Bovie Movie

An outlaw finds his life becoming all the more dangerous when he turns against a gang of criminals in this action drama. Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is a former Special Forces officer who lives on the French Mediterranean and has a lucrative second career as a underworld courier for hire. Martin will deliver anything anywhere, but he has three iron-clad rules - once the plan is in motion it cannot be changed, neither he nor his customers are to ever use their real names, and under no circumstances will he open the package. Martin is hired to make a delivery to a wealthy but unscrupulous American known as Wall Street (Matt Schulze), but after taking possession of the package he realizes that whatever is inside happens to be alive. Breaking his own rule, Martin opens the bag to discover a beautiful Asian woman, Lai (Shu Qi), who is bound and gagged. Lai briefly escapes, but Martin captures her, and delivers her to Wall Street as promised. However, after being given a parcel to deliver by Wall Street, Martin finds out what Wall Street is up to - in partnership with Lai’s father Mr. Kwai (Ric Young), Wall Street is part of a scheme to smuggle Asian illegal aliens into France. Martin’s conscience gets the better of him, and he sets out to rescue Lai and put Wall Street and Mr. Kwai out of business; however, as if this wasn’t enough of a challenge, Martin discovers a French detective, Tarconi (Francois Berleand) has gotten wind of his illegal business. The Transporter was the first English-language feature for Hong Kong-based director Corey Yuen, who along with directing a number of HK action flicks designed fight choreography for several American films.

Based on an actual incident, Steven Spielberg’s first theatrical feature follows the adventures of a Texas outlaw couple striving to keep their family together by any means necessary. Determined not to lose her child to the authorities, Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn) gets her obedient convict husband Clovis (William Atherton) to break out of jail and help her kidnap their baby from its foster parents. With hostage Officer Slide (Michael Sacks) in tow, the fugitives head across the plains to Sugarland, Texas, pursued by a flotilla of cop cars. Even though Slide becomes the couple’s friend, the Law is bent on capturing its criminal quarry. Even though it was greeted with strong reviews, and Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Spielberg won the screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival, The Sugarland Express flopped. The young audience that had embraced the challenging tonal shifts of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider in the late 1960s was no longer so reliably drawn to narrative uncertainties in 1974. The massive success of Spielberg’s next picture, the popcorn thriller Jaws (1975), would confirm his suspicion that downbeat films were no longer the way to popular approval.

A lonely little girl makes a very unusual friend — a ukulele-playing alien who likes to toss around small automobiles — in this antic animated comedy from Walt Disney Studios. Lilo (voice of Daveigh Chase) is a young Hawaiian girl being raised by her teenaged sister Nani (voice of Tia Carrere) after the unexpected death of their parents in an auto accident. While Nani tries to hold their household together, Lilo is a child with unusual interests and a distinctive sense of humor, which makes it hard for her to bond with her peers, as well as her big sister. Nani decides Lilo might be happier if she had a pet, so the sisters go to the animal shelter to adopt a dog; however, the critter which catches Lilo’s fancy is a fuzzy blue creature she names Stitch (voice of Chris Sanders). Nani isn’t so sure Stitch is really a dog, and it turns out she’s right; Stitch is actually “Genetic Experiment 626,” a mutation created by extraterrestrial mad scientist Dr. Jumba (voice of David Ogden Stiers) to be used a weapon. Stitch is an intelligent but gleefully destructive little creature with superhuman strength who has escaped to Earth and crash-landed in the Hawaiian islands, but Lilo sees him simply as a fellow misfit and attempts to teach him to behave like her favorite American icon, Elvis Presley. Meanwhile, Nani struggles to keep Lilo and Stitch on their best behavior as stern social worker Cobra Bubbles (voice of Ving Rhames) tries to determine if Nani is fit to raise a child, while Dr. Jumba and Pleakley (voice of Kevin McDonald) attempt to capture “Experiment 626″ and bring him back home. Chris Sanders, who provides the voice of Stitch, also co-wrote and co-directed the film, which features numerous Elvis Presley tunes on the soundtrack, as well as a new recording of “Burning Love” by country star Wynonna.

John Dahl directed and co-wrote (along with his brother Rick Dahl) this quirky and energetic film noir that, after a well-received screening at the Toronto Film Festival, was consigned to oblivion before resurfacing on cable television. When the owner of a San Francisco movie theater, who was a big fan of the film, arranged for a theatrical release, the film clicked and toured the country as an art house hit. The film concerns eternal loser Michael (Nicolas Cage), down to his last five dollars and looking for work. He finds himself at a bar in the town of Red Rock. The bartender, Wayne (J.T. Walsh) eyes him suspiciously and asks him, “You must be Lyle, from Dallas.” Michael, eager to earn some cash, agrees. It seems Wayne has a job for Michael, but what Michael doesn’t realize until too late is that the job is to kill Wayne’s wife for $10,000. Michael heads out to Wayne’s farm with the cash to warn Wayne’s wife, Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Suzanne responds by offering to double Michael’s fee if he will kill her husband instead. Michael takes the money and tries to leave town, but when a thunderstorm comes up, he runs over a man who was trying to flag him down. The sheriff arrives on the scene to attend to matters — who turns out to be Wayne. Wayne proceeds to drive Michael out of town for an execution, but Michael manages to elude him. Flagging down a driver on the road who is driving back into Red Rock, they return to the bar, where the driver offers to buy Michael a drink. As Michael accepts the offer of a drink, he realizes that he is drinking with the real “Lyle from Dallas” (Dennis Hopper) who is awaiting Wayne’s return.

A variation on the “buddy-cop” hybridized genre, 48 HRS. greatly bolstered the career of Nick Nolte and made comedian Eddie Murphy a bonafide box-office sensation. When a pair of reckless cop-killers break out of prison, grizzled detective Jack Cates (Nolte) is left no alternative but to spring fast-talking hustler Reggie Hammond (Murphy) from the penitentiary in order to find the criminals. The catch: the pair only have 48 hours to complete their assignment before Hammond must return to prison. Naturally, the two despise each other and even engage in fisticuffs, but eventually the danger facing them proves a strong enough common bond for them to play on the same team, and even achieve a little mutual admiration.

The Oprah Book Club best-seller by Janet Fitch makes it to the big screen in this adaptation from British director Peter Kosminsky. White Oleander recounts the traumatic adolescence of Astrid Magnusson (Alison Lohman), who finds herself an orphan after her short-fused, enigmatic artist mother Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer) is carted off to prison on murder charges. Astrid first finds herself in the care of Starr (Robin Wright Penn), a garish, born-again mother of two with a gruff but sensitive boyfriend (Cole Hauser). From there, she’s shunted back to a state-run facility, where she tangles with other troubled teens and finds temporary solace in the arms of Paul (Patrick Fugit), a dough-faced comic book artist with dreams of moving to New York City. Astrid then lucks into a living arrangement with a successful but insecure actress (Renee Zellweger) who offers her unconditional love. But Ingrid’s stifling influence continues to haunt her daughter, whether through the occasional prison visit or via manipulative letters to Astrid’s caretakers. White Oleander received a Gala North American premiere at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival before reaching multiplexes later that fall.

In this multiple Oscar-winning thriller, Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, a top student at the FBI’s training academy whose shrewd analyses of serial killers lands her a special assignment: the FBI is investigating a vicious murderer nicknamed Buffalo Bill, who kills young women and then removes the skin from their bodies. Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into this case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out. Lecter does indeed know something of Buffalo Bill, but his information comes with a price: in exchange for telling what he knows, he wants to be housed in a more comfortable facility. More important, he wants to speak with Clarice about her past. He skillfully digs into her psyche, forcing her to reveal her innermost traumas and putting her in a position of vulnerability when she can least afford to be weak. The film mingles the horrors of criminal acts with the psychological horrors of Lecter’s slow-motion interrogation of Clarice and of her memories that emerge from it.

Jackie Chan has often played a fish out of water, but he’s rarely found himself so far upstream as in this comic adventure, in which he puts his fighting skills to the test in the Old West of the 1850s. Lo Fong (Roger Yuan), onetime captain of the Chinese Imperial Guard, has traded upholding the law for smuggling opium. Needing some operating capital, Lo Fong kidnaps the Emperor’s daughter, Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), and takes her to America. When the Emperor sends his best men to find her, Chon Wang (Chan), one of the Emperor’s less distinguished guards, insists on joining them; he feels at fault for Lo Fong’s capturing the Princess, and he wants to make amends. However, while the rescue party scours the West, Chon Wang gets separated from the group and soon becomes lost. When he crosses paths with Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson), a bright but arrogant train robber, the two become unlikely allies. While Shanghai Noon was billed as Jackie Chan’s follow-up to Rush Hour, his first successful American-made feature, it was actually filmed in Canada, as was Chan’s breakthrough film in America, the Hong Kong-backed Rumble in the Bronx.

William Shakespeare’s streak as the hottest storyteller in Hollywood continues with this modern-dress variation on Romeo and Juliet. In this loose adaptation, Hang Sing (Jet Li) is a former police officer from Hong Kong who comes to the United States following the death of his brother, the leader of an Asian crime ring. Hang Sing discovers that his brother had become involved in a turf battle with an African-American gang, led by Isaak (Delroy Lindo). But his blood lust begins to subside when he falls in love with Isaak’s daughter Trish (Aaliyah) and finds himself torn between his affection for her and his desire for justice against the men who killed his brother. Romeo Must Die was the directorial debut of noted cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak; the supporting cast includes Russell Wong and Isaiah Washington.

Following his surprise-hit American remake of The Ring in 2002, director Gore Verbinski took on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the second of recent films to be based upon Disney theme-park rides (the first being The Country Bears). When Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), the daughter of Governor Swann (Jonathan Pryce) is kidnapped by a group of pirates led by Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and taken aboard their ship, The Black Pearl, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), the young man who loves Elizabeth despite the fact that she is promised to another, sets out to rescue her. But he can’t do it alone, so he enlists the help of swashbuckling ship captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Together the two chase after The Black Pearl, but they soon discover that the captain and crew aren’t your average pirates. Cursed to remain between the living and the dead, Barbossa and his men look like skeletons when basked in the moonlight. When it is revealed that the only thing that can break the curse is Elizabeth’s blood, Jack and Will are faced with a race against time and a battle against the undead to save the Governor’s daughter.