Bovie Movie

One man’s life is thrown into turmoil by picking up a telephone in this claustrophobic thriller. Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is a brash, cynical, and self-centered public relations man who juggles a busy career with both a wife, Kelly (Radha Mitchell), and a mistress, Pamela (Katie Holmes). Stu steps into a phone booth on a busy New York street to make a call to Pamela without Kelly being the wiser, but as soon as Stu hangs up, the phone begins to ring. Curious, Stu picks it up — and a stranger on the other end (voice of Kiefer Sutherland) informs him that if he hangs up the phone, he’ll be shot. The red dot of an infrared rifle scope convinces Stu that the caller means business, and when another man tries to make his way into the booth, he’s shot mere inches from Stu, calling the attention of the police. Captain Ramey (Forest Whitaker) naturally assumes that Stu was the killer, as Stu struggles to find a way to convince the police of what’s happening before more lives are lost, without leaving the booth and putting his own life on the line. At one time proposed as a vehicle for Jim Carrey, Phone Booth was directed by Joel Schumacher, from a screenplay by exploitation icon Larry Cohen.

An intense film about time travel, this sci-fi entry was directed by Terry Gilliam, a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python. The film stars Bruce Willis as James Cole, a prisoner of the state in the year 2035 who can earn parole if he agrees to travel back in time and thwart a devastating plague. The virus has wiped out most of the Earth’s population and the remainder live underground because the air is poisonous. Returning to the year 1990, six years before the start of the plague, Cole is soon imprisoned in a psychiatric facility because his warnings sound like mad ravings. There he meets a scientist named Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) and Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), the mad son of an eminent virologist (Christopher Plummer). Cole is returned by the authorities to the year 2035, and finally ends up at his intended destination in 1996. He kidnaps Dr. Railly in order to enlist her help in his quest. Cole discovers graffiti by an apparent animal rights group called the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, but as he delves into the mystery, he hears voices, loses his bearings, and doubts his own sanity. He must figure out if Goines, who seems to be a raving lunatic, holds the key to the puzzle.

Loosely based on Jean-Pierre Melville’s French film noir Bob le Flambeur, this heist film from director Neil Jordan (Interview With the Vampire, The Crying Game) stars Nick Nolte as Bob, an aging American thief living in the French city of Nice. Addicted to both heroin and gambling, Bob is in the midst of an extended personal losing streak when he rescues a new girl in town named Anne (Nutsa Kukhianidze) from her pimp. When the opportunity to steal a fortune in rare paintings from a Monte Carlo casino comes along, Bob hopes for a score big enough to let him retire from his life of crime. His only hindrances are Anne’s man troubles and his nemesis, local police chief Roger (Tch?ky Karyo). The Good Thief also features acting performances by Emir Kusturica (director of Underground and Arizona Dream) and Ralph Fiennes.

A meek and lovable milquetoast married to an overbearing, overweight tyrant finds his life turned upside down when he meets the woman of his dreams in this romantic comedy starring Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Eddie Griffin. His entire life, Norbit (Murphy) has been picked on and put down, and after being bullied into marrying the most obnoxious woman in town (also Murphy) it appears as if that’s the way things will remain until the day he dies. Upon meeting the one woman who seems to accept him for who he is, Norbit is instilled with a newfound sense of hope for the future. In order to find true happiness, however, Norbit will first have to gather the courage to stand up to his monstrous spouse once and for all.

Booted from the hoosegow just days before the eagerly anticipated guards-versus-inmates ball hockey championship, Ricky (Rob Wells), Julian (John Paul Tremblay), and Bubbles (Mike Smith) hatch a plan to pull off the biggest heist of their criminal career as Sunnyvale Trailer Park’s most incompetent criminals make their way to the big screen. Christened “The Big Dirty,” the trio’s ambitious plan to steal large quantities of untraceable change soon hits a hitch when sidetracked Ricky prepares to make the ultimate commitment to longtime girlfriend Lucy and Julian crosses her new boss with disastrous results. It seems that in addition to having her bust-size upgraded while the trio was incarcerated, Lucy also landed a job working at the nearby Gentleman’s Club. When Julian goes to the club and falls for shapely dancer Wanda, temperamental proprietor Sonny quickly loses his cool. With the day of the Big Dirty fast approaching, the boys do their best to train hair-brained criminal assistants Cory and Trevor in the fine art of the heist. Of course anyone who knows he Trailer Park Boys knows well that even their most foolproof plans have a way of springing a leak, and somewhere between the helicopter chase, the shootout, and the booze-soaked game of Sunnyvale Chicken waged against trailer park supervisor Mr. Lahey and his cheeseburger-chomping assistant Randy everything seems to just fall apart.

Mike Judge wrote and directed this offbeat sci-fi comedy which gives a new meaning to the expression “people are getting dumber all the time.” In 2005, Pvt. Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) is a soldier chosen to take part in a secret military scientific experiment in which he will be put into induced hibernation for one year, along with a woman named Rita (Maya Rudolph). Bowers is chosen for the assignment because he is statistically the most average man in the Army, while Rita is a hooker ordered to do some community service; however, Bowers and Rita are forgotten when the military base where the experiment took place is closed down, and when they wake up in the year 2505, Bowers finds himself living in a society where intelligence has taken such a landslide he’s now the smartest man in the world. Can Bowers save America from its own remarkable stupidity, and he can he get the dunderheads around him to believe what he says? Produced under the title 3001, Idiocracy also stars Dax Shepard as Bowers’s numb-skull lawyer, Stephen Root as a judge, and Terry Crews as Camacho, a former porn star and professional wrestler who is now president of the United States.

The inner-workings of a corrupt Las Vegas casino are exposed in Martin Scorsese’s story of crime and punishment. The film chronicles the lives and times of three characters: “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a bookmaking wizard; Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), a Mafia underboss and longtime best friend to Ace; and Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone, in a role she was born to play), a leggy ex-prostitute with a fondness for jewelry and a penchant for playing the field. Ace plays by the rules (albeit Vegas rules, which, as he reminds the audience in voiceover, would make him a criminal in any other state), while Nicky and Ginger lie, cheat, and steal their respective ways to the top. The film’s first hour and a half details their rise to power, while the second half follows their downfall as the FBI, corrupt government officials, and angry mob bosses pick apart their Camelot piece by piece.

Producer Joel Silver, director Tony Scott, and screenwriters Shane Black and Greg Hicks team up for this gridiron-set action thriller. Bruce Willis stars as Joe Hallenbeck, who was once a top-of-the-line Secret Service agent but has since become an alcoholic, flea-bag detective. While performing the chores of a two-bit shamus, he discovers his wife Sarah (Chelsea Field) is having an affair with his best friend. Joe is hired to protect Cory (Halle Berry), a stripper who has been getting death threats; Joe begins to sober up when Cory is blown to smithereens. Cory’s boyfriend, Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans), was at one time a NFL football quarterback, but was thrown out of the game for gambling and addiction to Demerol. Smelling something fishy, Joe and Jimmy begin to investigate further and discover layers of corruption in professional football circles, leading up to Sheldon Marcone (Noble Willingham), a corrupt team owner who wants to pay off legislators to legalize gambling on pro football games.

Self-involved corporate raider Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) has recently split up with his girlfriend. Seeking directions to the Beverly Hills Hotel, he makes the acquaintance of free-spirited hooker Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and decides to put her on a 3,000-dollar retainer as his “date.” He Cinderellarizes her by bankrolling a full wardrobe and cosmetic makeover. Of course, the setup will be strictly platonic. A disarming modern-day fairy tale, Pretty Woman was the picture that made Julia Roberts a superstar. As charming as she is in her “giggling” sequences, Roberts’ best scene is her triumphant return to a posh Rodeo Drive shop where she’d been previously snubbed. Keeping Pretty Woman afloat throughout is the buoyant direction of Garry Marshall and the always welcome presence of Marshall’s stock company of actors, including Hector Elizondo as a stuffy but golden-hearted concierge. Pretty Woman began its life as a much darker story of prostitutes and homicidal drug dealers, but more box-office-savvy heads ultimately prevailed.

Anna Magnani stars as Mamma Roma, a rural Italian hooker trying to create a new life for herself. This proves impossible when the past keeps rearing its ugly head in the form of Mamma Rosa’s previous “johns.” She returns to her old profession, whereupon her son Ettore Garofalo becomes a thief and is killed by the police. Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (his second film), Mamma Roma is one of the least known but most approachable of the director’s efforts. As in many of his earliest movies (and the novels which preceded them), Pasolini explores the limited lives and dashed hopes of the cafoni, the Italian equivalent of America’s hillbillies.