Bovie Movie

M. Night Shyamalan, the creative mind behind The Sixth Sense and Signs, wrote and directed this characteristically atmospheric thriller. The rustic village of Covington is a small town in rural Pennsylvania that is home to 60 souls. The citizens of Covington lead a quiet and peaceful life, but not without an unusual caveat — terrible creatures lurk just outside the borders of the village, and the people of Covington have reached an agreement of sorts with the beasts, in which they are allowed to go about their business as long as they never cross the village’s boundaries. However, this precarious balance is upset when a headstrong young man, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), decides to find out what lies outside Covington, and unwittingly invites the wrath of the creatures upon the town. The Village also stars Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Adrien Brody, Judy Greer, and Bryce Dallas Howard; both Kirsten Dunst and Ashton Kutcher were at one time attached to the project, but both left the cast before filming began.

David Cronenberg directed this screen adaptation of a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke which explores how an act of heroism unexpectedly changes a man’s life. Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) lives a quiet life in a small Indiana town, running the local diner with his wife, Edie (Maria Bello), and raising their two children. But the quiet is shattered one day when a pair of criminals on the run from the police walk into his diner just before closing time. After they attack one of the customers and seem ready to kill several of the people inside, Tom jumps to the fore, grabbing a gun from one of the criminals and killing the invaders. Tom is immediately hailed as a hero by his employees and the community at large, but Tom seems less than comfortable with his new notoriety. One day, a man with severe facial scars, Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), sits down at the counter and begins addressing Tom as Joey, and begins asking him questions about the old days in Philadelphia. While Tom seems puzzled, Carl’s actions suggest that the quiet man pouring coffee at the diner may have a dark and violent past he isn’t eager to share with others — as well as some old scores that haven’t been settled.

Director Kenneth Branagh’s interpretation of Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel stars Robert DeNiro as a terrifying monster created in an obsessive attempt to defeat death and stretch the limits of medicine in the early 19th century. With the use of flashback, a dying Dr. Viktor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh) divulges a tale of gruesome terror to a sea captain (Aidan Quinn): As a medical student, the rebellious Frankenstein elaborates on the work of a brilliant scientist (John Cleese), successfully bringing to life a “man” assembled from the body parts of corpses. Upon realizing the destructive consequences of his experiment, Dr. Frankenstein abandons the creature and attempts to return to a normal life with his medical partner, Henry (Tom Hulce), and his fiancée (and adopted sister), Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter). In the meantime, the nameless creature struggles with loneliness and rejection from society until he sets out to track down his creator in search of one of two things: a bride to keep him company or revenge. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) was produced by Francis Ford Coppola, who previously directed and produced monster-drama Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

This $90 million science fiction adventure is adapted from the television series, created by Irwin Allen, which originally ran on CBS from 1965 to 1968. The original series employed a Swiss Family Robinson in outer space premise; sent to colonize a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, the Robinson family was thrown off course by a stowaway and was left wandering from planet to planet (and changing along the way from a black-and-white series to a color series). The 1998 remake is set in the year 2058, when the United Global Space Force sends Professor John Robinson (William Hurt) and family — wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers), daughter Judy (Heather Graham), teen Penny (Lacey Chabert), and 10-year-old Will (Jack Johnson) — on a promotional space jaunt to herald the “offshore” future for the human race (now saddled with eco problems on Earth). Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc), more accustomed to fighting menacing Global Sedition forces, is reluctant to sign on as the Jupiter II pilot but quickly changes his mind after he gets a good look at Judy in her fetish-fashioned space togs. Space spy Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman), hired to sabotage the mission, programs in problems but winds up aboard the craft unconscious. Once awake, he summons the Robinsons from suspended animation, and they save the ship just in time, passing through hyperspace to arrive near an Earth ship where they encounter space-pet Blawp and hordes of teethy spiders. A spider bite makes the villainous Smith mutate, one of some 750 special effects, from animatronics (Jim Henson Creature Shop) to CGI, and other adventures await throughout the galaxy. Cameos include actors from the original series, including June Lockhart and Robot Voice Dick Tufeld. In a curious coincidence, the TV series took place in the future of 1997, the year this movie was produced.

Based on the 1969 short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss, this science fiction fantasy bears similarities to Pinocchio (1940) and originated as a long-gestating project of director Stanley Kubrick that passed to his friend Steven Spielberg after Kubrick’s death. Haley Joel Osment stars as David, a “mecha” or robot of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and submerged many coastal cities, causing worldwide starvation and human dependence upon robotic assistance. The first mecha designed to experience love, David is the “son” of Henry (Sam Robards), an employee of the company that built the boy, and the grief-stricken Monica (Frances O’Connor). David is meant to replace the couple’s hopelessly comatose son, but when their natural child recovers, David is abandoned and sets out to become “a real boy” worthy of his mother’s affection. Along the way, David is mentored by a pleasure-providing mecha named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) and a talking “super toy” bear named Teddy. His adventures take him to the Roman Circus-style “Flesh Fair,” where mechas are destroyed for the amusement of humans; Rouge City, where Gigolo Joe narrowly avoids capture by police; and finally a submerged New York City, where David’s creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt) reveals the secrets of the boy’s creation. Brendan Gleeson and narrator Ben Kingsley co-star in A.I., which was adapted from Kubrick’s treatment by Spielberg, in his first crack at screenwriting since Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).