Bovie Movie

Al Lewis and Willy Clark were once a popular vaudeville comedy team called Lewis and Clark, also known as The Sunshine Boys. After forty-three years as a team, they parted company over eleven years prior on not too friendly terms as Willy wanted to continue his career whereas Al wanted to retire. They have not spoken since. Willy’s nephew, Ben - a talent agent - has been trying to find acting jobs for his uncle since with little success as Willy’s age and declining ability is showing. But a lucrative opportunity comes up when one of the major networks is producing and airing a special on the history of comedy, and want The Sunshine Boys to appear. Ben has to try and convince the comedy team to reunite for just this one gig. Ben has to try and manage the individual quirks and personalities of each of The Sunshine Boys while putting on a good face to the network that there is harmony within The Sunshine Boys comedy team. Ben also has to manage the lives of two men in the twilight of their lives.

After making a striking directorial debut with her screen adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola offers a story of love and friendship blooming under unlikely circumstances in this comedy drama. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a well-known American actor whose career has gone into a tailspin; needing work, he takes a very large fee to appear in a commercial for Japanese whiskey to be shot in Tokyo. Feeling no small degree of culture shock in Japan, Bob spends most of his non-working hours at his hotel, where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) at the bar. Twentysomething Charlotte is married to John (Giovanni Ribisi), a successful photographer who is in Tokyo on an assignment, leaving her to while away her time while he works. Beyond their shared bemusement and confusion with the sights and sounds of contemporary Tokyo, Bob and Charlotte share a similar dissatisfaction with their lives; the spark has gone out of Bob’s marriage, and he’s become disillusioned with his career. Meanwhile, Charlotte is puzzled with how much John has changed in their two years of marriage, while she’s been unable to launch a creative career of her own. Bob and Charlotte become fast friends, and as they explore Tokyo, they begin to wonder if their sudden friendship might be growing into something more.

Acclaimed filmmaker Robert Altman (Short Cuts, Nashville) brings National Public Radio stalwart Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio program to vivid life on the big screen in a intricately woven backstage fable centering on the final performance of a fictionalized version of his variety show. As if the result of some strange mass-media fluke, the popular radio program A Prairie Home Companion somehow managed to survive the television age to entertain its audience every Saturday night from the stage of the historic Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN. Week after week, hangdog host Garrison Keillor serves as unflappable emcee to an amiable hodgepodge of radio-friendly acts that include the likes of popular country duo Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) and singing cowboys the Old Trailhands (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly). This is one show where the under-the-line antics are nearly as entertaining as the program itself, though, and in between the efforts of down-on-his-luck private dick and backstage doorkeeper Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) to discover the true identity of a mysterious blonde (Virginia Madsen) and aspiring teen singer Lola (Lindsay Lohan) to find her true voice before a live audience, there’s still plenty of fun and mystery to be had at the old Fitzgerald before the final curtain falls on A Prairie Home Companion.

Hollywood send-up. No-name actors are making a low-budget period drama called “Home for Purim,” when an anonymous post on the Internet suggests that one performance is Oscar-worthy. Then, two more cast members get Oscar-related press: buzz in “Variety” and appearances on TV prompt the studio executives to insist on changes in the script in anticipation of a blockbuster. Jump ahead a few months to the days before Oscar nominees are announced: just the possibility of a nomination has changed the actors’ lives. Agents, publicists, make-up artists, local celebrity reporters, and other bit players round out the backstage ensemble. Hooray for Hollywood!

They’ve kept television viewers laughing for nearly 20 years, and now the most popular animated family on the small screen makes the leap into theaters as Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart, ad Maggie embark on their first-ever feature-length adventure. Directed by David Silverman and written by a whole host of Simpsons veterans including Matt Groening and James L. Brooks, The Simpsons Movie also features special guest appearances by Albert Brooks among others.

Lethal Weapon 2 reteams Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as, respectively, “loose cannon” LA detective Martin Riggs and Riggs’ partner, the cautious family man Roger Murtaugh. The villain this time is a South African diplomat (Joss Ackland) who doubles as a drug dealer. Though Riggs knows what’s going on thanks to characterless character witness Joe Pesci, he can’t touch the villain because of “diplomatic immunity.” After perils too numerous to mention, Riggs and Murtaugh shoot it out with the heavies on the deck of a South African cargo ship. Lethal Weapon 2, of course, contains as one of its comic high-points a now famous suspense scene: Mel Gibson agonizingly attempting to extricate a terrified Danny Glover from a booby-trapped toilet seat. Gibson, Glover, Donner and Joe Pesci would be reunited three years later for Lethal Weapon 3 and in 1998 for Lethal Weapon 4.

Steven Spielberg's action thriller Minority Report comes to DVD from DreamWorks in this single disc edition. Presented with a widescreen anamorphic transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound in English. Subtitles are available in English, French, and Spanish. Closed captions are also accessible. Extra features include the making of featurette "Minority Report: From Story to Screen," along with a photo gallery, production notes, and biographies for the cast and crew. This is the scaled-down release of the film; those interested in bonus material are advised to check out the Special Edition two-disc set released by DreamWorks in 2002.

Shawn Levy directs the family-oriented comedy Cheaper by the Dozen, a loose remake of the 1950 film starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, which was itself based on a novel. Tom (Steve Martin) and Kate Baker (Bonnie Hunt) have made many sacrifices in their professional lives in order to raise their 12 children. When Tom is offered a job as a Division I college football coach, he moves the entire pack to a suburb of Chicago. This move shakes up the whole family, especially when Kate’s memoirs get published and she takes off on a book tour. The lack of parental guidance creates problems for all the Baker kids, particularly handsome jock Charlie (Tom Welling), fashion plate Lorraine (Hilary Duff), and grown child Nora (Piper Perabo). Ashton Kucher stars in a cameo role as Nora’s actor boyfriend, Hank.