Bovie Movie

In this Western based loosely on actual events and people, Emilio Estevez stars as William H. Bonney (aka Billy the Kid). Sought for a petty crime in Lincoln County, Billy is taken in by John Tunstall (Terrence Stamp), a British ranch owner seeking to make it in the cattle business. Tunstall employs a group of “regulators,” comprised of wayward youths he’s gathered over the years, to watch over his ranch; in turn, he teaches them how to read and reforms them into better men. Tunstall’s business interests come into conflict with those of corrupt and murderous businessman Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance), whose widespread connections make him a power to be reckoned with. When Tunstall won’t budge from his right to pursue a living, Murphy’s henchmen stage an ambush and kill him. This triggers a vow of vengeance from the quick-tempered Billy and his five fellow regulators, who are deputized to serve arrest warrants in the murder. However, when Billy decides to gun down the suspects instead of detaining them, his loyal pals become accessories in a vigilante spree to wipe the territory clean of Murphy and his web of conspirators. Soon, the supposed lawmen are on the run from bounty hunters, henchmen, and government soldiers, from all directions of the compass. This box-office hit also stars Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko.

Director Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow) helmed this sci-fi thriller inspired by the stories in Isaac Asimov’s nine-story anthology of the same name. In the future presented in the film, humans have become exceedingly dependent on robots in their everyday lives. Robots have become more and more advanced, but each one is preprogrammed to always obey humans and to, under no circumstances, ever harm a human. So, when a scientist turns up dead and a humanoid robot is the main suspect, the world is left to wonder if they are as safe around their electronic servants as previously thought. Will Smith stars as Del Spooner, the robot-hating Chicago cop assigned to the murder investigation. Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, and Chi McBride also star.

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.

Dan Brown’s controversial best-selling novel about a powerful secret that’s been kept under wraps for thousands of years comes to the screen in this suspense thriller from director Ron Howard. The stately silence of Paris’ Louvre museum is broken when one of the gallery’s leading curators is found dead on the grounds, with strange symbols carved into his body and left around the spot where he died. Hoping to learn the significance of the symbols, police bring in Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a gifted cryptographer who is also the victim’s granddaughter. Needing help, Sophie calls on Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a leading symbologist from the United States. As Sophie and Robert dig deeper into the case, they discover the victim’s involvement in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members have been privy to forbidden knowledge dating back to the birth of Christianity. In their search, Sophie and Robert happen upon evidence that could lead to the final resting place of the Holy Grail, while members of the priory and an underground Catholic society known as Opus Dei give chase, determined to prevent them from sharing their greatest secrets with the world. Also starring Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, and Alfred Molina, The Da Vinci Code was shot on location in France and the United Kingdom; the Louvre allowed the producers to film at the famous museum, but scenes taking place at Westminster Abbey had to filmed elsewhere when church officials declined permission.

A thesp-turned-crook gets a chance at career in movies as well as crime scene investigation in this offbeat action comedy with nods to Raymond Chandler. Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a struggling New York actor who high-tails it to Los Angeles. Once there, Lockhart winds up at the posh home of the aptly-named homosexual private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) amid a lavish Hollywood party, hoping to score a life-changing role in a Hollywood feature. Harry becomes reacquainted with Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), a girl he had a major crush on in his small-town Indiana high school, who may be a bit more interested in him now than she was years ago. He takes both her and her girlfriend home with him, but - in a moment of drunken stupor - accidentally sleeps with the wrong woman. Meanwhile, when a series of female bodies turns up across L.A., Harry slowly breaks into detective work, mentored by Perry. The biggest twist? Black riffs Adaptation and other films by having Harry (via satirical narration) write the movie while he is living it. Harry assures the audience that unlike Lord of the Rings, this one won’t have seventeen endings. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang marks the first directorial credit for Shane Black, who created the Lethal Weapon franchise.

First-time screenwriter Stelios Pavlou enjoyed a major success with this script that he wrote while working in an English liquor store by sending it to actor Samuel L. Jackson, who signed on for one of the lead roles. Jackson is Elmo McElroy, a kilt-wearing, golf club-wielding Los Angeles native who has invented an illegal drug formula that he hopes will provide him with a last major score of 20 million dollars before he retires from a life of crime. He travels to Liverpool, England, where he hopes to find a buyer for his creation among the denizens of the city’s rave scene, but his plans go awry when those who are in on the deal start turning up dead. Elmo’s only protector is a chain-smoking, Yank-hating local hood named Felix De Souza (Robert Carlyle), who reluctantly partners with the violence-prone American to finish the deal and cash in, sparking a gang war between Elmo’s vengeful one-time employer, The Lizard (Meat Loaf); Felix’s boss, Durant (Ricky Tomlinson); crooked cop Virgil Kane (Sean Pertwee); a beautiful assassin, who also happens to be Felix’s ex-girlfriend (Emily Mortimer); and an offbeat, yoga-practicing nightclub owner and mobster named Iki (Rhys Ifans). For its U.S. release, the title of The 51st State was changed to Formula 51.

“His code name is Condor. In the next 24 hours, everyone he trusts will try to kill him.” As the ads ominously announced, a low-level spook confronts the unfathomable in Sydney Pollack’s 1975 political thriller, adapted from the James Grady novel Six Days of the Condor. CIA researcher Joe Turner (Robert Redford) returns from lunch to find the entire staff of his small New York office assassinated. When he meets his boss (Cliff Robertson) at another location to tell him what happened, someone tries to shoot Turner as well. On the run from the cops and his agency, a desperate Turner resorts to holing up with innocent civilian Kathy (Faye Dunaway), who becomes his only ally. Joe decides to save himself the only way possible: by going to The New York Times. But will it work? One of a cycle of conspiracy films from the 1970s that also included The Parallax View (1974) and Redford’s All the President’s Men (1976), Three Days of the Condor pits a working Everyman (albeit a CIA everyman) against a far-reaching conspiracy, as it also criticizes the CIA during a period of increasing publicity about federal wrongdoing, from the Pentagon Papers through Watergate and other congressional investigations; the challenge of negotiating New York City, shot on location, becomes one more sign of the forces that Joe must face. With its timely subject matter, taut suspense, and sympathetic Redford hero, Three Days of the Condor became a substantial hit. Balancing the conspiracy cycle’s pessimism with a margin of attenuated hope, Three Days of the Condor suggests that one man can still discover the truth, but whether it helps him remains to be seen.

Love, treachery, and broken furniture are the hallmarks of this rollicking action drama. Dalton (Patrick Swayze) has a Ph.D., but rather than make a living teaching Socrates at some university, he’s opted to become a top-drawer “cooler” — an expert barroom bouncer who can break up fights without getting himself killed in the process. Dalton is hired to keep the peace at the Double Duce, a rough-and-tumble honky tonk in Jasper, Missouri, where beer-soaked free-for-alls are a nightly event. Dalton is hurt on his first night on the job, and he is patched up by “Doc” Clay (Kelly Lynch), a beautiful woman working as the town’s physician. Dalton and Doc immediately hit it off, but Dalton learns that another man, Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), already has his eye on her. Wesley is a man used to getting his way; he’s an extortionist and crime boss who has nearly everyone in Jasper under his thumb, and he sets out to teach Dalton a lesson, while Dalton is determined to clean up the town like he breaks up brawls at the Double Duce. Sam Elliott plays Dalton’s mentor Wade, and Red West, a one-time member of Elvis Presley’s “Memphis Mafia,” appears as Webster; Canadian blues-rock guitarist Jeff Healey leads the Double Duce house band.

Writer and director John Carpenter returns to the mixture of science fiction and horror that made The Thing (1982) a success. Natasha Henstridge stars as Lt. Melanie Ballard of the Martian Police Force, a member of a law enforcement team two centuries in the future, dispatched to the remote colony of Shining Canyon. There, the most notorious criminal on Mars, James “Desolation” Williams (Ice Cube), awaits transport to a more secure jail. Besides Ballard, the other cops include the rookie Bashira (Clea Duvall), hotshot and fast talker Jericho (Jason Statham), tough veteran and squad leader Helena (Pam Grier), and reliable soldier Descanso (Liam Waite). Once Ballard and her companions arrive in Shining Canyon, however, they discover that it’s a literal ghost town. It seems that an archaeologist team led by Professor Whitlock (Joanna Cassidy) has uncovered an ancient relic at a nearby dig site, unleashing the vengeful spirits of the planet’s long-ago warrior inhabitants, which have now possessed the bodies of the human invaders and set about trying to destroy them. After her team is decimated by the Martian specters, Ballard is forced to turn for help to the one person she can’t really trust: Williams. Ghosts of Mars screenwriter Larry Sulkis broke into the film business as producer of the satirical commercials in Carpenter’s They Live (1988).

Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a French cop whose colleagues make a startling discovery — a man named Mikhail, who was killed in a high-speed chase with police, looks exactly like him. Curious about the stranger with his face, Alain is told by his mother Chantal (Stephane Audran) that Mikhail was in fact his twin brother, whom her poor family was forced to give up at birth. Alain wants to know more about the brother he never knew, but the more he learns the more troubling the news becomes; it seems that Mikhail was involved with gangsters, corrupt FBI agents, and a gang of drug dealers. In order to avenge his brother’s death and get to the bottom of his sad story, Alain assumes Mikhail’s identity and travels to New York City, where to maintain his cover he takes up with Alex Minetti (Natasha Henstridge), Mikhail’s tough-as-nails girlfriend, before finding himself hip-deep in danger with Mikhail’s associates. Maximum Risk was the first American film from noted Hong Kong action director Ringo Lam, whose City on Fire has often been cited as a key inspiration for Reservoir Dogs.