Bovie Movie

A frenetic, bloody look at mass murder and the mass media, director Oliver Stone’s extremely controversial film divided critics and audiences with its mixture of over-the-top violence and bitter cultural satire. At the center of the film, written by Stone and Quentin Tarantino, among others, are Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis), a young couple united by their desire for each other and their common love of violence. Together, they embark on a record-breaking, exceptionally gory killing spree that captivates the sensation-hungry tabloid media. Their fame is ensured by one newsman, Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.), who reports on Mickey and Mallory for his show, American Maniacs. Even the duo’s eventual capture by the police only increases their notoriety, as Gale develops a plan for a Super Bowl Sunday interview that Mickey and Mallory twist to their own advantage. Visually overwhelming, Robert Richardson’s hyperkinetic cinematography switches between documentary-style black-and-white, surveillance video, garishly colored psychedelia, and even animation in a rapid-fire fashion that mirrors the psychosis of the killers and the media-saturated culture that makes them popular heroes. The film’s extreme violence — numerous edits were required to win an R rating — became a subject of debate, as some critics asserted that the film irresponsibly glorified its murderers and blamed the filmmakers for potentially inciting copy-cat killings. Defenders argued that the film attacks media obsession with violence and satirizes a sensationalistic, celebrity-obsessed society. Certain to provoke discussion, Natural Born Killers will thoroughly alienate many viewers with its shock tactics, chaotic approach, and disturbing subject matter, while others will value the combination of technical virtuosity and dark commentary on the modern American landscape.

As visually stylish as it is graphically violent, this thriller directed by Luc Besson concerns Mathilda (Natalie Portman), a 12-year-old girl living in New York City who has been exposed to the sordid side of life from an early age: her family lives in a slum and her abusive father works for drug dealers, cutting and storing dope. Mathilda doesn’t much care for her parents, but she has a close bond with her four-year-old brother. One day, she returns from running an errand to discover that most of her family, including her brother, have been killed in a raid by corrupt DEA agents, led by the psychotic Stansfield (Gary Oldman). Mathilda takes refuge in the apartment of her secretive neighbor, Leon (Jean Reno), who takes her in with a certain reluctance. She discovers that Leon is a professional assassin, working for Tony (Danny Aiello), a mob kingpin based in Little Italy. Wanting to avenge the death of her brother, Mathilda makes a deal with Leon to become his protégée in exchange for work as a domestic servant, hoping to learn the hitman’s trade and take out the men who took her brother’s life. However, an affection develops between Leon and Mathilda that changes his outlook on his life and career. Besson’s first American film boasted a strong performance from Jean Reno, a striking debut by Natalie Portman, and a love-it-or-hate-it, over-the-top turn by Gary Oldman. Léon was originally released in the U.S. in 1994 as The Professional, with 26 minutes cut in response to audience preview tests. Those 26 minutes were restored in the director’s preferred cut, released in 1996 in France as Léon: Version Intégrale and in the U.S. on DVD as Léon: The Professional in 2000.

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.

After awakening in a locked and deserted mansion, nine complete strangers are forced into a deadly game of survival in director Steven R. Monroe’s tense tale of dread and deception. Upon learning that the last person standing will be permitted to leave the residence with $5 million, the paranoid prisoners struggle for survival as the evening’s events quickly turn deadly and the body count steadily begins to rise. Dennis Hopper, Kelly Brook, and Peter Capaldi star.

Laura Prepon and Misha Collins star as the murderous pair whose deplorable crimes sent shock waves of terror rippling across Canada in director Joel Bender’s unflinching look at the crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. On the surface Bernardo (Collins) and Homolka (Prepon) were your average everyday Canadian couple; they had a nice house in the suburbs, a dog, lots of friends, and a bright future ahead of them. As Paul is singled out as the prime suspect in a series of particularly vicious rapes and Karla’s sister dies under mysterious circumstances, however, a horrifying truth begins to emerge that will lead the pair down a particularly dark path. Could it be that the manipulative murderer used fear and intimidation to keep his wife silent about the reprehensible atrocities he so casually committed without guilt or remorse, or was Karla Homolka in fact an equal partner who simply used her sociopathic power of manipulation to convince authorities that she truly believed she was in mortal danger all along?

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.

If you met Adolph Hitler when he was just a struggling cartoonist, wouldn’t you have done the world a big favor by murdering him? That philosophical question provides the linchpin of this black comedy. Jude (Cameron Diaz), Pete (Ron Eldard), Paulie (Annabeth Gish), Marc (Jonathan Penner), and Luke (Courtney B. Vance) are five graduate students who are confirmed members of the political left, participate in small-scale activism, and share a house together. One night, Pete is stuck in the middle of nowhere, and Zack (Bill Paxton), a truck driver, gives him a lift home. The housemates are just about to sit down to dinner, so to show his gratitude, Pete asks Zack to join them. However, it soon becomes obvious that Zack doesn’t share the group’s political views, and when he states that he thinks Hitler had the right idea, the argument turns into a fight, with Zack brandishing a knife. The trucker is accidentally killed in the scuffle, and rather than report the death to the police, his body is buried in the backyard vegetable garden. However, the event prompts much discussion among the housemates — if Zack was a hateful bigot, isn’t the world better off without him? And wouldn’t killing other ignorant hatemongers improve society all the more? Before long, the group is having a weekly dinner party in which they invite a special guest — including an anti-environmental activist (Jason Alexander), a right-wing religious leader (Charles Durning), a sexist who doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as rape (Mark Harmon), and a teenager campaigning against sex education in schools (Erin Bryn) — and serve them some wine, which happens to be laced with arsenic. While the group’s attempt at community improvement does wonders for their tomato plants, the recent disappearances eventually attract the attention of the local sheriff (Nora Dunn). The Last Supper was the first feature for director Stacy Title, who won an Academy Award for her short subject Down on the Waterfront; screenwriter Dan Rosen appears in a supporting role as a police deputy.

Guy Ritchie’s sophomore follow-up to his 1998 sleeper hit Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch revisits the previous film’s territory of London’s crime-ridden underbelly, and does so with the same brand of humor and stylish direction that made Ritchie’s first effort a surprise success. With a labyrinthine plot that is ostensibly oriented around a missing diamond, Snatch introduces viewers to three groups of characters intent on retrieving the elusive stone, which has been stolen from an Antwerp jeweler. In the first group are friends and business partners Turkish (Jason Statham, who also supplies the film’s voice-over narration) and Tommy (Stephen Graham), who join up with Mickey (Brad Pitt), an Irish gypsy and boxer. Turkish and Tommy make arrangements with Mickey to take a fall in a match engineered by lunatic gang leader Brick Top (Alan Ford). In another corner resides equally loony Russian gangster Boris the Blade (Rade Sherbedgia), who has asked Jewish gangster Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) to place a bet on the match for him. Boris is also scheming to have Sol (Lennie James), the owner of a pawn shop, rob the place with a couple of dim associates. Meanwhile, Avi (Dennis Farina), freshly arrived in London from New York, hires Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones) to find Franky when he goes missing; it seems that it was none other than Franky who was supposed to be transporting the purloined diamond to New York.

Veteran screen star Tommy Lee Jones makes his directorial debut with the fractured tale of murder and injustice on the U.S.-Mexico border scripted by Amores perros and 21 Grams screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) is a fresh-faced Border Patrol officer in Cibolo County, Texas whose dedication to his new job leaves his lonely wife Lou Ann (January Jones) with little to do but spend her days at the local diner, where she strikes up a friendship with waitress Rachel (Melissa Leo). Despite her own status as a married woman, Rachel is unfulfilled in her marriage and is intimately involved with both rugged rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and local Sherrif Belmont (Dwight Yoakam). Soon after Pete hires Mexican illegal Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) as a ranch hand, the growing bond between the pair is suddenly shattered when, in a moment of panic on a routine patrol, Mike hastily guns down the innocent Melquaides. When an enraged Pete learns that Mike had unceremoniously buried the illegal immigrant in an unmarked desert grave and local authorities opt to overlook the case, he kidnaps the crooked lawman and sets out to ensure that justice is served with or without the involvement of the local police force.

A young man gets a crash course in the madness of war in this fact-based drama from director Sam Mendes. Anthony “Swoff” Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) decides to join the Marines, just like his father and his father before him, and signs on just in time to be sent to Iraq to fight in the Gulf War in 1991. After experiencing the rigors of boot camp, Swofford and his pal Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) are trained to be snipers, and under the leadership of Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx) and Lt. Col. Kazinski (Chris Cooper), the two land in the middle of a desert where they’re up against an enemy they can’t always see under a blazing sun with hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Swofford, Troy, and their fellow soldiers rely on the wits, their sense of humor, and their friendship of their brothers in arms to deal with a situation that doesn’t much resemble what they saw on television at home. Jarhead was based on the memoirs of the real-life Anthony Swofford, who did serve as a sniper in the 1991 Gulf War; the title comes from military slang for a Marine enlistee.