Bovie Movie

The made-for-cable musical satire Reefer Madness is based on the award-winning play of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the notorious — and deliciously awful — 1936 anti-marijuana film originally titled Tell Your Children. A smarmy lecturer (Alan Cumming in the first of his three roles in the film) arrives in a typical small town of the late ’30s to warn the populace of the dangers of the “evil weed,” bringing along a lurid propaganda film to dramatize his message. In broad, unsubtle, and hilarious strokes, the movie-within-a-movie shows how even a squeaky-clean pair of highschoolers named Mary Lane (Kristen Bell) and Jimmy Harper (Christian Campbell) can become hopeless dope addicts by succumbing to the lure of marijuana. Reefer Madness is not only a savage skewering of the original black-and-white movie (some of the musical’s campiest lines are taken directly from the earlier script!), but also a devastating attack on what playwrights Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney consider to be the real reason that the 1936 movie was made: to frighten the public out of their wits in order to keep them under the thumb of an oppressive government. Thus, the musical manages to take a number of not-so-veiled swipes at xenophobia, racism, McCarthyism, the Bush Administration’s Homeland Security policy, and even the recent FCC clampdown on “offensive” TV fare (one of the film’s highlights is a garish nightclub number featuring Jesus Christ). The ebulliently staged songs include “The Stuff,” “Down at the Ol’ Five and Dime,” “Lonely Pew,” “Listen to Jesus Jimmy,” “Mary Jane/Mary Lane,” “The Brownie Song,” “Tell ‘Em the Truth,” and the title number. Officially titled Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, this film first aired April 16, 2005, on the Showtime cable service.

A romantic and sentimental comedy set at the turn of the 19th century, An Ideal Husband delves into themes of love, passion, and betrayal among the aristocracy. Sir Robert Chiltern (Jeremy Northam), a brilliant politician and a perfect gentleman, is the ideal husband for the charming Lady Chiltern (Cate Blanchett). They have a widely envied marriage until charming Mrs. Cheveley (Julianne Moore) appears with the intention of revealing a dark secret from Chiltern’s past. When his world seems to be falling apart, Chiltern turns to his lifelong friend Lord Arthur Goring (Rupert Everett), the most eligible bachelor in town. Goring soon finds himself caught up in a web of lies, temptations, and secret liaisons. Furthermore, the persistent charms of Sir Robert’s sister Mabel (Minnie Driver) are becoming a serious threat to his much-cherished bachelorhood. Using political intrigue and clever wit, An Ideal Husband draws a picture of a society struggling with issues still valid today.

Writer/director Nicole Kassell makes her feature film debut with the drama The Woodsman. Co-written by Steven Fechter, the original script won first place at the Slamdance Screenplay Competition in 2001. Kevin Bacon plays Walter, a child molester who gets out of prison after serving a 12-year sentence. He returns to his old town and tries to start over by working at a woodyard. Fortunately, his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt) helps him get a place to live. He even strikes up a relationship with local gal Vickie (Bacon’s real-life wife, Kyra Sedgwick). However, Walter still struggles with his past and the suspicions of co-worker Mary-Kay (Eve) and Detective Lucas (Mos Def). The Woodsman premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the dramatic competition.

Having just recovered from a heart attack, fabled British barrister Sir Wilfred Robards (Charles Laughton) has been ordered by his doctor to give up everything he holds dear-brandy, cigars and especially courtroom cases. Robards’ already shaky resolve to follow doctor’s orders flies out the window when he takes up the defense of Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), a personable young man accused of murdering a rich old widow. The case becomes something of a sticky wicket when Vole’s “loving” German wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich) announces that she’s not legally married to Robards’ client-and she fully intends to appear as a witness for the prosecution! At the close of this film, a narrator implores the audience not to divulge the ending; we will herein honor that request. A delicious Billy Wilder mixture of humor, intrigue and melodrama, Witness for the Prosecution is distinguished by its hand-picked supporting cast: John Williams as the police inspector, Henry Daniell as Robards’ law partner, Una O’Connor as the murder victim’s stone-deaf maid, Torin Thatcher as the prosecutor, Ruta Lee as a sobbing courtroom spectator, and Charles Laughton’s wife Elsa Lanchester as Robards’ ever-chipper nurse (a role especially written for the film, so that Lanchester could look after Laughton on the set). And keep an eye out for that uncredited actress playing the vengeful-and pivotal-cockney. Adapted by Wilder, Harry Kurnitz and Larry Marcus from the play by Agatha Christie, Witness for the Prosecution was remade for television in 1982.

Despite the use in this film of voices dubbed by greats of English theater, the casting of long-haired cats to play the roles of Romeo and Juliet seems somewhat perverse. Nonetheless, the lines are well read, and the movie contains some fine original musical compositions. Among the voices: Maggie Smith, Ben Kingsley, Vanessa Redgrave, and John Hurt.

David Rabe’s popular play of Hollywood immorality and decadence is brought to the big screen by director Anthony Drazan and an all-star cast that includes Sean Penn, Robin Wright-Penn, Kevin Spacey, Meg Ryan, Chazz Palminteri, Garry Shandling, and Anna Paquin. The film is set in the Hollywood Hills and tells the story of Eddie (Penn) a drinking-smoking-snorting-womanizing casting director and his philandering partner-roommate Mickey (Spacey). Along with their buddies Artie and Phil, they sit around and pontificate about the meaning of life — that is, the meaning of their lives, of which there is very little. Eddie is in love with Darlene (real-life wife Wright Penn), but she is also seeing the married Mickey. When Artie brings Eddie and Mickey a “care package” in the shape of a pretty, disillusioned hitchhiker named Donna (Paquin), they take turns throwing her around until, yet again, their own empty pathetic lives preoccupy their paranoid minds. As people and relationships deteriorate everywhere, the guys try to pick Phil by giving him the gift of a washed-up exotic dancer, Bonnie (Ryan). Of course she ends up just more abused than ever as she and the rest of the gang hit rock bottom.

A murder has been committed at the palatial Parisian residence of Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders). All the evidence points to sexy, wide-eyed housemaid Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer). Police inspector Dreyfuss (Herbert Lom) is prepared to make an arrest — and then the gloriously, monumentally inept Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) arrives on the scene. Clouseau may have difficulty getting through the day without falling into ponds, knocking people cold with opened doors, and pocketing flaming cigarette lighters, but his instincts are right on target when he decides that Mme. Gambrelli is being framed by someone else in the Ballon household. Even as the murder victims pile up, Clouseau is determined to prove Mme. Gambrelli’s innocence. As he cuts a bumbling, destructive swath through Paris, Clouseau drives Dreyfuss literally insane. This fact leads to the literally explosive climax, and to the ultimate vindication of Mme. Gambrelli. While we first met Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther, Shot in the Dark is the film that truly established the Clouseau mythos: the festive clumsiness, the convoluted dialogue (”You shot him in a rit of fealous jage!”), the Fractured French (”A beump on zee head!”), the twitching lunacy of poor Inspector Dreyfuss, the unexpected “judo lessons” of Clouseau’s houseboy Kato (Burt Kwouk), and of course the hilariously macabre jokes involving dead or seriously injured bystanders. You’d never know it, but A Shot in the Dark was inspired by a standard three-act stage comedy by Harry Kurnitz, which in turn was adapted from the French play L’Idiote by Marcel Achard.

Second-billed Marilyn Monroe is the blonde in question in this second film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Miss Lorelei Lee, whose philosophy is “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Together with her best human friend Dorothy (top-billed Jane Russell), showgirl Lorelei embarks upon a boat trip to Paris, where she intends to marry millionaire Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan). En route, the girls are bedeviled by private detective Malone (Elliot Reid), hired by Esmond’s father (Taylor Holmes) to make certain that Lorelei isn’t just another gold-digger. When Dorothy falls in love with the poverty-stricken Malone, Lorelei decides to find her pal a wealthier potential husband, and that’s how she gets mixed up with flirtatious diamond merchant Sir Francis Beekman (Charles Coburn) and precocious youngster Henry Spofford III (George “Foghorn” Winslow). Most of the Leo Robin-Jule Styne songs from the Broadway show remain intact, including Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a production number later imitated by pop icon Madonna.

Billy Wilder directs the lighthearted romantic comedy Sabrina, based on the play by Samuel A. Taylor. Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is the simple, na?ve daughter of a chauffeur, Thomas Fairchild (John Williams). They live on an estate with the wealthy Oliver Larrabee (Walter Hampden) and his two sons: workaholic older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) and fun-loving younger brother David (William Holden). Sabrina adores the charming David, but he thinks of her as just a kid. Her father sends her away to Paris for chef school where she meets Baron St. Fontanel (Marcel Dalio), and she returns a worldly, sophisticated woman. David immediately falls for her, but he is already engaged to marry heiress Elizabeth Tyson (Martha Hyer). Sabrina wants to break up the wedding in order to finally catch the man of her dreams, while Linus fights to keep the marriage on in the interest of family business and Mr. Tyson’s (Francis X. Bushman) fortune. In order to keep Sabrina away from David, Linus pretends to court her himself. In doing so, they eventually realize their true feelings for each another.

In this military courtroom drama based on the play by Aaron Sorkin, Navy lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is assigned to defend two Marines, Pfc. Louden Downey (James Marshall) and Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison), who are accused of the murder of fellow leatherneck Pfc. William Santiago (Michael de Lorenzo) at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Kaffee generally plea bargains for his clients rather than bring them to trial, which is probably why he was assigned this potentially embarassing case, but when Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) is assigned to assist Kaffee, she is convinced that there’s more to the matter than they’ve been led to believe and convinces her colleague that the case should go to court. Under questioning, Downey and Dawson reveal that Santiago died in the midst of a hazing ritual known as “Code Red” after he threatened to inform higher authorities that Dawson opened fire on a Cuban watchtower. They also state that the “Code Red” was performed under the orders of Lt. Jonathan Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland). Kendrick’s superior, tough-as-nails Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson), denies any knowledge of the order to torture Santiago, but when Lt. Col. Matthew Markinson (J.T. Walsh) confides to Kaffee that Jessup demanded the “Code Red” for violating his order of silence, Kaffee and Galloway have to find a way to prove this in court. A Few Good Men also features Kevin Bacon as prosecuting attorney Capt. Jack Ross and Kevin Pollak as Kaffee and Galloway’s research assistant, Lt. Sam Weinberg.