Bovie Movie

Following memorable roles in the military action-adventures Pearl Harbor (2001) and Black Hawk Down (2001), young actor Josh Hartnett is propelled to romantic leading man status with this semi-autobiographical comedy from screenwriter Rob Perez. Hartnett stars as Matt Sullivan, a young man smarting over the bitter breakup of his most recent relationship. With Lent approaching, Matt decides to observe the 40-day tradition by abstaining from all sexual contact, including self-gratification. Once his odyssey of discipline has begun, he meets the girl of his dreams, while his ex begins campaigning to get him back. Co-starring Shannyn Sossamon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Vinessa Shaw, 40 Days and 40 Nights inspired another round of controversy between distributor Miramax and the Catholic League, which accused the film of being a “vulgar parody” of Lent. The League previously protested the company’s releases of Priest (1994) and Dogma (1999).

Director Oliver Stone once again offers a powerful and provocative story based on real-life events in this drama. Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and William J. Jimeno (Michael Pena) were two officers assigned to New York City’s Port Authority who were working their beats on a quiet day in early fall when they received an emergency call. The day was September 11, 2001, and McLoughlin and Jimeno were among the policemen who attempted to evacuate the World Trade Center towers after they were struck by airliners piloted by terrorists. Both McLoughlin and Jimeno were inside the fifth building of the World Trade Center when the towers fell, and were two of the last people found alive amidst the wreckage. As McLoughlin and Jimeno struggled to hold on to their lives as rescuers sifted through the rubble, their spouses — Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) and Allison Jimeno (Maggie Gyllenhaal) — clung to the desperate hope that their husbands would survive and be found. As the McLoughlin and Jimeno families waited for word on the fate of the two men, they watched as a city and a nation came together with strength and compassion in the face of a tragedy. World Trade Center was based on the true story of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, both of whom cooperated with producers in the making of this film. Producer Debra Hill died during production - hence the posthumous credit.

Two people discover just how true the old adage “lucky in life, unlucky in love” can be in this romantic comedy. Ashley (Lindsay Lohan) has always been the sort of girl fortune smiles upon — she’s pretty, she has a great job, she had good friends, guys fall over themselves to ask her out, and she never has trouble getting a cab. Jake (Chris Pine), on the other hand, is not nearly so lucky — he’s clumsy and accident prone, things never seem to go his way, and he’s just lost his job at a bowling alley. However, these two opposites meet one night at a ritzy masquerade ball, and Ashley and Jake exchange an impulsive kiss as two shooting stars cross in the sky. Suddenly, they both find their luck taking a one hundred and eighty degree turn; Jake is befriended by a wealthy musician and suddenly finds himself successful and flush with cash, while Ashley loses her job and her apartment after a major misunderstanding with the police. While Jake’s luck with women has also taken a turn for the better, he’s become deeply infatuated with Ashley, and tries to help her turn her life back around as he struggles to win her heart. Just My Luck also stars Samaire Armstrong, Faizon Love, and Tovah Feldshuh.

Sleepless in Seattle director Nora Ephron originally made a name for herself as the writer of romantic comedies such as Heartburn and When Harry Met Sally. She continues the genre with You’ve Got Mail, marking her second collaboration with actors Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The story brings romance and courtship into the electronic age of the World Wide Web via e-mail and chat rooms. Joe Fox (Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Ryan) live and work blocks from each other on New York City’s Upper West Side. Their lives are practically intertwined. They both shop at the same place, frequent the same coffee shop, and even own competing bookstores on the same street. They also both have significant others of their own. Joe has the overly hyper book editor Patricia Eden (Parker Posey), while Kathleen lives with the scholarly newspaper columnist Frank Navasky (Greg Kinnear). Then they meet in a chat room. Though they keep their identities secret (they’re known only by screen names “NY152″ and “Shopgirl”), they tell each other everything about their lives, including their private feelings, which slowly turn into affection for each other. When Joe decides to open a new branch of his “Foxbooks” chain that risks putting Kathleen’s “Shop Around the Corner” out of business, the tension between them escalates. Surely her boutique business will be lost to the conglomerate with a built-in newsstand and coffee bar. When Joe sees Kathleen waiting for him in the restaurant where they agreed to meet up, he puts two and two together, but cannot face her, given their agreement not to reveal each others’ names and professions. How can he reveal himself to her now, knowing that he is the cause of her misery? Hopefully, love will conquer all.

A professional collaboration between a popular lyricist and a washed-up musician takes a decidedly personal turn as the pair gradually finds their relationship developing into something much deeper in a romantic comedy directed by Marc Lawrence and starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant. Alex Fletcher (Grant) may have been all the rage in the 1980s, but these days he’s lucky to get a gig playing at the local county fair. Just when it seems as if things couldn’t get any more bleak for the dejected has-been rocker, reigning pop diva Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) offers Alex the opportunity of a lifetime — write and record a duet to be sung with her and watch his career receive a much-needed boost as the nostalgia-crazed public laps it up. Little does Cora realize that not only has it been years since Alex has written a song, but he’s never actually written a single lyric. Now, if he hopes to make the comeback needed to save him from a life of complete and utter obscurity, Alex will have to craft a radio-friendly hit in a matter of mere days. Luckily for Alex, his quirky plant-keeper Sophie Fisher (Barrymore) has quite a way with words and may possess just the kind of songwriting talent needed to make such a hit happen. Unfortunately the beguiling Sophie is still reeling from a recent break-up with newly famous novelist Sloan Cates (Campbell Scott), and she isn’t quite sure if she’s ready for any kind of collaboration right now — romantic or otherwise. Despite Alex’s hesitation to commit and Sophie’s reluctance to collaborate, the pair quickly discovers that a little chemistry can go a long way in healing the wounds of the past and laying the foundation for a much-deserved future of happiness and success.

Based on Helen Fielding’s hugely popular novel, this romantic comedy follows Bridget (Renee Zellweger), a post-feminist, thirty-something British woman who has a penchant for alcoholic binges, smoking, and an inability to control her weight. While trying to keep these things in check and also deal with her job in publishing, she visits her parents for a Christmas party. They try to set her up with Mark (Colin Firth), the visiting son of one of their neighbors. Snubbed by Mark, she instead falls for her boss Daniel Hugh Grant), a dashing lothario who begins to send her suggestive e-mails that soon lead to a dinner date proposition. Daniel reveals that he and Mark attended college together, during which time Mark had an affair with his fianc?e. When Bridget finds Daniel cavorting with an American colleague, she decides to change her life with a new job as a TV presenter. At a dinner party, she bumps into Mark again, who expresses his affection for her; when Daniel claims he wants Bridget back, the two fight over who deserves her affections the most. Popular British performers Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, and Shirley Henderson appear in the supporting cast.

This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play’s original star, Fred Astaire, and several of the original tunes, then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery (a character based on Richard Avedon, the film’s “visual consultant”), who is sent out by his female boss Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) to find a “new face”. It doesn’t take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn, who does her own singing), an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo’s Galatea, Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world’s hottest model. Along the way, he falls in love with Jo, and works overtime to wean her away from such phony-baloney intellectuals as Professor Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair). The Gershwin tunes include the title song, “S’wonderful”, “How Long Has This Been Going On” and “He Loves and She Loves”; among the newer numbers is Kay Thompson’s energetic opener “Think Pink”. For years available only in washed-out, flat prints, Funny Face was eventually restored to its full Technicolor and VistaVision glory.

This latter-day romantic screwball comedy stars Sandra Bullock as a love-starved subway toll booth operator, Lucy. Lucy pines for regular customer Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher), but the self-absorbed attorney pays her no heed. One day, Peter is beaten by a gang of thugs and tossed onto the tracks. Lucy rescues him from death. While he is comatose in the hospital, a comment she makes at his bedside is misinterpreted, and she then allows his family members, who haven’t seen Peter in awhile, to believe that she is his fianc?e. Peter’s parents, Ox (Peter Boyle) and Midge (Micole Mercurio), take a liking to Lucy. But Lucy takes a liking to Peter’s brother Jack (Bill Pullman), though Jack is suspicious about her claim to be Peter’s intended.

Two of the members of popular boy band ‘N Sync make their feature acting debuts with this light romantic comedy. Lance Bass stars as shy Kevin Gibbons, an advertising executive in Chicago who’s notoriously maladroit at dealing with the opposite sex. After a chance encounter with his dream girl (Emmanuelle Chriqui) aboard the El train, Kevin forgets to ask for her name and phone number and plasters the Windy City with posters seeking his lost love connection. Kevin’s quest to find the mystery girl soon attracts the attention of a newspaper reporter and he becomes a media darling, while his roommates Rod (Joey Fatone), Randy (James Bulliard), and Eric (Gregory Qaiyum) take full advantage of the amorous response by Chicago’s female population to their friend’s heartbroken search. On the Line (2001) co-stars Dave Foley and Jerry Stiller, along with singer Al Green as himself.

Set amidst the controversy of the handover of the Panama Canal from Panama to America in late 1999, this espionage thriller follows seductive British spy Andrew Osnard (Pierce Brosnan), who has found himself recently banished to Panama. When Osnard stumbles into a tailor shop, he meets Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), a garrulous sort with an unmatched penchant for “fluence” — that is, fabricating wild tales with real-life details. Osnard threatens to expose his shady past, until Pendel agrees to provide him with information about the political situation in Panama. Pendel’s wife Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis) tries to remain unscathed by her husband’s constant follies, which escalate and put him in the midst of international discord, while also threatening the shaky relationship between himself and Osnard, who cannot escape each other’s grasp. Based on John le Carr?’s popular 1996 novel, the film also features Catherine McCormack, David Hayman, and young Daniel Radcliffe, who completed this film before his starring role in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, released later in the year.