Bovie Movie

Forget everything you know about Little Red Riding Hood; the classic fairy tale gets a new look and a new style in this computer-animated comedy for the whole family. Grizzly (voice of Xzibit) and Stork (voice of Anthony Anderson) are a pair of critter cops who have been called the homey bungalow of Granny (voice of Glenn Close) to investigate a disturbance of the peace. It seems there was an altercation involving Granny, her granddaughter Little Red Riding Hood (voice of Anne Hathaway), a Big Bad Wolf (voice of Patrick Warburton), and a Woodsman (voice of Jim Belushi). However, as the detectives interview the participants and get each individual’s perspective, they learn that Granny isn’t so helpless, Red may have been doing more than just visiting relatives, the Wolf isn’t the predator he’s been cracked up to be, and the Woodman doesn’t have much of an intellectual advantage over the trees he chops down. Hoodwinked also features the voice talents of Andy Dick, David Ogden Stiers, and Chazz Palminteri.

Famed producer Dino De Laurentiis tries to steal the thunder from Jaws, then the top-grossing film of all-time, in this big budget remake of King Kong. (De Laurentiis related his tactics to Tom Snyder: “When Jaws dies, nobody cries. When Kong dies, they all cry.”) Updated to the 1970s, the original Robert Armstrong character is now Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), a big-shot oil magnate from Petrox Oil, looking for new petroleum deposits on a recently discovered Pacific island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) is a counter-culture paleontologist, stowing away on Wilson’s ship, who warns that they are headed for “Skull Island,” where prehistoric monsters still live and roam free. Also along for the ride is Dwan (Jessica Lange, in her film debut), a down-on-her-luck starlet, shipwrecked in the ocean after the sinking of a yacht. She really becomes down-on-her-luck when the group lands on the island and a giant ape, Kong, takes a shine to her. Kong kidnaps her and Dwan takes umbrage when the ape tries to remove her clothes by shouting, “You male chauvinist ape!” But Prescott comes to her aid and rescues her from the gorilla’s big mits. Wilson, seeing money to be made on Kong, locks him in the cargo hold of his ship and transports him to New York City. Once there, Kong manages to escape and wreak havoc upon the beleaguered town, before being compelled to climb up the World Trade Center for sanctuary.

A washed-up actor finds an unlikely path back to the big screen in this offbeat family comedy. Bill Williams (Tom Arnold) is an actor whose career has gone into a severe tailspin ever since his brief fling with fame — a supporting role in the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle True Lies. Sinking into a well of alcohol and depression, Williams unsuccessfully attempts suicide before his agent (Henry Winkler) tells him he’s finally found a project for him. Aaron Roman (Eric Gores) is a teenager with cerebral palsy who loves action movies, especially True Lies. Aaron’s father, Davis Roman (Joe Mantegna), is a very wealthy man — so wealthy that, as a present for his son’s 18th birthday, he’s going to bankroll a professionally shot action movie which will star Aaron. Would Williams be willing to write and co-star in Aaron’s birthday movie? Williams isn’t so sure this is a great idea, even with a million-dollar payday, until he meets Aaron. Charmed by the kid’s pluck and determination, Williams signs on for the world’s most expensive home movie. Williams and producer Susan Mandeville (Linda Hamilton) hire Wayne’s World director Penelope Spheeris to helm the project, and persuade bikini model Arielle Kebbel to appear as Aaron’s love interest, but what started out as strictly a job-for-hire becomes something more as Williams and his fellow cast and crew members get to know their challenged young star. The Kid & I actually was written by co-star Tom Arnold, and Penelope Spheeris directed the film as well as playing herself. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Shaquille O’Neal also appear in cameo roles.

The third pairing of comic actors Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder was much less successful than their previous team-ups, Silver Streak(1976) and Stir Crazy (1980). Wilder plays Dave, the deaf proprietor of a newsstand and employer of blind gambler Wally (Pryor). When Wally’s bookie is shot and killed at the stand, Dave and Wally are arrested for the crime. Since the deaf Dave had his back turned and didn’t see the crime, while the blind Wally only heard it, the clues they have to offer the police are slim: Dave’s glimpse of a shapely leg and Wally’s whiff of a perfume called Shalimar. It turns out the dead man was in possession of a coin that he dropped into Dave’s tip box, which Wally is now carrying. The coin contains a valuable microchip sought by crime baron Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe), for whom hired killer Eve (Joan Severance) and her British partner Kirgo (Kevin Spacey) are working. Posing as lawyers, Eve and Kirgo spring Dave and Wally from jail, leading to a series of misadventures as the coin changes hands and the two sensory-challenged pals attempt to learn who has framed them and why.

One man’s life is thrown into turmoil by picking up a telephone in this claustrophobic thriller. Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is a brash, cynical, and self-centered public relations man who juggles a busy career with both a wife, Kelly (Radha Mitchell), and a mistress, Pamela (Katie Holmes). Stu steps into a phone booth on a busy New York street to make a call to Pamela without Kelly being the wiser, but as soon as Stu hangs up, the phone begins to ring. Curious, Stu picks it up — and a stranger on the other end (voice of Kiefer Sutherland) informs him that if he hangs up the phone, he’ll be shot. The red dot of an infrared rifle scope convinces Stu that the caller means business, and when another man tries to make his way into the booth, he’s shot mere inches from Stu, calling the attention of the police. Captain Ramey (Forest Whitaker) naturally assumes that Stu was the killer, as Stu struggles to find a way to convince the police of what’s happening before more lives are lost, without leaving the booth and putting his own life on the line. At one time proposed as a vehicle for Jim Carrey, Phone Booth was directed by Joel Schumacher, from a screenplay by exploitation icon Larry Cohen.

Tobe Hooper, who directed one of the truly iconic American horror films of the 1970s, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, offers his take on another well-remembered scare-fest of the era with this remake. Steve (Brent Roam) and Nell (Angela Bettis) are a young couple living in Los Angeles who are short on money — she’s just started work as a teacher, while he’s a medical student doing his internship. They rent a flat in the Lusman Arms, a once beautiful but now decaying (and therefore affordable) apartment building managed by the sleazy Byron McLieb (Greg Travis), who tries to pass off the ramshackle accommodations as “charming” and “historic.” Watching over the Lusman Arms beside Byron is Ned (Adam Gierasch), a greasy simpleton who serves as the building’s handyman. Steve and Nell haven’t been living at the Lusman especially long when she notices that a growing number of young women living in the building have been meeting a violent death, and with some help from good-hearted part-time actor “Jazz” Rooker (Rance Howard), she begins looking into the murders and makes some disturbing discoveries about both the building management and her fellow tenants.

Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the Toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions on screen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can’t stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans. Watching these intrigues from the sidelines is Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), Don’s best pal and on-set pianist. Cosmo is promoted to musical director of Monumental Pictures by studio head R. F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) when the talking-picture revolution commences. That’s all right for Cosmo, but how will talkies affect the upcoming Lockwood-Lamont vehicle “The Dueling Cavalier”? Don, an accomplished song-and-dance man, should have no trouble adapting to the microphone. Lina, however, is another matter: put as charitably as possible, she has a voice that sounds like fingernails on the blackboard. The disastrous preview of the team’s first talkie has the audience howling with derisive laughter. On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin’ in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM’s catalog of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs — You Were Meant for Me, You Are My Lucky Star, The Broadway Melody, and of course the title song — the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made.

Maverick American filmmaker Robert Altman takes a witty and absorbing look at the foibles of the British class system in this intelligent murder mystery set in the early ’30s. Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) are a pair of wealthy British socialites who have invited a variety of friends, relatives, and acquaintances to their mansion in the country for a weekend of hunting and relaxation. Among the honored guests are Constance (Maggie Smith), Lady Sylvia’s matronly aunt; Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), William’s cousin who is also a well-known actor and songwriter; and Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), an American film producer who is friendly with Ivor and researching an upcoming project. Observing the proceedings are the domestic staff of the mansion, including imperious butler Jennings (Alan Bates); footmen George (Richard E. Grant) and Arthur (Jeremy Swift); Probert (Derek Jacobi), a valet to Sir William; housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren); Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins), who oversees the kitchen; and Elsie (Emily Watson), a maid. Also on hand are the guests’ personal servants, including Mary (Kelly Macdonald), Constance’s maid; Henry (Ryan Phillippe), Weissman’s valet; and Parks (Clive Owens), a butler. While the servants are required to display a high level of decorum, they are expected to be passive observers who do not comment on what they see, though the gossip among them travels thick and fast once they retire to the servants’ quarters downstairs. And it turns out that there’s plenty worth gossiping about, especially after Sir William turns up dead, and everyone is ordered to stay at the mansion while the police investigate the killing. Gosford Park also features Charles Dance, Tom Hollander, Natasha Wightman, and Ron Webster; the screenplay was written by Julian Fellowes, based on a story by Altman and co-star Bob Balaban.

After making a striking directorial debut with her screen adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola offers a story of love and friendship blooming under unlikely circumstances in this comedy drama. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a well-known American actor whose career has gone into a tailspin; needing work, he takes a very large fee to appear in a commercial for Japanese whiskey to be shot in Tokyo. Feeling no small degree of culture shock in Japan, Bob spends most of his non-working hours at his hotel, where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) at the bar. Twentysomething Charlotte is married to John (Giovanni Ribisi), a successful photographer who is in Tokyo on an assignment, leaving her to while away her time while he works. Beyond their shared bemusement and confusion with the sights and sounds of contemporary Tokyo, Bob and Charlotte share a similar dissatisfaction with their lives; the spark has gone out of Bob’s marriage, and he’s become disillusioned with his career. Meanwhile, Charlotte is puzzled with how much John has changed in their two years of marriage, while she’s been unable to launch a creative career of her own. Bob and Charlotte become fast friends, and as they explore Tokyo, they begin to wonder if their sudden friendship might be growing into something more.

The life and sordid, untimely death of Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane are explored by director Paul Schrader in this biopic, which marks one of the few times the filmmaker has not scripted his own film. Auto Focus chronologically traces the meteoric rise of Crane’s show business career, beginning with his early success as a jokey deejay on Los Angeles morning radio in the early ’60s. A devout family man, Crane lives in Southern Californian comfort with his wife Anne (Rita Wilson) and their young children, relishing the modicum of celebrity his job provides him. His life begins to change, however, when his agent Lenny (Ron Leibman) proposes that he take a breakthrough role on the CBS POW-camp sitcom Hogan’s Heroes. Initially reluctant to take the job, Crane signs on with the production and, to his and everyone else’s surprise, the show becomes a smash hit. With celebrity comes a new set of friends, and Crane falls in with audio-visual guru John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a Sony sales rep who spends his days setting up home entertainment systems for the Hollywood elite, and his nights cruising strip clubs for anonymous sexual encounters. Already a pornography buff, Crane starts using his fame to secure him and Carpenter an endless parade of affairs, which they videotape and then obsessively review. It isn’t long before Anne demands a divorce, and Crane marries his Hogan’s co-star Patti Olsen (aka Sigrid Valdis, here played by Maria Bello), who’s more accepting of his escapades. When the sitcom is canceled, however, Crane has trouble securing acting jobs, and recedes further and further into his life of amateur porn with Carpenter. Auto Focus premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals before its art-house run in the fall of 2002.