Bovie Movie

Doctor Dolittle is a world-renowned veterinarian who speaks a wide array of animal languages. He sets off from his home in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, England, in search of the Great Pink Sea Snail. In so doing, he and his friends meet such exotic creatures as the Pushme-Pullyu and the Giant Moon Moth. This musical is the source of the hit song, “If I Could Talk To The Animals.”

Scrooge is a miserly old businessman in 1840’s London. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of Marley, his dead business partner. Marley foretells that Scrooge will be visited by three spirits, each of whom will attempt to show Scrooge the error of his ways. Will Scrooge reform his ways in time to celebrate Christmas?

This Steven Spielberg-directed exploration into a long-ago episode in African-American history recounts the trial that followed the 1839 rebellion aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad and captures the complex political maneuverings set in motion by the event. Filmed in New England and Puerto Rico, the 152-minute drama opens with a pre-credit sequence showing Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) and the other Africans in a violent takeover of the Amistad. Captured, they are imprisoned in New England where former slave Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), viewing the rebels as “freedom fighters,” approaches property lawyer Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey), who attempts to prove the Africans were “stolen goods” because they were kidnapped. Running for re-election, President Martin Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) overturns the lower court’s decision in favor of the Africans. Former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) is reluctant to become involved, but when the case moves on to the Supreme Court, Adams stirs emotions with a powerful defense. The storyline occasionally cuts away to Spain where the young Queen Isabella (Anna Paquin) plays with dolls; she later debated the Amistad case with seven U.S. presidents. The character portrayed by Morgan Freeman is a fictional composite of several historical figures. For authentic speech, the Africans speak the Mende language, subtitled during some scenes but not others.

A story set against the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the film is based upon the tragedy which occurred in Utah in 1857. A group of settlers, traveling on wagons, was murdered by the native Mormons. All together, about 140 souls of men, women and children, were taken. Amidst this, two young lovers-to-be, one a Mormon and the other one of the doomed settlers from Arkansas, develop a relationship in an atmosphere of suspicion and rancor.

Cecil B. DeMille’s Technicolor historical spectacle Reap the Wild Wind was to have starred Gary Cooper, but Cooper’s prior commitment to Goldwyn’s Pride of the Yankees compelled DeMille to recast the leading role with John Wayne. The film, set in the mid-19th century, centers around Key West, Florida, where piracy reigns unchecked. Wayne plays the captain of a salvage business, working on behalf of Raymond Massey to rescue valuables from the merchant ships wrecked by pirates. During one expedition, Wayne is rescued from drowning by Paulette Goddard, the hoydenish manager of a rival salvage firm. Goddard arranges for Wayne to go to work for her boss, Ray Milland, and a romantic rivalry ensues. Later on, Goddard’s cousin Susan Hayward is lost at sea when her ship is attacked by pirates. Wayne is accused of engineering the wreck, thanks to the duplicity of Massey, the real brains of the pirate operation. Wayne and Milland both don deep-sea diving gear and swim to the bottom in search of evidence. When Milland is attacked by an octopus, Wayne saves his rival’s life at the expense of his own. Massey is exposed, and Milland wins Goddard. Essentially a standard maritime meller, Reap the Wild Wind takes on the veneer of importance thanks to DeMille’s epic treatment of the material. Though competition is fierce, Ray Milland steals the show with a truly offbeat characterization (he even gets to indulge in a little ventriloquism!)

A historical drama about the relationship between a Civil War soldier and a band of Sioux Indians, Kevin Costner’s directorial debut was also a surprisingly popular hit, considering its length, period setting, and often somber tone. The film opens on a particularly dark note, as melancholy Union lieutenant John W. Dunbar attempts to kill himself on a suicide mission, but instead becomes an unintentional hero. His actions lead to his reassignment to a remote post in remote South Dakota, where he encounters the Sioux. Attracted by the natural simplicity of their lifestyle, he chooses to leave his former life behind to join them, taking on the name Dances with Wolves. Soon, Dances with Wolves has become a welcome member of the tribe and fallen in love with a white woman who has been raised amongst the tribe. His peaceful existence is threatened, however, when Union soldiers arrive with designs on the Sioux land. Some detractors have criticized the film’s depiction of the tribes as simplistic; such objections did not dissuade audiences or the Hollywood establishment, however, which awarded the film seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

The violent rise of gangland power in New York City at a time of massive political corruption and the city’s evolution into a cultural melting pot set the stage for this lavish historical epic, which director Martin Scorsese finally brought to the screen almost 30 years after he first began to plan the project. In 1846, as waves of Irish immigrants poured into the New York neighborhood of Five Points, a number of citizens of British and Dutch heritage who were born in the United States began making an open display of their resentment toward the new arrivals. William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), better known as “Bill the Butcher” for his deadly skill with a knife, bands his fellow “Native Americans” into a gang to take on the Irish immigrants; the immigrants in turn form a gang of their own, “The Dead Rabbits,” organized by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). After an especially bloody clash between the Natives and the Rabbits leaves Vallon dead, his son goes missing; the boy ends up in a brutal reform school before returning to the Five Points in 1862 as Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio). Now a strapping adult who has learned how to fight, Amsterdam has come to seek vengeance against Bill the Butcher, whose underworld control of the Five Points through violence and intimidation dovetails with the open corruption of New York politician “Boss” Tweed (Jim Broadbent). Amsterdam gradually penetrates Bill the Butcher’s inner circle, and he soon becomes his trusted assistant. Amsterdam also finds himself falling for Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a beautiful but street-smart thief who was once involved with Bill. Amsterdam is learning a great deal from Bill, but before he can turn the tables on the man who killed his father, Amsterdam’s true identity is exposed, even though he has concealed it from nearly everyone, including Jenny. Gangs Of New York was the first film in two years from actor Leonardo DiCaprio; ironically, it was at one time scheduled to open on the same day as Catch Me if You Can, the Steven Spielberg project that DiCaprio began filming immediately after Gangs wrapped.