Bovie Movie

Ten years before Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility was transformed into a lavish theatrical feature by director Ang Lee, the property was adapted as a rather less lavish but no less entertaining British TV miniseries. Irene Richard and Tracy Childs starred as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two attractive sisters from a prominent British family. When the Dashwoods go broke after the death of their father, the flighty Marianne and the more reserved (and, need we add, more intelligent) Elinor go on an exhaustive search for proper, and properly wealthy, husbands. Sense and Sensibility was served up in three 60-minute portions by the BBC.

Jane Austen’s perennially popular story of the game of love among the British upper classes returns to the screen in this polished film adaptation. The Bennetts (Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland) are the parents of five daughters near the close of the 18th century. Comfortable within their means but well short of rich, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett are looking for suitable husbands for their girls, and they are encouraged to learn that an eligible young bachelor from a wealthy family, Charles Bingley (Simon Woods), has moved into a nearby estate. Eager to see if a match can be made, the Bennetts bring their daughters Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and Jane (Rosamund Pike) to a ball thrown by their new neighbor to see if sparks will fly. Jane seems to like Charles, and he appears to feel the same, but Elizabeth takes an immediate dislike to Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen), Charles’ egocentric best friend. While Elizabeth is infatuated with military man Lt. Wickham (Rupert Friend) and finds herself courted by William Collins (Tom Hollander), a well-meaning but drab man of the cloth, fate causes Elizabeth and Darcy to frequently cross paths, and while they don’t care for one another, they can’t stop thinking about each other, either. Pride & Prejudice also stars Jena Malone, Judi Dench, and Penelope Wilton.

Edward Zwick returned to the director’s chair for the first time since 1998’s The Siege with this sweeping period drama set in 19th-century Japan. After centuries of relying on hired samurai for national defense, the Japanese monarchy has decided to do away with the warriors in favor of a more contemporary military. Tom Cruise stars as Nathan Algren, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who is hired by the Emperor Meiji to train an army capable of wiping out the samurai. But when Algren is captured by the samurai and taught about their history and way of life, he finds himself conflicted over who he should be fighting alongside. Billy Connelly, Tony Goldwyn, and Ken Watanabe co-star.

The legendary Mexican hero returns to the screen in this swashbuckling sequel to the 1998 box-office hit The Mask of Zorro. It’s 1850, and the people of California, eager to improve their difficult lot in life, have launched a campaign to become part of the United States. Don Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas) has become aware of a plot by moneyed Europeans to block the campaign for statehood through nefarious means, and it looks as if Alejandro’s heroic alter ego, Zorro, may have to return to duty. However, Alejandro’s wife, Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), has grown weary of his secret life, and she demands that he choose between his family and his clandestine career as a champion of the people. This leads to a rift between Alejandro and Elena, and the couple separates, with Alejandro moving out while Elena continues to care for their son, Joaquin (Adrian Alonso). A few months later, Alejandro finds that Elena is already being wooed by Armand (Rufus Sewell), a suave French nobleman who wants her hand in marriage. However, Alejandro also learns that Armand is actually part of a plot to prevent California from attaining statehood by tampering with an upcoming election; meanwhile, there may be more to Elena’s involvement with Armand than romantic courtship. Zorro must come to the rescue of the people of California and perhaps his beloved Elena as well before they both fall into dangerous hands. The Legend of Zorro was directed by Martin Campbell, who performed the same duties on The Mask of Zorro.

“I am….Drac-u-la. I bid you velcome.” Thus does Bela Lugosi declare his presence in the 1931 screen version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Director Tod Browning invests most of his mood and atmosphere in the first two reels, which were based on the original Stoker novel; the rest of the film is a more stagebound translation of the popular stage play by John Balderston and Hamilton Deane. Even so, the electric tension between the elegant Dracula and the vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) works as well on the screen as it did on the stage. And it’s hard to forget such moments as the lustful gleam in the eyes of Mina Harker (Helen Chandler) as she succumbs to the will of Dracula, or the omnipresent insane giggle of the fly-eating Renfield (Dwight Frye). Despite the static nature of the final scenes, Dracula is a classic among horror films, with Bela Lugosi giving the performance of a lifetime as the erudite Count (both Lugosi and co-star Frye would forever after be typecast as a result of this film, which had unfortunate consequences for both men’s careers). Compare this Dracula to the simultaneously filmed Spanish-language version, which makes up for the absence of Lugosi with a stronger sense of visual dynamics in the lengthy dialogue sequences. In 1999, a special rerelease of Dracula was prepared featuring a new musical score written by Philip Glass and performed by The Kronos Quartet.

Anne Rice’s best-selling romantic horror tale about the origins of a centuries-old vampire inspired this popular, atmospheric chiller. One of director Neil Jordan’s major Hollywood productions, the film stays close to its source material, retaining the frame of a young reporter (Christian Slater) interviewing a man who claims to be a 200-year-old vampire. The man, Louis (Brad Pitt), shares his story, beginning in 18th-century New Orleans with his first encounters with the charismatic and decadent vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise). Lestat converts Louis to blood-sucking and immortality, but Louis fails to adopt Lestat’s cavalier attitude, instead tormenting himself with guilt over his new nature. The two vampires remain deeply, if reluctantly, connected over the years, while becoming intimately involved with others of their kind, including Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), a mature immortal in a young child’s body. Fans of the novel raised numerous objections, particularly after Rice initially spoke out against the casting of Cruise as Lestat; further casting difficulties followed the death of River Phoenix, whose role as the interviewer was assumed by Christian Slater. Rice later recanted her objections, and the combination of thrills and gothic romance proved popular with audiences.

A woman who has come to a strange land is torn between the life she knows and the new life around her in this epic-scale historical drama. In 1854, New Zealand’s indigenous Maori tribes were engaged in an ongoing battle to drive away European settlers eager to establish colonies in the nation’s wilderness, which the Maori saw as a threat to their way of life. However, some outsiders had made a home in New Zealand with the cooperation of the Maori, and an Irish settlement had been established, with Francis (Stephen Rea), the colony’s doctor, bringing his daughter Sarah (Samantha Morton) with him to this new land. Sarah becomes acquainted with the son of one of the Maori leaders, and in time their friendship grows into something deeper. When Sarah discovers she’s pregnant with the chief’s son’s child, the father has been called off to fight against the Europeans, and by the time her son is born, his father is dead. Sarah raises her child, whom she simply calls “Boy,” but when Boy reaches the age of six, he’s abducted by his father’s family, who believes he should grow up among the Maori. Fearing further reprisals, Francis returns to Ireland, but Sarah stays behind to care for the sick and look for her son. Years later, while in search of Boy, Sarah encounters Wiremu (Cliff Curtis), a Maori warrior whose father Te Kai Po (Temuera Morrison) is ill. When Wiremu learns that Sarah is well versed in medicine, he makes an offer — if she will treat Te Kai Po and return him to health, he will find Boy. Sarah is able to cure Te Kai Po’s ailment, and Wiremu returns the now-teenaged Boy (David Rawiri Pene) to his mother. Boy is not eager to leave behind the Maori people who have become his family, and he and Sarah stay with Te Kai Po’s tribe for a while, but in time she is drawn back to the Irish colony, where she finds herself torn between Doyle (Kiefer Sutherland), the soldier who loves her and wishes to protect her, and Wiremu, who she has grown to love.

War and Peace is a commendable attempt to boil down Tolstoy’s long, difficult novel into 208 minutes’ screen time. In recreating the the social and personal upheavals attending Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia, $6 million was shelled out by coproducers Carlo Ponti, Dino de Laurentiis and Paramount Pictures. Some of the panoramic battle sequences are so expertly handled by second-unit director Mario Soldati that they appear to be Technicolor-and-Vistavision newsreel footage of the actual events. Still, the film falters dramatically, principally because of a lumpy script and King Vidor’s surprisingly lustreless direction. In addition, the casting is wildly consistent: for example, while Audrey Hepburn is flawless as Natasha, Henry Fonda is far too “Yankeefied” as the introspective Pierre. Proving too long and unwieldy for most audiences, War and Peace died at the box office; far more successful was the epic, scrupulously faithful 1968 version, filmed in the Soviet Union.

Tim Burton returns to the dark but fanciful animated style of The Nightmare Before Christmas with this stop-motion black comedy. Victor (voice of Johnny Depp) lives in a small European village in the 19th century, where he is pledged to marry Victoria (voice of Emily Watson), a partnership arranged by their parents. The two only meet the day before their scheduled nuptials, and Victor performs disastrously in the wedding rehearsal. Later that evening, while he is walking through the woods and hopelessly practicing his vows, he puts Victoria’s wedding band on what looks like a branch. Victor quickly discovers this was a big mistake; as it happens, he has put the ring on the skeletal finger of the enchanted Corpse Bride (voice of Helena Bonham Carter), who then whisks him off to a dark and mysterious netherworld where they are now married. Victor is frightened in the land of the dead, and even realizes that he has fallen in love with his true fiancée Victoria, so he searches for a way back to his own world. Directed by Tim Burton in collaboration with animator Mike Johnson, Corpse Bride features a stellar voice cast, including Albert Finney, Christopher Lee, Richard E. Grant, Joanna Lumley, and Danny Elfman (who also composed the film’s musical score).