Bovie Movie

In 1950, most Americans had only a passing familiarity with the game of soccer, even though it was the world’s most popular sport, and few athletes in the United States played the game with any particular degree of expertise. However, when an invitation was extended to the United States to participate in the World Cup tournament in Brazil — the international soccer championship held every four years — Bill Jeffrey was determined that America participate. In less than two weeks, Jeffrey assembled a team comprised mostly of players from St. Louis (where soccer had developed a small but loyal following) and the East Coast (where the game gained a foothold on college campuses), with immigrants from Haiti, Portugal, and Scotland filling out the ranks. Against all odds, the Americans not only made it to the World Cup games, but defeated the British team (favored by many to win the championship) in the greatest upset of the 1950 games. The Game of Their Lives is a sports drama based on the remarkable true story of the 1950 United States team, featuring John Rhys-Davies as Bill Jeffrey, Wes Bentley as team leader Walter Bahr, Gerard Butler as goalie Frank Borghi, Jimmy Jean-Louis as Joe Gaetiens, a dishwasher born in Haiti who found his way onto the team, and Patrick Stewart as a journalist covering the games. David Anspaugh, who made the acclaimed basketball drama Hoosiers, directed.

Twenty-two people become unwitting participants in a tragic and defining moment of the 1960’s in this period drama from actor and director Emilio Estevez. It’s early June in 1968, and the California presidential primary elections are occupying the minds of many in the Golden State, with Robert F. Kennedy in a close race against Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey. The Kennedy campaign staff has set up camp at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, while the staff and guests become observers as the brother of fallen president John F. Kennedy sets out to pick up where his sibling left off. Paul (William H. Macy) is the manager of the Ambassador, and his wife Miriam (Sharon Stone) is a hairdresser who runs’s the hotel’s beauty salon. Angela (Heather Graham) is a receptionist working the hotel’s switchboard who has been sleeping with Paul behind Miriam’s back. Timmons (Christian Slater) is in charge of the hotel’s restaurant and catering department, and makes no secret of his dislike of the African-Americans and Latinos under his employ. Miguel (Jacob Vargas) and Jose (Freddy Rodriguez) are two young Chicanos on the kitchen staff who have it in for Timmons, while Robinson (Laurence Fishburne) is an older black man who counsels them on dealing with their rage. Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) sings in the hotel’s cocktail lounge and has a serious problem with alcohol; her husband Tim (Emilio Estevez) is a Kennedy supporter and also her manager, and he’s nearing the end of his rope in dealing with her problem. William (Elijah Wood) is a young man desperate to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam; Diane (Lindsay Lohan) is a pretty young woman dating William’s brother who agrees to marry him so William can avoid being drafted, though William is clearly infatuated with her while she considers this a marriage in name only. John Casey (Anthony Hopkins) is one of the owners of the Ambassador, and Nelson (Harry Belafonte) is an old friend who works at the hotel. And Jack (Martin Sheen) is a wealthy Kennedy campaign financier who is married to Samantha (Helen Hunt), an attractive but much younger woman. Bobby also features Joshua Jackson, Nick Cannon and Shia LaBeouf as young Kennedy campaign volunteers, while Ashton Kutcher, Joy Bryant, Kip Pardue and Mary Elizabeth Winstead also highlight the supporting cast.

The late cinema historian William K. Everson once wrote an article titled “Movies Out of Thin Air”, referring to films that were comprised almost exclusively of stock footage from earlier productions. A prime example of this sort of patchwork entertainment is the 1939 Paramount production Geronimo, which though advertised and distributed as an “A” picture was largely and economically cobbled together from existing film vignettes. Essentially a western remake of Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), the film concentrates on the rocky relationship between crusty Cavalry general Steele (Ralph Morgan) and his shavetail lieutenant son (Richard Cromwell). The boy is taken under the wing of kindly Captain Starrett (Preston Foster), who is also occupied with bringing renegade Indian warrior Geronimo (played by Native American actor Chief Thundercloud, unbilled despite his title-character status) to justice. The fly in the ointment is treacherous gunrunner Gillespie (delightfully played as a snivelling coward by Gene Lockhart) who for a price agrees to help Geronimo decimate the local white population. Nominal heroine Ellen Drew has one of the least demanding assignments in movie history, spending two-thirds of the film in a coma after being injured in a stagecoach accident! Among the previous Paramount epics represented in Geronimo via stock footage are Frank Lloyd’s Wells Fargo and Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman.

Three stars team up for this unusual look at America’s role in the war against Iraq. In 1991, as the Gulf War winds to a close, three American servicemen find themselves happy to have achieved victory but wondering about the ultimate importance of what they’ve done (especially since Saddam Hussein is still in power). Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) is a decorated Vietnam veteran and special forces officer with two weeks to go before he retires; Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) has a new baby at home; and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is probably just going to end up back in Detroit. So when one of them comes across a map that seems to point out where Saddam’s forces have stashed a large cache of gold they stole from Kuwait, they decide to follow the trail and take some of the war booty for themselves. However, the deeper they journey into Iraq, the more they see of the consequences of America’s policies in the Middle East. Although President George Bush and the American military urged Iraqi citizens to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and pledged their support to a people’s movement against the leader, Iraqis found that when they took to the streets against Saddam, the United States did not back them up, and the loss of Iraqi lives was fearsome. When Gates, Barlow and Elgin become aware of what’s happening, they’re torn between their desire to grab the fortune they came for and the demands of their conscience to help the people they came to liberate. Three Kings was directed by David O. Russell and marked a significant change of direction after his dark-humored relationship comedies, Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster.

The DVD of Goodfellas has got to be one of the very first DVDs ever released by Warner Brothers because they make a critical error in the release. While many films offer widescreen on one side and full screen on the other, this film offers only one version — a widescreen film broken into two sides. Viewers have to flip the DVD over to watch the second half of the film; 19 chapters are on side A and the last 15 chapters are on side B. Goodfellas is a classic film, and the DVD offers a great video transfer and excellent Dolby Digital 5:1 Surround, but no DVD fan will accept the two-sided format. In terms of extras, there are very few, limited only to theatrical trailers, production notes, and cast bios. For many, this Martin Scorsese classic is a must-have for any collection, but those who can wait for a future, corrected release of this film are better off watching the widescreen VHS tape. Language option in English and French and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

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.

Two guys find out the hard way that sneaking into the wrong party can cause serious problems in this comedy. Jeremy Klein (Vince Vaughn) and John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) are a pair of longtime friends who work for a law firm, helping contentious couples mediate their divorces. Their job has given them a cynical attitude about marriage, and as a hobby each weekend the two make a point of crashing weddings reception, where they load up on free food and booze and try their luck at seducing the bridesmaids. When William Cleary (Christopher Walken), the nation’s Secretary of the Treasury and a possible candidate for the Presidency, announces his daughter is to wed, the nuptials are billed as the social event of the year, and Jeremy and John decide they must attend the reception. However, John makes the mistake of falling head over heels for Claire (Rachel McAdams), the bride’s sister, while Jeremy attracts the attentions of a woman he’d prefer not to be involved with, and soon their romantic peccadilloes get them in very hot water.

When a pair of ultra-competitive clerks at a discount super store discovers that a beautiful, newly-transferred cashier has a reputation for only dating employees who have won the coveted Employee of the Month award, their desperate efforts to earn the title and get the girl lead to a hilarious war of one-upmanship in this winner-takes-all comedy starring Dane Cook, Jessica Simpson, and Dax Shepard. Zack Bradley (Cook) and Vince Downey (Shepard) have been working at the cavernous Super Club for ten years and counting, but while the ambitious Vince has advanced to the position of head cashier and landed 17 consecutive “E of M” awards, laid-back Zack is content to simply sit back and enjoy the company of his fellow box boys. Longtime rivals whose conflicting attitudes as to what constitutes success has led to more than a few conflicts, Vince and Zack find their bitter battle for Super Club supremacy coming to a head when attractive new employee Amy (Simpson) transfers over from another store. When word quickly spreads that Amy only has eyes for the cream of the crop, slacker Zack attempts to clean up his act and break free from his box boy roots while uptight Vince tries to impress by maintaining his top dog position and keep cool in the face of competition.

A South African mercenary and a Mende fisherman find their fates forever intertwined as they embark on a quest to obtain a rare and highly coveted pink diamond in director Edward Zwick’s frantic adventure drama. Ripped from his family farm and forced to toil away in the sweltering South African diamond fields, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) discovered an extraordinary rough stone of immeasurable value. Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a hired gun who specializes in the sale of so-called “blood diamonds” that are used to finance rebellions and terrorist organizations, and is currently serving time for smuggling. As a bloody civil war rages in Sierra Leone and Archer learns that Vandy has safely hidden the diamond in a place where no one would ever suspect, the pair enlist the aid of disillusioned American journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) in recovering the treasure that has the power to save Vandy’s family and provide the desperate Archer with a much-needed chance for redemption.

The mysterious and unexpected death of an iconic Hollywood star may be just the tip of an iceberg of scandal in this show biz drama based on a true story. George Reeves (played by Ben Affleck) was a journeyman actor who had played a small role in Gone With The Wind and appeared on screen with the likes of James Cagney, Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich, but his career was not exactly booming when he was cast as comic book hero Superman in a 1951 B-movie, Superman and the Mole Men. A year later, the producers of the movie launched a syndicated Superman television series with Reeves returning as the Man of Steel. The show became a major hit, and Reeves was a star at last. However, on June 16, 1959, to the shock of many, Reeves was found dead of a gunshot wound. Police soon declared Reeves’ death a suicide and closed the case, but his mother (Lois Smith) refused to believe her son took his own life, and hired Louis Simo (Adrian Brody), a private detective, to find out the truth about her son’s passing. Simo found many Hollywood insiders did not care to cooperate as he researched the Reeves case, but his digging uncovered plenty of evidence suggesting the actor did not take his own life, and he also revealed one of Reeves’s deepest secrets — while he was engaged to marry a pretty young starlet, Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney), Reeves was also carrying on an affair with the beautiful Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), the wife of Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), a powerful and ill-tempered executive at MGM. While the producers of Hollywoodland based their story on factual accounts of the investigation into the death of George Reeves, they were denied permission to use the Superman logo and the familiar introduction to the Adventures of Superman television show by the respective copyright holders.