Bovie Movie

When a pair of bright-but sociopathic teens conspires to commit the perfect murder, a troubled cop teams with her eager new partner to solve the case that left the community in fear and the police without a clue. High school ladies’ man Richard Haywood (Ryan Gosling) and outcast Justin Pendleton (Michael Pitt) have no motive to commit murder, but they soon conspire to choose a random victim and pin the crime on local pot dealer Ray (Chris Penn), under the guise that the police will never suspect them of such a brutal act. Determined Det. Cassie Merriweather (Sandra Bullock) is assigned to the case, and quickly becomes suspicious of the elusive teens despite the doubts expressed by her superiors and her lack of solid evidence. Soon entering into a dangerous test of wills with the increasingly desperate and dangerous teens, her investigation leads her down a disturbing path that will test her skills as a detective and her will to survive.

Superstars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover return with director Richard Donner for Lethal Weapon 3, the third in the phenomenally successful action series. In this film, Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is only eight days away from retirement and his partner Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) once again manages to get them both into hot water with the both LAPD and the bad guys, who this time are Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson) and a gang of hoodlums selling armor-piercing bullets. Joe Pesci returns as the fast-talking schmuck Leo Getz. A new addition to the cast is Rene Russo as Lorna Cole, a sergeant from internal affairs sent to investigate Riggs and Murtaugh, but who ultimately ends up falling in love with the caffienated Riggs.

The second sequel to the 1984 sci-fi action classic, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the first film without the involvement of director James Cameron. Instead, Jonathan Mostow, the man behind Breakdown and U-571, has stepped in to fill the shoes left vacant by Cameron. In addition, the role of John Connor from the second film has been recast, with In the Bedroom’s Nick Stahl taking over for Edward Furlong. Set ten years after the events of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the film finds Connor living on the streets as a common laborer. Sarah Connor, his mother, has since died, and their efforts in the second film have not stopped the creation of SkyNet artificial intelligence network. As he will still become the leader of the human resistance, Connor is once again targeted by a Terminator sent from the future by SkyNet. This new Terminator, T-X (Kristanna Loken), is a female and is more powerful than any of her predecessors. To protect Connor, the human resistance sends a new T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back from the future. Also starring Claire Danes, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had its world premiere when it showed out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

A magazine article about real-life car racing gangs for Vibe becomes this fast-paced automotive thriller from director Rob Cohen. Paul Walker stars as Brian O’Conner, a youthful FBI agent investigating a series of hijackings by going undercover with a street gang led by charismatic Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Caught up in Toretto’s world of gang conflict that is resolved in late-night car races, Spindler starts to sympathize with his chief suspect and falls in love with Toretto’s younger sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). In the meantime, Spindler initially suspects the wrong gang of complicity in the crimes he’s probing, while Toretto remains involved in a forbidden romance, à la Romeo and Juliet, with his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). The Fast and the Furious co-stars Ted Levine, Rick Yune, and Matt Schulze.

A teenage girl learns that reaching for your dreams isn’t always easy in this heartfelt drama with music. Terri Fletcher (Hilary Duff) is a small-town girl with a great love of music and a fine singing voice. Already one of the lead vocalists in her church choir, Terri has also appeared at local nightspots with some help from her older brother. When he tragically dies in an auto accident, Terri becomes all the more determined to make the most of her talent, and she’s elated when she’s accepted as part of a summer study program at one of California’s most prestigious music schools; however, Terri attends over the stern objections of her father. As she tries to hold together her relationship with her family, she finds herself falling for one of her fellow students, Jay (Oliver James), and competing for attention against dozens of kids whose talent rivals her own. Raise Your Voice also features Jason Ritter, Rebecca De Mornay, Rita Wilson, David Keith, and John Corbett.

Point of Origin, produced by HBO, marks the feature directorial debut of accomplished cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (Three Kings, X-Men). The film is based on an actual serial arson investigation that took place in Glendale, CA, in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Ray Liotta stars in the film as John Orr, a skilled arson investigator with a sixth sense for finding the “point of origin,” the place where a fire was started. Orr also has a knack for locating the devices used to start the fires. Keith Lang (John Leguizamo), his ambitious young prot?g?, calls Orr “Professor.” Orr is stumped by a series of big fires, some fatal, which seem to have been set by the same arsonist. A commission is appointed to investigate the case, headed up by ATF agent Mike Matasso (Colm Feore) and fireman Mike Camello (Cliff Curtis). Orr uses his influence to get Lang appointed to the panel. But Matasso and Orr are immediately at odds with each other, as the ATF man seems to resent Orr’s efforts to maintain control of the investigation. Orr is also dealing with his troubled marriage to Wanda (Bai Ling) and is having an affair with the volatile Kate (Illeana Douglas). As he gets deeper into the case, trying to get inside the head of the criminal, Orr begins to worry that the arsonist has some kind of personal involvement with him. Then the commission uncovers a link to an earlier string of fires, and uncovers evidence that the arsonist may actually be a fireman. The actual investigators, Matasso and Camello, have cameos in the film, and Camello also served as one of the film’s technical advisors. These events were also the basis for Joseph Wambaugh’s book Fire Lover: A True Story.

The sophomore film from former music video and commercial director Michael Bay, this fast-paced action yarn featured rapid-fire editing, a cutting-edge rock soundtrack and liberal use of shots awash in a haze of burnished hues, all trademarks of producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Nicolas Cage stars as Stanley Goodspeed, an FBI chemical weapons expert handed a unique assignment. Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris), an insane Marine Corps general, has taken 81 tourists hostage on the abandoned island prison of Alcatraz. He and his men are threatening to bomb San Francisco with deadly gas unless $100 million is paid in war reparations to the families of servicemen killed in covert operations. Goodspeed is teamed with former British spy John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery), the only man ever to escape “The Rock,” as well as a Navy SEAL team. When their military escorts are ambushed, it’s up to odd couple Goodspeed and Mason to break into Alcatraz and stop Hummel. The Rock was the last film produced by Simpson, who died of a drug overdose before the film’s release. Solo, his partner Bruckheimer continued making the sort of glossy, frenetic films for which the duo was famed.

In this action thriller, a master car thief has his skills pushed to the limit. Randall “Memphis” Raines (Nicolas Cage) can steal practically any car that crosses his path. While he has done well in his life of crime, he knows that there’s a short future in theft, and he wants to get out of the business. But his retirement plans are interrupted when his younger brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) gets in trouble with a dangerous crime boss. To get his brother out of harm’s way, Randall agrees to a profitable but risky scheme to steal 50 luxury cars in one night, with the help of several other car thieves, including Sara “Sway” Wayland (Angelina Jolie). A rival group of thieves is trying to pull the same stunt at the same time, and detectives Castlebeck (Delroy Lindo) and Drycoff (Timothy Olyphant) are trying to shut down both operations. Also starring Robert Duvall as Otto Halliwell, and Scott Caan as Tumbler, Gone in Sixty Seconds is a remake of the 1974 low-budget action hit of the same name, best remembered for a 40-minute chase scene in which 90 cars were destroyed.

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.

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.