Bovie Movie

Borrowing liberally from the French film La Totale, this is an action picture, domestic comedy, and political thriller rolled into a crowd-pleasing ball of entertainment. Producer James Cameron wrote and directed the film. Henry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a workaholic computer salesman neglecting his mousy wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), a legal secretary. Simon (Bill Paxton) seduces Helen with the lie that he is a secret agent; he’s really a used car salesman. Harry suspects that Helen is cheating on him, and he sends a few colleagues to kidnap them. Helen then discovers that Harry is a secret agent by night, working for a shadowy group called the Omega Sector. Harry and his partner Gib (Tom Arnold) are trying to find four nuclear warheads that have disappeared from a former Soviet republic.

Three brothers who would argue that crime does pay have a hard time getting their fair share of the proceeds in this witty action thriller from Australia. Dale Twentyman (Guy Pearce) and his brothers, Mal (Damien Richardson) and Shane (Joel Edgerton), are serving time together in prison for robbery. Dale is the brains and the cool head of the group, Mal is the eager-to-please nice guy, and Shane is something of a loose cannon. Dale and his siblings are eager to get out of jail, and their lawyer, Frank Malone (Robert Taylor), has pulled a deal that could pare some time off their sentences, though the arrangement is strictly off the books. Mick Kelly (Vince Colosimo) and Jack O’Riordan (Paul Sonkkila) are a pair of crooked police detectives who have arranged with Malone to give the Twentyman brothers day passes from jail in order to pull bank robberies, with the siblings’ share held in escrow until they’re released. Dale thinks something a bit off in this operation, and his suspicions are confirmed when Malone tells the brothers after they’re granted their early release that they won’t get their money until they pull one last job — an ambitious robbery at a Melbourne race track on the day of the nation’s biggest horse race. Dale is convinced he smells a rat — especially since he has good reason to suspect that Malone is having an affair with his wife, Carol (Rachel Griffiths). The Hard Word marked the directorial debut for writer/director Scott Roberts.

An American woman discovers that Paris truly is the city of love — though not in the manner she expected — in this romantic comedy. Kate (Meg Ryan) is desperately afraid of flying, so when her fianc?e Charlie (Timothy Hutton) flies to Paris on business, she must stay behind. Kate has been having second thoughts about her impending marriage, but that changes when Charlie calls her to say that the engagement is off — he’s met a beautiful French woman named Juliette (Susan Anbeh), and he’s fallen in love. Determined to win Charlie back, Kate confronts her fears and hops on board the next flight to Paris, where she finds herself seated next to Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline), a French thief who stashes some valuable jewelry in her baggage hoping to avoid capture. While Luc simply wants to get his jewels back, he pretends to be willing to help Kate find Charlie and win him back in order to keep her luggage out of harm’s way, but to his surprise (as well as Kate’s), the two become infatuated as they make their way through the City of Lights. Leading lady Meg Ryan also served as co-producer for this film.

The feature-film debut of multi-talented Clive Barker, this grim and surreal project is based on the writer-director’s own novella The Hell-Bound Heart. The film opens with a chilling prologue in which globe-trotting pervert Frank (Sean Chapman) — a connoisseur of sexual depravity seeking the ultimate sensual experience — purchases a small, intricate puzzle box from an unseen dealer in an unspecified country. Upon solving the puzzle, Frank opens the door to a hellish alternate universe and is promptly torn to ribbons by a network of hooks and chains; his strewn body parts are subsequently collected by the Cenobites — grotesque, S&M-clad denizens of hell. The story continues several years later, when Frank’s brother, Larry (Andrew Robinson), moves into Frank’s abandoned house with his daughter, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), and his new wife, Julia (Clare Higgins). An accident causes some of Larry’s blood to spill on the attic floor, which somehow triggers Frank’s hideous resurrection. His body only half-composed, Frank seeks the tacit assistance of Julia — with whom he had once had a torrid sexual liaison — in restoring him to human form. Still secretly in love with Frank, Julia assists him by seducing men from the town and bringing them back to the house so her undead lover can drain their bodies of blood. Her increasingly furtive behavior arouses the suspicions of Kirsty, who had already moved to an apartment to get away from her despised stepmother. After following Julia and her next potential victim home, Kirsty comes face-to-face with the still incomplete Frank, narrowly escaping with her life…and with the puzzle box. After losing consciousness, Kirsty awakens in the hospital, where she manages to solve the box’s intricate mechanism and summon a trio of Cenobites — including their apparent leader (played by Doug Bradley and dubbed “Pinhead” on subsequent sequels) — who are prepared to claim her. In desperation, Kirsty offers them a bargain in which they agree to spare her soul if she leads them to Frank. Kirsty soon returns home to find Julia with her father… whose behavior has become disturbingly unnatural. Realizing that her father has become Frank’s next victim — and that her uncle is now walking around in his brother’s skin — Kirsty hands Frank over to the Cenobites, who have particularly evil plans for their old friend.

A structural engineer (Anthony Hopkins) and an ambitious young district attorney (Ryan Gosling) become locked in a deadly battle of wits when the former is found innocent in the attempted murder of his wife in director Gregory Hoblit’s tense tale of courtroom mind games. Ted Crawford (Hopkins) is an engineer who lives with his wife Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz) in the couple’s lavish Southern California home. One day, after carefully planning out the details to ensure that there is no way he can be convicted of murder, Ted shoots his wife in a blatant attempt to murder the woman. When head hostage negotiator Rob Nunnaly (Billy Burke) arrives on the scene to speak with Ted, he is shocked to find that the victim of the shooting is in fact his longtime lover. Though Jennifer survives the trauma of being shot in the head at close range, she hovers comatose between life and death as star prosecutor Willy Beachum (Gosling) reluctantly accepts the case while preparing to leave the Los Angeles criminal court system behind for a more promising career at a posh private law firm. Though the D.A. (David Strathairn) vehemently resents Beachum’s lofty plan for departure, the hotshot young lawyer remains convinced that he can expedite the apparently open-and-shut case and be on his way to greener pastures in one week’s time at the very most. Beachum’s swelling ego betrays him, however, as his future boss Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike) begins to turn up the heat and fracture mechanics specialist Ted chooses to represent himself at the trial knowing well that a career spent spotting structural flaws in aeronautical systems has instilled him with just the kind of argumentative skills needed to riddle the swaggering young lawyer’s “foolproof” case with doubt.

The Barefoot Contessa begins at the funeral of Ava Gardner, a former Spanish peasant, cabaret dancer and movie star, who at the time of her death was a full-fledged contessa. Her life story unfolds in flashback recollections from her mourners. Film director Humphrey Bogart recalls how his career was saved when he discovered Gardner on behalf of Howard R. Hughes-like mogul Warren Stevens. Press agent Edmond O’Brien remembers how Ava was wooed and then abandoned by mercurial millionaire Marius Goring, and Italian count Rosanno Brazzi reflects on how he was able to wed the tempestuous Gardner, only to watch his world crumble after revealing on their wedding night that he was “only half a man.” O’Brien received Best Supporting Actor awards at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes in 1954.

A documentary film crew follows the lives of six New Yorkers as their lives unexpectedly intersect — or at least that’s what writer, director, and actor Edward Burns would like you to believe in this comedy-drama that looks at the rocky road of relationships in the Big Apple. After sharing the stories of their earliest sexual experiences with an interviewer, six people are trailed by a cameraman through the course of an average day. Tommy (Edward Burns) is a successful television producer (and unsuccessful novelist) who becomes quickly infatuated when he meets Maria (Rosario Dawson) in a video store. Maria is a teacher at an upscale private school who has just gotten out of a bad marriage with Ben (David Krumholtz), a struggling musician with a day job as a doorman. Ben, on the other hand, finds himself attracted to Ashley (Brittany Murphy) when she waits on his table at a coffee shop. Ashley, as it happens, is involved in an affair with Griffin (Stanley Tucci), a dentist who is chronically unfaithful to his wife Annie (Heather Graham). Annie, a real estate agent, also happens to be friends with Tommy, one of her customers, bringing the circle to a close. Shot in only 16 days, Sidewalks of New York marked a return to (relatively) low-budget filmmaking for Edward Burns, who directed two less-than-successful major studio projects following his breakthrough with the independent feature The Brothers McMullen.

A woman discovers that a part of her family history may be more complicated — and more famous — than she ever imagined in this comedy. Thirtysomething Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston), who has spent most of her adult life in New York City, is flying home to California with her long time boyfriend, Jeff Daly (Mark Ruffalo), for the wedding of her annoyingly perky younger sister, Annie (Mena Suvari). While Sarah and Jeff have recently announced they’re engaged to be married, Sarah has been having second thoughts, and she isn’t excited about the prospect of spending time with the family where she’s always felt like the odd duck. As Sarah tries to decide what she should do with her personal and professional lives, she turns to her sharp-tongued and still youthful grandmother, Katharine (Shirley MacLaine), for advice, and Katharine shares a little-known bit of family history — that Sarah’s now-deceased mother left her father, Earl (Richard Jenkins), a few days before their wedding and ran off with another man for several days before coming back and marrying Earl. However, after hearing this Sarah is also treated to some long-simmering local gossip about a young man who ran off with a bride-to-be after he was seduced by her mother…and that the story became the basis for the hit movie The Graduate. Sarah begins to wonder, was Katharine the real-life Mrs. Robinson of this story? And if it’s true, who was the man who had affairs with Sarah’s mother and grandmother? Was it dashing and wealthy family friend Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner), who has also turned Sarah’s head? Rumor Has It… was produced from an original screenplay by Ted Griffin; Griffin was originally set to direct the film, but shortly after production began he was replaced, with Rob Reiner taking over the project.

Based on the best-selling novel by James Ellroy, this award-winning crime drama explores both the dark side of the Los Angeles police force and Southern California’s criminal underbelly in the early ’50s, when Hollywood was still seen as America’s capital of sophistication, glitter, and glamour. Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) is the head of the LAPD and is loyal to his officers and eager to turn a blind eye to violence or corruption within his department, as long as it’s the “bad guys” who are getting hurt. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a police detective whose violent and cynical nature is often at war with his basic sense of decency and justice. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is a beat cop-turned-detective whose strict by-the-book philosophy and willingness to blow the whistle on other officers is balanced by a shrewd and opportunistic understanding of the internal politics of the department. And Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a flashy “Hollywood” detective who serves as technical advisor for the TV series Badge of Honor. He is also in cahoots with Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito), publisher of the scandal sheet Hush Hush, who throws kickbacks to Vincennes in exchange for being brought along when showbiz figures get busted. White, Exley, and Vincennes find themselves drawn into a tangled and sticky web of violence and betrayal following a multiple murder at a coffee shop that is believed to be part of an effort by Mickey Cohen (Paul Guilfoyle) to consolidate his hold on organized crime in L.A. This lead appears to be connected to the discovery of a bizarre pornography and call-girl ring operated by Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), whose women are given plastic surgery so that they more closely resemble well-known movie stars. White’s role in the investigation is complicated when he falls for Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), one of Patchett’s prostitutes, who is the spitting image of Veronica Lake. L.A. Confidential was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, with Curtis Hanson (who directed) and Brian Helgeland honored for Best Adapted Screenplay and Kim Basinger taking home a statuette as Best Supporting Actress.

A Perfect Murder is based on Frederick Knott’s play Dial M for Murder, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1954. Married to commodities trader Stephen Taylor (Michael Douglas), Emily Bradford (Gwyneth Paltrow) is romantically involved with artist David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen). Aware of this affair, Stephen researches David’s past, visits his loft studio, and informs David that he knows about his aliases, jail sentences, and various cons and scams directed at rich women. Then Stephen offers David $500,000 to murder Emily, and David agrees. The plan is calculated to make the murder look like an accident, but events soon go on an unscheduled course. Enter Detective Mohamed Karaman (David Suchet). Knott’s original play opened June 1952 in London, followed by a New York run that began October 1952. Several books and sources describe how Hitchcock’s film was made in 3-D but neglect to mention that, despite trade screenings in 3-D, Dial M for Murder was originally released in 1954 with ordinary, flat 2-D prints. It was finally shown to audiences in 3-D during the mid-’80s.