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.

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.

The Eisner Award-winning comic series Sin City comes to life in this live-action feature adaptation from director Robert Rodriguez and creator Frank Miller. Interweaving multiple storylines from the series’ history, this violent crime noir paints the picture of the ultimate town without pity through the eyes of its roughest characters. There’s the street thug Marv (Mickey Rourke), whose desperate quest to find the killer of a prostitute named Goldie (Jaime King) will lead him to the foulest edges of town. Inhabiting many of those areas is Dwight (Clive Owen), a photographer in league with the sordid ladies of Sin City, headed by Gail (Rosario Dawson), who opens up a mess of trouble after tangling with a corrupt cop by the name of Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). Finally, there’s Hartigan (Bruce Willis), an ex-cop with a heart problem who’s hell-bent on protecting a stripper named Nancy (Jessica Alba). Featuring a who’s who supporting cast that includes Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Devon Aoki, and Nick Stahl, Sin City promises to be one of the most direct translations from page to screen of a comic series, with shots and dialogue adapted straight from the original comic’s panels. Rodriguez quit the Director’s Guild when they refused to let Frank Miller co-direct the film, a deal hashed out after the two collaborators developed and shot the opening scene utilizing a green-screen process to harness the stark, black-and-white look of the books as a litmus test for the rest of the production. Quentin Tarantino was brought in and reportedly paid one dollar to direct an extended scene between Del Toro and Owen that amounts to one issue of The Big Fat Kill miniseries.

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.

A very loose remake of the classic multi-star comedy It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), this madcap comedy is directed by Jerry Zucker, one third of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy team and director of Ghost (1990). John Cleese stars as an eccentric casino owner who devises a contest pitting six teams against each other in a race to claim two million dollars from a locker in New Mexico. The competitors are Owen (Cuba Gooding Jr., who ends up driving a bus full of Lucille Ball imitators, a foreigner (Rowan Atkinson) who hitches a ride in an organ donor vehicle, and a recently reunited mother and daughter (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman) who anger a “squirrel lady” (Kathy Bates) — much to their regret. There are also two con artist brothers (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), the upright Nick (Breckin Meyer), who gets a lift from cute but psychotic pilot Tracy (Amy Smart), and the eccentric Pear family, headed up by Jon Lovitz. Rat Race also stars Dave Thomas, Kathy Najimy, Wayne Knight, Dean Cain, and Paul Rodriguez.

Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrilio) in L.A. after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped — and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month’s salary as “commission,” Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody), a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience — it was shown a month after a massive janitor’s strike ground L.A.’s business community to a halt.

Decked out in powdered wig and pasty “dandy” makeup, Richard Chamberlain stars as legendary Venetian lover Giovanni Casanova (1725-1798) in this made-for-television biopic. The teleplay by George Macdonald Fraser (of “Flashman” fame) follows Casanova as his reputation for being catnip to women builds throughout the 18th century. His sexual exploits cost him several important social and professional posts, and eventually land him in a Venice prison on a morals charge. Casanova’s escape attempt provides a strong second act for this 3-hour effort, which also offers an amusing “con job” practiced by Casanova on a willing countess (Faye Dunaway). Frank Finlay co-stars as a nobleman who conducts a decades-long feud with our rakish hero. Filmed in Spain and Italy, Casanova debuted on March 1, 1987.

Written and directed by Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer, Eurotrip is a teen comedy from the Montecito Picture Company (makers of similar movies Old School and Road Trip). Mainstream teenager Scott (Scott Mechlowicz) forms an online friendship with German student Mieke in order to get a passing grade in his high school German class. When he finds out Mieke is a buxom blonde girl (Jessica B?hrs), he travels to meet her with his pals Cooper (Jacob Pitts), Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg), and Jamie (Travis Wester). The group of randy teens head to Berlin by way of London, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Bret Easton Ellis’ dark and violent satire of America in the 1980s is brought to the screen in this unsettling drama with black comic overtones. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), the son of a wealthy Wall Street financier, is pursuing his own lucrative career with his father’s firm. Bateman is the prototypical yuppie, obsessed with success, fashion, and style. He is also a serial killer who murders, rapes, and mutilates both strangers and acquaintances without provocation or reason. Donald Kimble (Willem Dafoe), a police detective, questions Bateman about the disappearance of Paul Allen (Jared Leto), whom Patrick murdered several days earlier. As Kimble stays on Bateman’s trail, Bateman’s mask of studied, distant cool begins to fall apart. American Psycho also features Reese Witherspoon as Bateman’s girlfriend, as well as Samantha Mathis, Chloe Sevigny, and Guinevere Turner; the latter also co-authored the screenplay. Controversy followed the production from the start, when speculation that Leonardo Di Caprio would play Bateman sparked concerns that he would lure preteens to an R-rated movie. Di Caprio soon bowed out of the project, and original leading man Bale was reinstated. Later, a group of Toronto residents attempted to block filming in that city after Canadian serial killer Paul Bernardo claimed that Ellis’ novel inspired his murder spree.

Opening with a silent “movie” of Butch Cassidy’s Hole in the Wall Gang, George Roy Hill’s comically elegiac Western chronicles the mostly true tale of the outlaws’ last months. Witty pals Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) join the Gang in successfully robbing yet another train with their trademark non-lethal style. After the pair rests at the home of Sundance’s schoolmarm girlfriend, Etta (Katharine Ross), the Gang robs the same train, but this time, the railroad boss has hired the best trackers in the business to foil the crime. After being tailed over rocks and a river gorge by guys that they can barely identify save for a white hat, Butch and Sundance decide that maybe it’s time to try their luck in Bolivia. Taking Etta with them, they live high on ill-gotten Bolivian gains, but Etta leaves after their white-hatted nemesis portentously arrives. Their luck running out, Butch and Sundance are soon holed up in a barn surrounded by scores of Bolivian soldiers who are waiting for the pair to make one last run for it.