Meter’s orders, despite Keough’s misgivings, but in the wake of the L.A. riots, Perry has a change of heart, and decides to start working with Holland against Van Meter’s corrupt methods. In the midst of it all, Perry is trying to hold together his troubled marriage to Sally (Lolita Davidovich), while Keough finds himself romancing a fellow officer, Beth (Michael Michele). Dark Blue was adapted from an original screenplay by noted crime novelist James Ellroy; originally set against the backdrop of the 1965 Watts riots, the story was later updated to 1992.

Director George A. Romero’s epic sequel to his legendary Night of the Living Dead has firmly established itself as the equal of its ground-breaking predecessor. Though shot in 1978 — ten years after the first films’ release — Dawn’s story begins as if the events in Night had happened only a few months before: after shambling armies of the recently-dead take over every major city — seeking warm human flesh for food — the U.S. government imposes a state of martial law, sending in special National Guard units to attack and destroy zombie infestation where they find it. Two members of one such unit, Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger) have been tasked to overthrow a nest of zombies in a Pittsburgh housing project (one of the film’s most explicitly gory scenes). When the job turns ugly and Peter is forced to terminate his own berserk, racist commanding officer, the pair decide to split the outfit with the help of his friend Stephen (David Emge), a traffic pilot for WGON-TV, and the station’s floor manager, Stephen’s girlfriend Frances (Gaylen Ross). Together they steal the station’s helicopter and head for less-populated areas, but after some narrow scrapes with flesh-hungry redneck ghouls in the country outside Harrisburg, they opt for a more secure hideout. Eventually they find the perfect solution: a massive, sprawling shopping mall. After the lengthy process of purging the building of zombies is complete, the four secure themselves snugly in the miniature city, consigned to live out their lives in a dull but cushy consumer’s paradise… but the arrival of a menacing gang of nomadic bikers proves that this is not to be. With their survival instincts weakened by a mallful of toys and trinkets, the crew are again forced to face grim reality as they face both living and undead foes in a final battle. Romero’s excellent, multi-layered story combines high-adventure heroics, three-dimensional characters and explicit gore (by the always masterful Tom Savini, who plays a small role as a leering biker) to excellent effect. The subtext comparing the glassy-eyed behavior patterns of the ghouls to those of American consumers is clear, but not overdone: “It’s some kind of instinct,” Stephen comments, observing the zombies’ attraction to the mall; “This was an important place in their lives.” Despite the glimmer of hope offered by the film’s closing scene, the outlook for humankind is grim. Perhaps it is Frannie who best expresses Dawn’s outlook for humanity: “We’re not gonna make it, are we?” Several versions of this film are available on video, including a faster-paced European version edited by overseas distributor Dario Argento and a “Director’s Cut” with a great deal of exposition restored (though Romero is quoted as having preferred the unrated cut released initially to U.S. theaters). The shooting script also contains a more downbeat ending, which was never filmed.

A lonely little girl makes a very unusual friend — a ukulele-playing alien who likes to toss around small automobiles — in this antic animated comedy from Walt Disney Studios. Lilo (voice of Daveigh Chase) is a young Hawaiian girl being raised by her teenaged sister Nani (voice of Tia Carrere) after the unexpected death of their parents in an auto accident. While Nani tries to hold their household together, Lilo is a child with unusual interests and a distinctive sense of humor, which makes it hard for her to bond with her peers, as well as her big sister. Nani decides Lilo might be happier if she had a pet, so the sisters go to the animal shelter to adopt a dog; however, the critter which catches Lilo’s fancy is a fuzzy blue creature she names Stitch (voice of Chris Sanders). Nani isn’t so sure Stitch is really a dog, and it turns out she’s right; Stitch is actually “Genetic Experiment 626,” a mutation created by extraterrestrial mad scientist Dr. Jumba (voice of David Ogden Stiers) to be used a weapon. Stitch is an intelligent but gleefully destructive little creature with superhuman strength who has escaped to Earth and crash-landed in the Hawaiian islands, but Lilo sees him simply as a fellow misfit and attempts to teach him to behave like her favorite American icon, Elvis Presley. Meanwhile, Nani struggles to keep Lilo and Stitch on their best behavior as stern social worker Cobra Bubbles (voice of Ving Rhames) tries to determine if Nani is fit to raise a child, while Dr. Jumba and Pleakley (voice of Kevin McDonald) attempt to capture “Experiment 626″ and bring him back home. Chris Sanders, who provides the voice of Stitch, also co-wrote and co-directed the film, which features numerous Elvis Presley tunes on the soundtrack, as well as a new recording of “Burning Love” by country star Wynonna.

When two testosterone-fueled firemen attempt to register as domestic partners in order to bypass the bureaucratic red tape preventing one of them from naming his own two children as his life-insurance beneficiaries, their low-key ruse turns into headline news in this quirky matrimonial comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James. Chuck Levine (Sandler) and Larry Valentine (James) are two New York City firefighters whose longtime friendship has endured many a five-alarm fire. All that widower Larry wants is to ensure that his two children will be taken care of if anything should happen to him on the job, and all that single blaze-battler Chuck wants is to carry on with his carefree life of noncommitment. Having once rescued Larry from certain death in a particularly fearsome inferno, beholden Chuck feels forever indebted to his brave friend and has vowed to repay the favor when the time is right. When Larry discovers that the only means of circumventing the civic red tape that could throw his children’s futures into jeopardy is to take Chuck as his lawfully wedded husband, his obligated pal reluctantly agrees to step up to the alter with the understanding that the arrangement will be a well-kept secret between themselves and the justice of the peace. A potentially fatal flaw in their presumably foolproof plan is soon revealed, however, when an overzealous bureaucrat decides to question Chuck and Larry’s partnership. Subsequently forced to embark on a mandatory honeymoon and pose as starry-eyed newlyweds, Chuck and Larry quickly discover just how important it can be to stick by a friend in his or her time of need. Jessica Biel, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, and Dan Aykroyd co-star in a comedy from The Benchwarmers director Dennis Dugan.