Bovie Movie

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.

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.

Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted streets and the menacing creatures that lurk in the shadows. It’s soon revealed that the chimpanzees had been harboring a deadly virus that sends its victims into a furious, murderous rage, and in the days following the initial exposure, the entire population was nearly wiped out due to the resulting homicidal rampage. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity — or has the deadly “rage” virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet?

A national health care crisis in the United States yields this tense drama from screenwriter James Kearns and director Nick Cassavetes, who experienced a real-life dilemma with his daughter’s congenital heart disease that mirrors the one in this film. Denzel Washington stars as John Q. Archibald, a factory worker facing financial hardship as a result of reduced hours in his workplace. When his young son, Michael (Daniel E. Smith), is stricken during a baseball game, John and his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise), discover that their child is in need of an emergency heart transplant. Although the Archibalds have health insurance, they are informed by hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) that their policy doesn’t cover such an expensive procedure. Unable to raise the money himself, John persuades the hospital’s compassionate cardiac surgeon, Dr. Raymond Turner (James Woods), to waive his lofty fee, but is still left with too much of a financial burden to bear. With no recourse but to take his son home to die, John snaps and holds the staff and patients of the hospital’s emergency room hostage at gunpoint. John is soon a media hero, the focus of intense news coverage, even as police chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) and hostage negotiator Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) try to resolve the situation before it leads to bloodshed.

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.

New Yorkers get a crash course in the more dangerous aspects of moving to the country and buying a “handyman’s special” in this thriller from award-winning director Mike Figgis. Cooper and Leah Tilson (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone) are a wealthy couple who have grown tired of the high stress of life in New York City and are looking to move to someplace with more breathing room. Upstate, they find a mansion in the village of Cold Creek which has fallen into disrepair after it was repossessed. Convinced the house has great possibilities, The Tilsons buy it, and with a little hard work Cooper, Leah, and their two children are soon living in their dream home. Unknown to The Tilsons, the house used to belong to a lifelong Cold Creek resident named Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff), a ne’er-do-well who ended up behind bars. After he’s released from prison, Massie makes it clear to the new owners that he wants his home back, and before long Cooper and Leah begin learning the disturbing truth about the history of the mansion — and that many Cold Creek residents don’t take kindly to new arrivals. Cold Creek Manor also stars Juliette Lewis and Christopher Plummer.

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.

Eight brave sled dogs search for the master who is looking for a way to rescue them in this adventure drama. An American geologist (Bruce Greenwood) flies to Antarctica to participate in a project at the United States Research Base, where he teams up with arctic guide Jerry Shepard (Paul Walker) and his best friend, Cooper (Jason Biggs). The scientist soon discovers that Shepard also has eight other valuable friends — a pack of sled dogs he’s worked with for years, who have rescued him from a number of tight spots. As the three men explore a frozen mountain region, an unexpected accident coupled with a massive storm front forces them to fly to safety, leaving the dogs behind. Shepard is determined to rescue his canine friends, but he has to wait until the weather will allow him to travel back to the mountain, while the dogs struggle against the elements to survive as they attempt to make their way back home. Eight Below was inspired by a true story involving Japanese researchers exploring the Antarctic in 1957; the story was made into the film Nankyoku Monogatari.

Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrilio) in L.A. after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped — and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month’s salary as “commission,” Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody), a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience — it was shown a month after a massive janitor’s strike ground L.A.’s business community to a halt.

James Cox directs the sleazy Hollywood murder tale Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. Using a non-linear plot structure, the film explores different perspectives of the quadruple homicide that occurred on July 1, 1981, in the Hollywood Hills. At the lowest point of his career and the height of his drug addiction, Holmes was implicated in the murders of the Wonderland gang: Ron Launius (Josh Lucas), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Barbara Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner), and Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo). Launius’ wife, Susan (Christina Applegate), was the only survivor. Led by Detective Sam Nico (Ted Levine), the police investigation reveals a dark criminal underworld surrounding Holmes, his disapproving wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), and his innocent teenage girlfriend, Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth). Eric Bogosian stars as notorious Hollywood nightclub owner Eddie Nash. Wonderland premiered at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival.