Bovie Movie

Love, treachery, and broken furniture are the hallmarks of this rollicking action drama. Dalton (Patrick Swayze) has a Ph.D., but rather than make a living teaching Socrates at some university, he’s opted to become a top-drawer “cooler” — an expert barroom bouncer who can break up fights without getting himself killed in the process. Dalton is hired to keep the peace at the Double Duce, a rough-and-tumble honky tonk in Jasper, Missouri, where beer-soaked free-for-alls are a nightly event. Dalton is hurt on his first night on the job, and he is patched up by “Doc” Clay (Kelly Lynch), a beautiful woman working as the town’s physician. Dalton and Doc immediately hit it off, but Dalton learns that another man, Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), already has his eye on her. Wesley is a man used to getting his way; he’s an extortionist and crime boss who has nearly everyone in Jasper under his thumb, and he sets out to teach Dalton a lesson, while Dalton is determined to clean up the town like he breaks up brawls at the Double Duce. Sam Elliott plays Dalton’s mentor Wade, and Red West, a one-time member of Elvis Presley’s “Memphis Mafia,” appears as Webster; Canadian blues-rock guitarist Jeff Healey leads the Double Duce house band.

Directed by Michael Mayer and based on The Hours author Michael Cunningham’s novel of the same name, A Home at the End of the World chronicles the 1980s reunion of childhood best friends Bobby (Colin Farrell) and Jonathan (Dallas Roberts). Where they were once best pals — and teenage lovers — in the suburbs of Cleveland, Bobby has become a charismatic but go-nowhere heterosexual slacker, and Jonathan is now living as an openly gay man in New York City, hoping to serve as father to his eccentric roommate Clare’s (Robin Wright Penn) child. When Bobby impulsively moves to the city to be closer to his former friend, their bonds are tested sooner than anyone would have thought. Bobby falls for Clare, and in doing so, effectively eliminates what would have been Jonathan’s position in the baby’s life. Jonathan temporarily takes off; when his father dies, and he attends the Arizona funeral, Bobby and Clare unexpectedly turn up with the news that she’s expecting. Despite the still-existent tensions, the trio becomes a family unit among themselves, ultimately buying a house in Woodstock, Upstate New York, where they all move together, challenging traditional notions of family, commitment, love, and devotion.

Based on a metaphysical 1978 novel by science fiction and horror author Richard Matheson, this romantic fantasy-drama won an Oscar for its expensive and impressive visual vistas depicting an imaginative afterlife. Robin Williams stars as Chris Nielsen, a doctor who has suffered with his artist wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra) through the devastating loss of their children, Marie and Ian, who were killed in a car accident. Although Annie’s all-consuming depression nearly destroyed their marriage, the couple rebuilt their relationship and are now living out a comfortable middle age. Stopping one night to help a motorist in a wreck, Chris is struck by a car and killed. At first confused about where he is, Chris meets Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a spiritual guide who helps him to realize he’s passed away and that he must move on to the next world. After trying with only limited success to communicate with the devastated Annie, Chris moves on and discovers an afterlife that can become whatever one envisions, where even his pet dog awaits him. What Chris envisions as paradise are the paintings of his wife, and he happily takes up residence there, awaiting the far-off day when Annie will eventually join him. He also meets his children, although they have chosen different appearances than the ones they had in life. Then tragedy strikes when Annie, inconsolable, commits suicide and goes to Hell. Although it is rarely done, Chris insists on traveling there, risking his eternal soul to save the woman he loves. Accompanied part of the way by Albert and a wizened guide called The Tracker (Max von Sydow), Chris finally reaches Annie in Hell, and must convince her of the truth in order to release her from her dark prison.

A man with no memory struggles to make sense of the troubling details that are still stuck in his mind in this psychological thriller. Frank (Val Kilmer) wakes up in a small town in the New Mexico desert with a severe head wound and most of his memory wiped away. However, Frank is somehow convinced that someone is planning to assassinate the President of the United States, and that Chloe (Neve Campbell), the woman who is claiming to be his girlfriend, is some sort of imposter. When Frank learns that the president is indeed passing through town that day, he tries to warn Sheriff Kolb (Sam Shepard) that something sinister if afoot; as it happens, Kolb believes him, though he’s more than a bit busy dealing with a hard-fought election campaign against former Deputy Cash (Noble Willingham). Blind Horizon was screened at the 2004 South by Southwest Film Festival.

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.

After surviving a brutal car wreck, commercial director James Ballard finds himself slowly drawn to a mysterious subculture of people who have transformed automobile accidents into erotic events. Like the J.G. Ballard novel that inspired it, David Cronenberg’s study of the sexual dimension of man’s relationship to technology was a magnet for controversy, drawing a NC-17 rating and criticism from several sources, including studio owner Ted Turner, who attempted to prevent the film’s American release. But though some have leveled charges of pornography, James’ descent into this fetishistic underworld is approached with cold, scientific detachment. Characters like Vaughn, the charismatic group leader who stages recreations of celebrity car crashes, seem more like driven researchers than sexual renegades, which is undoubtedly part of the film’s point. This impression is reinforced by the pristine cinematography by Peter Suschitzsky, which proves particularly haunting during a crucial accident scene, and Howard Shore’s superb score. Far from exploitative, Crash in fact proves less transgressive than the original novel, but is still undoubtedly not for all tastes.

Set amidst the controversy of the handover of the Panama Canal from Panama to America in late 1999, this espionage thriller follows seductive British spy Andrew Osnard (Pierce Brosnan), who has found himself recently banished to Panama. When Osnard stumbles into a tailor shop, he meets Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), a garrulous sort with an unmatched penchant for “fluence” — that is, fabricating wild tales with real-life details. Osnard threatens to expose his shady past, until Pendel agrees to provide him with information about the political situation in Panama. Pendel’s wife Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis) tries to remain unscathed by her husband’s constant follies, which escalate and put him in the midst of international discord, while also threatening the shaky relationship between himself and Osnard, who cannot escape each other’s grasp. Based on John le Carr?’s popular 1996 novel, the film also features Catherine McCormack, David Hayman, and young Daniel Radcliffe, who completed this film before his starring role in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, released later in the year.

Written and directed by Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer, Eurotrip is a teen comedy from the Montecito Picture Company (makers of similar movies Old School and Road Trip). Mainstream teenager Scott (Scott Mechlowicz) forms an online friendship with German student Mieke in order to get a passing grade in his high school German class. When he finds out Mieke is a buxom blonde girl (Jessica B?hrs), he travels to meet her with his pals Cooper (Jacob Pitts), Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg), and Jamie (Travis Wester). The group of randy teens head to Berlin by way of London, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Tom Jones director Tony Richardson might seem a curious choice to direct the contemporary western The Border, but he does his best to emulate Sam Peckinpah. Jack Nicholson stars as an El Paso border guard, saddled with avaricious wife Valerie Perrine. Hoping to stifle her nagging about money matters, Nicholson begins accepting payoffs to allow Mexican aliens to cross the border without interference. This leads to a relationship with a young Mexican mother Elpidia Carillo. Harvey Keitel and Warren Oates lend strong support to this atmospheric tale.

David Mamet writes and directs the political thriller Spartan. Respected Secret Service agent Robert Scott (Val Kilmer) is assigned to the kidnapping case of Laura Newton (Kristen Bell), the missing daughter of a high-ranking political figure. Scott is teamed up with rookie Curtis (Derek Luke). Aided by the FBI and the CIA, the team discovers a human trafficking operation that may lead to Laura’s kidnappers. Meanwhile, political operative Stoddard (William H. Macy) refuses to cooperate with the rescue mission. Scott and Curtis are forced to quit the investigation when the media reports Laura’s death. Believing her to be alive, Curtis is motivated to start up a dangerous unofficial investigation of his own. Spartan premiered at the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2004.