Bovie Movie

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.

Filmmaker Larry Clark reunites with Kids screenwriter Harmony Korine, with some additional directorial assistance from cinematographer Ed Lachman, for this look at a group of troubled teens and their guardians living in Southern California. Ken Park takes its name from the skate park where an ancillary character takes his own life in the film’s opening moments, and then proceeds to chronicle the somewhat-interrelated lives of his classmates. The audience is introduced to Tate (James Ransome), a young man living in relative misery with his board-game-playing grandparents. Also tormented by his living situation is Claude (Stephen Jasso), a quiet, shy teen constantly henpecked by his brutish father (Wade Andrew Williams). Meanwhile, the vapid Shawn (James Bullard) occasionally trades verbal spars with his mother, in between leaving the house for sex sessions with his girlfriend’s mom. Finally there is Peaches (Tiffany Limos), living alone with her devoutly religious father as she covertly experiments with her boyfriend (Mike Apaletegui). Though Ken Park played at such festivals as Toronto and Telluride in the fall of 2002, it would languish on the shelf for months and months afterward, as its explicit content made finding a U.S. distributor near-impossible.

Bobby Long (John Travolta) is a washed up former literature professor with a voracious drinking habit. He lives in a rundown house in New Orleans with Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht of The Recruit), his former star pupil, also an alcoholic. Lawson is allegedly writing a novel about Bobby. Their depressive little corner of the world is disrupted when Lorraine, the beloved eccentric singer who owns their house, dies. Her teenage daughter, Pursy (Scarlett Johansson), who hasn’t seen her mother in years, arrives in town too late for the funeral, and crashes at the house. Afraid of being thrown out on the street, Bobby convinces Lawson to tell Pursy that the house has been left to all three of them. Pursy, having little else to do, decides to move in, and starts cleaning up the place, making it her own. Lawson is involved with Georgianna (Deborah Kara Unger), who works at the local bar, but he quickly develops a crush on the comely Pursy. The cantankerous Bobby seems determined to drive the girl away. As Pursy settles into the diverse little community, all of Lorraine’s old friends tell her how much she looks like her mother, and she begins to uncover some startling truths about her family history. A Love Song for Bobby Long is based on the novel Off Magazine Street, by Ronald Everett Capps. It was adapted for the screen and directed by Shainee Gabel, who co-directed the documentary Anthem.

Sometimes a family title, among the nobility of England, goes to the “collateral” heirs — people not in the direct line of decent, like cousins, great-nephews and the like. On rare occasions, these people are not even aware that they are about to be elevated to the House of Lords, and they have been living more-or-less ordinary lives. In this comedy, the family which lacks direct heirs is the Royal Family of England — as all of the likely heirs have died one after the other in swift succession. In this comedy, the “collateral heir” is an exuberant, fence-busting All-American slob (and pretty good rock n’ roll musician) by the name of Ralph (John Goodman). Unknown to him, his grandmother had an affair with a royal prince. Ralph’s a good guy, and eager to please. He recognizes the importance of the royal hoopla to England and works very hard to fit in as its new designated king. He is assisted by the ever-unctuous, very serious family factotum Willingham (Peter O’Toole). The trouble is, he doesn’t have instincts for politics English-style, and he is constantly “putting a foot wrong,” as they might say. The most difficult situation for him is when he develops a new love interest, and she’s not “acceptable” to the upper crust. In addition to being hounded by the tabloids, he finds that “the good of the state” requires that he drop his new girlfriend. Things really come to a head just before Ralph’s coronation as king. Reviewers generally loathed this feel-good comedy, but audiences seem to have enjoyed it tremendously, and it has done well in video and TV airings.

Russian filmmaker Vadim Perelman makes his feature-film debut with the psychological drama House of Sand and Fog, based on the novel by Andre Dubus III. Ben Kingsley plays Massoud Amir Behrani, an Iranian immigrant living the United States. Even though he was a high-ranking official in Iran, he works several menial jobs in order to provide his wife, Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and his son, Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout), with an apartment in California. He buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send Esmail to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy (Jennifer Connelly). After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer (Frances Fisher) and befriends a police officer (Ron Eldard). Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.