Bovie Movie

Somewhere in L.A., Peter (Kenneth Branagh), a washed-up British playwright, struggles to duplicate his past glory as he surfs a foul-smelling tide of disenchantment. His wife, Melanie (Robin Wright Penn), manages to maintain an optimistic outlook even as she longs for the baby that her husband is hesitant to help her conceive. When Peter befriends Amy (Suzi Hofrichter), a neighborhood girl who has mild cerebral palsy, their friendship softens him to the idea of fatherhood and propels Melanie’s maternal yearnings into hyperdrive. As if baby fever weren’t enough, Peter is plagued by a seemingly benevolent stalker (Jared Harris), his neighbors’ incessantly noisy dog, and the flighty cast and crew of his latest play.

Completed in mid-1930, Scarface, based on Armitage Trail’s novel of the same name, might have been the first of the great talkie gangster flicks, but it was held up for release until after that honor was jointly usurped by Little Caesar and Public Enemy. Paul Muni stars as prohibition-era mobster Tony Camonte, a character obviously patterned on Al Capone (whose nickname was “Scarface”). The homicidal Camonte ruthlessly wrests control of the bootlegging racket from his boss, Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins), and claims Lovo’s mistress, Poppy (Karen Morley), in the bargain. But while Poppy satisfies him sexually, Tony has a soft spot in his heart only for his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak). The film’s finale is one of the longest and bloodiest of the 1930s, maintaining suspense and concern for the characters involved even though Muni has deliberately done nothing to make Tony likeable to audience. The grimness of Scarface is leavened by a few choice moments of black humor. Forced to leave a stage production of Rain in order to commit a murder, Tony returns to his theater seat and anxiously asks his buddies how the play came out. Some of the film’s funniest moments belong to Vince Barnett as the mentally deficient, illiterate gangster secretary, who at one juncture gets so mad at a caller on the phone that he shoots the receiver. Scarface features a famous “‘X’ Marks The Spot” logo, inspired by news photos of gangland murders: whenever a character is killed, the letter “X” appears on screen in one form or another. Example: When a rival gangster (played by Boris Karloff) is killed at a bowling alley, the camera cuts to his bowling ball knocking down all the pins — a strike, denoted, of course, by an “X.” Producer Howard R. Hughes couldn’t release Scarface until he toned down some of the violence, reshot certain scenes to avoid libel suits, added the subtitle “The Shame of the Nation” to the opening credits, and shoehorned in new scenes showing upright Italian-Americans banding together to wipe out gangsterism. After its first run, Scarface was completely withdrawn from distribution on Hughes’ orders; the film would not be seen again on a widespread basis until it was reissued by Universal in 1979, shorn of 8 of its original 99 minutes.

In the same year that a hit cable television series, The Sopranos, successfully mined the same premise, this comedy about a mobster seeking advice from a psychiatrist was a box office winner for director Harold Ramis. Billy Crystal stars as Dr. Ben Sobel, a New York shrink who’s becoming a little bored with his upscale but neurotic clientele. Into Sobel’s practice comes a guy with legitimate problems, Mafia kingpin Paul Viti (Robert DeNiro), a godfather who is being reduced to tears and panic attacks by stress and his guilt over his beloved father’s assassination. Intimidated but also fascinated by Viti, Dr. Sobel becomes frustrated when his mob boss patient becomes a full-time occupation, as Viti summons the psychiatrist for his professional help at all hours and in all places, even including the doctor’s Florida wedding to TV reporter Laura MacNamara (Lisa Kudrow). In the meantime, a power struggle is brewing with Viti’s long-time rival Primo Sidone (Chazz Palminteri), but Viti begins employing the feel-good self-help jargon and techniques he’s learned from Dr. Sobel to keep his enemy off balance. Just as the therapist and his powerful patient are making breakthroughs, the FBI attempts to persuade Sobel that Viti is going to have him murdered, leading to a nearly lethal misunderstanding.

Film adaptation of street tough Jim Carroll’s epistle about his kaleidoscopic free fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, Jim’s life centers around the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind. A best friend who is dying of leukemia, a coach (”Swifty”) who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an unhealthy appetite for heroin — all of these begin to encroach on young Jim’s dream of becoming a basketball star. Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mother’s mounting concern for her son. He can’t go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin for which he steals, robs and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie, an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim “picked up a game” now and then, is he able to begin the long journey back to sanity.

In 1989, Nino Brown, a small time drug dealer, is convinced by one of his fellow thugs that the wave of the future is in the cocaine derivative, crack. Brown sees potential in crack and sets out to establish himself as chief kingpin by killing off his rivals and even going as far as to take over a whole apartment complex. Out to stop him are undercover cops Scottie Appleton and Nick Paretti. Appleton especially wants to get Nino because of the fact that he murdered Scottie’s mother as part of a gang initiaton. Also involved is Pookie, a former crackhead who wants to bring down Nino as well.

A man in a suit at a Manhattan firm leaves work on Friday; he looks unhappy. He stops at a fortune teller’s for a Tarot reading: “You are not where you belong,” she tells him. That evening he quits his marriage and walks the streets of New York, passing from a classy bar to a gentleman’s club, then to a high-class bordello, a mugging, a pawnshop, and a diner where someone does listen. He shares his insights with her and later with others. Violence, disappointment, and musings entwine as Edmond loses his moorings while believing he’s found them. Where does he belong?

Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is writing a paper on urban legends when she hears about the Candyman (Tony Todd), who was once an ex-slave-turned-artist name Daniel Robitaille, who had an affair his client’s daughter. Robitaille’s right hand was sawn off, he was covered in honey, and stung to death by bees. If anyone says the word “Candyman” five times in a mirror, he’ll appear behind that person, a bloody hook as a replacement for his hand, and kill him. A series of unsolved murders is happening in the Cabrini Green projects and Helen is using this to help with her paper. The residents say the Candyman is to blame, but Helen doesn’t believe it. Until she meets the man with a hook for a hand. Now, he’s begun to murder her friends and no one believes her. Can Helen clear her name and stop the Canydman from killing anyone else?

A model (played by Margaux Hemingway) is raped by her younger sister’s (Mariel Hemingway) teacher. He gets off on a technicality and proceeds to attempt to rape the younger sister.

While pursuing a suspect one night, Chicago Police officer Sharon Pogue (Jennifer Lopez) nearly becomes the victim of a fatal ambush until a mysterious stranger, Catch (Jim Caviezel) intervenes, disarms the assassin and saves Sharon’s life. Is it a stroke of luck? A twist of fate? Or just a concerned citizen who happened to pass by at the right time and wasn’t afraid to get involved? Maybe, But Sharon and Catch have met once before. As the two fall in love, they discover the truth about each other and are forced to deal with the secrets from their past.

In an era when Americans were in great need of heroic figures to help them forget their troubles, SEABISCUIT comes to the rescue. The picture relates a moving story of friendship and devotion in rehabilitating the main characters’fractured lives, as it interweaves the interactions between horse, jockey, trainer and owner and their adoring fans. The film accurately portrays the real people and events of those troubled times and how Seabiscuit “fixed us, every one of us.”