Bovie Movie

George Lucas draws the Star Wars film series to a close with this dark sci-fi adventure which sets the stage for the events of the first film and brings the saga full circle. After a fierce battle in which Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin (Hayden Christensen) join Republic forces to help free Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) from the evil Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and his minions, Anakin is drawn into Palpatine’s confidence. Palpatine has designs on expanding his rule, and with this in mind he plants seeds of doubt in Anakin’s mind about the strength and wisdom of the Jedis. Anakin is already in a quandary about how to reveal to others the news of his secret marriage to Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) now that she is pregnant, and visions which foretell her death in childbirth weigh heavy on his mind. As Anakin finds himself used by both the Jedis and the Republic for their own purposes — particularly after Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) expresses his distrust of the young Jedi — he turns more and more to the Force for help, but begins to succumb to the temptations of its dark side. Many of the Star Wars series regulars returned for Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, including Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Kenny Baker as R2-D2, and Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca.

After creating an international sensation with the visually dazzling and intellectually challenging sci-fi blockbuster The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers returned with the first of two projected sequels that pick up where the first film left off. Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) have been summoned by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) to join him on a voyage to Zion, the last outpost of free human beings on Earth. Neo and Trinity’s work together has been complicated by the fact the two are involved in a serious romantic relationship. Upon their arrival in Zion, Morpheus locks horns with rival Commander Lock (Harry J. Lennix) and encounters his old flame Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith). Meanwhile, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) has returned with some surprises for Neo, most notably the ability to replicate himself as many times as he pleases. Neo makes his way to The Oracle (Gloria Foster), who informs him that if he wishes to save humankind, he must unlock “The Source,” which means having to release The Key Maker (Randall Duk Kim) from the clutches of Merovingian (Lambert Wilson). While Merovingian refuses to cooperate, his wife, Persephone (Monica Bellucci), angry at her husband’s dalliances with other women, offers to help, but only in exchange for a taste of Neo’s affections. With The Keymaker in tow, Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus are chased by Merovingian’s henchmen: a pair of deadly albino twins (Neil Rayment and Adrian Rayment). Filmed primarily in Australia and California (the extended chase scene was shot on a stretch of highway build specifically for the production outside of San Francisco), The Matrix Reloaded was produced in tandem with the third film in the series, The Matrix Revolutions.

David Lynch wades through dark waters in his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cult science fiction novel. In condensing Herbert’s rambling and complex book by eliminating characters and compacting events, Lynch succeeds in rendering the story incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with the novel and making the film look like a sketchy greatest hits collection of the book for Herbert fans. The story takes place in the year 10,191. The universe is governed through a system of feudal rule, presided over by Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Jos? Ferrer), who appears to take his marching orders from something that resembles a talking vagina. In the kingdom are two rival houses — the House of Atreides and the House of Harkonnen. Each house is trying to gain dominion over the universe, but that dominion can only be gained by the house that controls the Spice, a special substance that permits the folding of time. The Spice is only available on the desert world of Arrakis, or Dune. Shaddam, tired of the feuding between the two houses, permits the Atreides to take over the Spice production on Dune, while secretly working with the Harkonnens to launch a sneak attack on the Atreides and destroy them. The leader of the Atreides is Duke Leto (J?rgen Prochnow), who rules with the help of his concubine Jessica (Francesca Annis) and son Paul (Kyle MacLachlan). The rival Harkonnens are headed by the pus-oozing degenerate Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan, in a thoroughly through-the-roof performance) and his two unsavory nephews, Rabban (Paul L. Smith) and Feyd (Sting). When his father is murdered by the Harkonnens, Paul escapes to Dune, where he is greeted by the Fremen (the desert dwellers on Dune who prepare the Spice) as the messiah foretold in Fremen legend. Paul assumes the mantle of messiah and leads the Fremen in a revolt that topples the balance of power in the universe.

Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a bright and charming high-school student who also has a dark and willfully eccentric side; he does little to mask his contempt for many of his peers and enjoys challenging the authority of the adults around him. Donnie is also visited on occasion by Frank, a monstrous six-foot rabbit that only Donnie can see who often urges him to perform dangerous and destructive pranks. Late one night, Frank leads Donnie out of his home to inform him that the world will come to an end in less than a month; moments later, the engine of a jet aircraft comes crashing through the ceiling of Donnie’s room, making him think there might be something to Frank’s prophesies after all. The rest of Donnie’s world is only marginally less bizarre, as he finds himself dealing with his confused parents (Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osborne), his college-age sister (Maggie Gyllenhaal), his perplexed analyst (Katherine Ross), a rebellious English teacher (Drew Barrymore), a sleazy self-help expert (Patrick Swayze), and the new girl at school who is attracted by Donnie’s quirks (Jena Malone). Donnie Darko was the first feature film from writer and director Richard Kelly; Drew Barrymore, who plays teacher Karen Pomeroy, also lent her support to the project as executive producer. A director’s cut played in select theaters on a limited basis in the summer of 2004, featuring original music cues and trimmed scenes originally in Kelly’s first cut of the film.

In 1977, George Lucas released Star Wars, the ultimate sci-fi popcorn flick-turned-pop-culture myth machine. It quickly became the biggest money-making film of all time and changed the shape of the film industry. After two successful sequels (1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi) that extended the story of the first film, Lucas took some time off to produce movies for others, with mixed success. In 1999, Lucas returned to the Star Wars saga with a new approach — instead of picking up where Return of the Jedi left off, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace would be the first of a trilogy of stories to trace what happened in the intergalactic saga before the first film began. Here, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is a young apprentice Jedi knight under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson); Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), who will later father Luke Skywalker and become known as Darth Vader, is just a nine-year-old boy. When the Trade Federation cuts off all routes to the planet Naboo, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are assigned to settle the matter, but when they arrive on Naboo they are brought to Amidala (Natalie Portman), the Naboo queen, by a friendly but opportunistic Gungan named Jar Jar. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan plan to escort Amidala to a meeting of Republic leaders in Coruscant, but trouble with their spacecraft strands them on the planet Tatooine, where Qui-Gon meets Anakin, the slave of a scrap dealer. Qui-Gon is soon convinced that the boy could be the leader the Jedis have been searching for, and he begins bargaining for his freedom and teaching the boy the lessons of the Force. The supporting cast includes Pernilla August as Anakin’s mother, Terence Stamp as Chancellor Valorum, and Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi master Mace Windu. Jackson told a reporter before The Phantom Menace’s release that the best part about doing the film was that he got to say “May the Force be with you” onscreen.

What if virtual reality wasn’t just for fun, but was being used to imprison you? That’s the dilemma that faces mild-mannered computer jockey Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix. It’s the year 1999, and Anderson (hacker alias: Neo) works in a cubicle, manning a computer and doing a little hacking on the side. It’s through this latter activity that Thomas makes the acquaintance of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who has some interesting news for Mr. Anderson — none of what’s going on around him is real. The year is actually closer to 2199, and it seems Thomas, like most people, is a victim of The Matrix, a massive artificial intelligence system that has tapped into people’s minds and created the illusion of a real world, while using their brains and bodies for energy, tossing them away like spent batteries when they’re through. Morpheus, however, is convinced Neo is “The One” who can crack open The Matrix and bring his people to both physical and psychological freedom. The Matrix is the second feature film from the sibling writer/director team of Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, who made an impressive debut with the stylish erotic crime thriller Bound.

Y Tu Mam? Tambi?n and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuar?n returns to the helm to tell this futuristic tale in which society is without hope since humankind lost its ability to procreate. The year is 2027, and women can no longer give birth. The youngest inhabitant of the planet has just died at the age of 18, and all hope for humanity has been lost. As civilization descends into chaos, a dying world finds one last chance for survival in the form of a woman who has become inexplicably pregnant. Now, as warring nationalistic sects clash and British leaders try to maintain their totalitarian stronghold on the country, a disillusioned bureaucrat (Clive Owen) is brought back into the fold of activism by his guerrilla ex-wife (Julianne Moore). Reluctantly, he takes on the daunting task of escorting Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), the refugee who represents humankind’s last hope for survival, out of harm’s way and into the care of a mysterious organization known as The Human Project. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam, and Michael Caine co-star in this adaptation of author P.D. James’s gripping 1992 novel.

The second prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy takes place ten years after the events depicted in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. Now 20, young Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is an apprentice to respected Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Unusually powerful in the Force, Anakin is also impatient, arrogant, and headstrong — causing his mentor a great deal of concern. The pair are ordered to protect Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), the former queen of the planet Naboo, now representing her world in the Galactic Senate. Someone is trying to assassinate her on the eve of a vote enabling Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) to build a military force that will safeguard against a growing separatist movement led by mysterious former Jedi Count Dooku (Christopher Lee). After another attempt on Padme’s life, Obi-Wan and Anakin separate. The young Jedi and Padme fall in love as he escorts her first to the security of Naboo and then to his home world of Tatooine, where the fate of his mother leads him to commit an ominous atrocity. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan travels to the secretive planet Kamino and the asteroid-ringed world of Geonosis, following bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) and his son, Boba (Daniel Logan), who are involved in an operation to create a massive army of clones. A vicious battle ensues between the clones and Jedi on one side and Dooku’s droids on the other, but who is really pulling the strings in this galactic conflict? In late 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones: The IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 120 minutes in order to meet the technical requirements of the large-screen format.

Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky switches gears from drug-induced urban malaise to abstract science fiction with this time-tripping symbolic tale of a man’s thousand-year quest to save the woman he loves. Moving between representational stories and images, this meditation on life and death focuses on the concept of the mythical Tree of Life that is said to bestow immortality to all who drink of its sap. In one of the film’s allegorical timelines, a 16th century Spanish conquistador played by Hugh Jackman sets out to find the tree in order to save his queen (Rachel Weisz) from the Inquisition. Another conceptual story finds Jackman centuries later, struggling with mortality as a modern-day scientist desperately searching for the medical breakthrough that will save the life of his cancer-stricken wife, Izzi. The third and most abstract concept finds Jackman as a different incarnation of the same character-idea, this time questing for eternal life within the confines of a floating sphere transporting the aged Tree of Life through the depths of space. Still more avant-garde than his breakthrough film Pi, The Fountain finds Aronofsky almost completely abandoning conventional story structure in favor of something more cinematically abstract. Though the film was originally slapped with an R by the MPAA, Aronofsky & co. re-edited it to conform to a PG-13 rating.

A cop used to chasing bad guys finds himself up against the ultimate villain of all time in this Christian-themed thriller. Tom Canburo (Gary Busey) is a police detective whose work doesn’t leave him with much room in his life for the intangibles of faith. Tom’s sister, Eileen (Margot Kidder), however, is a born-again Christian who often attempts to engage her brother in discussions of spiritual matters, while his brother-in-law, Jason (Howie Mandel), embraces a puzzling melange of New Age teachings. One night, Tom’s life seems to take a left turn into the unknown; he gets a call from Eileen, saying that Jason has tried to kill her, calling her a “hater,” while in the course of an investigation, Tom uncovers a bizarre underground cult with supernatural powers. As Tom tries to escape, he gets in a severe auto accident and drifts into a coma. Several years later, he comes to and finds himself in a strange new world. Franco Macalousso (Nick Mancuso), a New Age philosopher who spoke of bringing peace to the world, is now the most powerful man on Earth, and under his leadership everyone must have their right hand marked with the number “666″ — those who refuse have their hand cut off. Christians are also persecuted as “haters,” and Helen Hannah (Leigh Lewis), the leader of a Christian resistance group, has become Public Enemy Number One. Also released as Apocalypse III: Tribulation, Tribulation was the third film from screenwriters Paul Lalonde and Peter Lalonde inspired by modern-day interpretations of biblical prophesy.