Bovie Movie

Twenty-two people become unwitting participants in a tragic and defining moment of the 1960’s in this period drama from actor and director Emilio Estevez. It’s early June in 1968, and the California presidential primary elections are occupying the minds of many in the Golden State, with Robert F. Kennedy in a close race against Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey. The Kennedy campaign staff has set up camp at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, while the staff and guests become observers as the brother of fallen president John F. Kennedy sets out to pick up where his sibling left off. Paul (William H. Macy) is the manager of the Ambassador, and his wife Miriam (Sharon Stone) is a hairdresser who runs’s the hotel’s beauty salon. Angela (Heather Graham) is a receptionist working the hotel’s switchboard who has been sleeping with Paul behind Miriam’s back. Timmons (Christian Slater) is in charge of the hotel’s restaurant and catering department, and makes no secret of his dislike of the African-Americans and Latinos under his employ. Miguel (Jacob Vargas) and Jose (Freddy Rodriguez) are two young Chicanos on the kitchen staff who have it in for Timmons, while Robinson (Laurence Fishburne) is an older black man who counsels them on dealing with their rage. Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) sings in the hotel’s cocktail lounge and has a serious problem with alcohol; her husband Tim (Emilio Estevez) is a Kennedy supporter and also her manager, and he’s nearing the end of his rope in dealing with her problem. William (Elijah Wood) is a young man desperate to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam; Diane (Lindsay Lohan) is a pretty young woman dating William’s brother who agrees to marry him so William can avoid being drafted, though William is clearly infatuated with her while she considers this a marriage in name only. John Casey (Anthony Hopkins) is one of the owners of the Ambassador, and Nelson (Harry Belafonte) is an old friend who works at the hotel. And Jack (Martin Sheen) is a wealthy Kennedy campaign financier who is married to Samantha (Helen Hunt), an attractive but much younger woman. Bobby also features Joshua Jackson, Nick Cannon and Shia LaBeouf as young Kennedy campaign volunteers, while Ashton Kutcher, Joy Bryant, Kip Pardue and Mary Elizabeth Winstead also highlight the supporting cast.

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.

A magazine article about real-life car racing gangs for Vibe becomes this fast-paced automotive thriller from director Rob Cohen. Paul Walker stars as Brian O’Conner, a youthful FBI agent investigating a series of hijackings by going undercover with a street gang led by charismatic Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Caught up in Toretto’s world of gang conflict that is resolved in late-night car races, Spindler starts to sympathize with his chief suspect and falls in love with Toretto’s younger sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). In the meantime, Spindler initially suspects the wrong gang of complicity in the crimes he’s probing, while Toretto remains involved in a forbidden romance, à la Romeo and Juliet, with his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). The Fast and the Furious co-stars Ted Levine, Rick Yune, and Matt Schulze.

Director Mark L. Lester modeled this police action drama on the Hong Kong style, guaranteeing plenty of over-the-top action sequences. Dolph Lundgren stars as police detective Chris Kenner, an American raised in Japan. He is given a new partner, Johnny Murata (Brandon Lee, making his Hollywood debut), a Japanese raised in America. The two are made for each other — Chris doesn’t appreciate American culture, while Johnny doesn’t much like Japanese culture. One thing they both enjoy are the martial arts, of which they are experts. The two are assigned to L.A.’s Little Tokyo, trying to nab the notorious Yoshida (Carey-Hiroyuki Tagawa), a drug manufacturer using a local brewery as his distribution center. Yoshida, a member of the Yakuza, has brought the residents of Little Tokyo to their knees. But Chris has personal reasons for wanting to get Yoshida — as a child he witnessed Yoshida murdering his parents. When Yoshida rapes and kidnaps Minako (Tia Carrere), a beautiful lounge singer, it’s the last straw and Chris and Johnny set out for Yoshida’s heavily guarded home for a big showdown.

A national health care crisis in the United States yields this tense drama from screenwriter James Kearns and director Nick Cassavetes, who experienced a real-life dilemma with his daughter’s congenital heart disease that mirrors the one in this film. Denzel Washington stars as John Q. Archibald, a factory worker facing financial hardship as a result of reduced hours in his workplace. When his young son, Michael (Daniel E. Smith), is stricken during a baseball game, John and his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise), discover that their child is in need of an emergency heart transplant. Although the Archibalds have health insurance, they are informed by hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) that their policy doesn’t cover such an expensive procedure. Unable to raise the money himself, John persuades the hospital’s compassionate cardiac surgeon, Dr. Raymond Turner (James Woods), to waive his lofty fee, but is still left with too much of a financial burden to bear. With no recourse but to take his son home to die, John snaps and holds the staff and patients of the hospital’s emergency room hostage at gunpoint. John is soon a media hero, the focus of intense news coverage, even as police chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) and hostage negotiator Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) try to resolve the situation before it leads to bloodshed.

Three stars team up for this unusual look at America’s role in the war against Iraq. In 1991, as the Gulf War winds to a close, three American servicemen find themselves happy to have achieved victory but wondering about the ultimate importance of what they’ve done (especially since Saddam Hussein is still in power). Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) is a decorated Vietnam veteran and special forces officer with two weeks to go before he retires; Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) has a new baby at home; and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is probably just going to end up back in Detroit. So when one of them comes across a map that seems to point out where Saddam’s forces have stashed a large cache of gold they stole from Kuwait, they decide to follow the trail and take some of the war booty for themselves. However, the deeper they journey into Iraq, the more they see of the consequences of America’s policies in the Middle East. Although President George Bush and the American military urged Iraqi citizens to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and pledged their support to a people’s movement against the leader, Iraqis found that when they took to the streets against Saddam, the United States did not back them up, and the loss of Iraqi lives was fearsome. When Gates, Barlow and Elgin become aware of what’s happening, they’re torn between their desire to grab the fortune they came for and the demands of their conscience to help the people they came to liberate. Three Kings was directed by David O. Russell and marked a significant change of direction after his dark-humored relationship comedies, Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster.

Oliver Stone’s breakthrough as a director, Platoon is a brutally realistic look at a young soldier’s tour of duty in Vietnam. Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a college student who quits school to volunteer for the Army in the late ’60s. He’s shipped off to Vietnam, where he serves with a culturally diverse group of fellow soldiers under two men who lead the platoon: Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), whose facial scars are a mirror of the violence and corruption of his soul, and Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe), who maintains a Zen-like calm in the jungle and fights with both personal and moral courage even though he no longer believes in the war. After a few weeks “in country,” Taylor begins to see the na?vet? of his views of the war, especially after a quick search for enemy troops devolves into a round of murder and rape. Unlike Hollywood’s first wave of Vietnam movies (including The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Coming Home), Platoon is a grunts-eye view of the war, touching on moral issues but focusing on the men who fought the battles and suffered the wounds. In this sense, it resembles older war movies more than its Vietnam peers, as it mixes familiar elements of onscreen battle with small realistic details: bugs, jungle rot, exhaustion, C-rations, marijuana, and counting the days before you go home. This mix of traditional war movie elements with a contemporary sensibility won Platoon four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, and a reputation as one of the definitive modern war films.

The DVD of Goodfellas has got to be one of the very first DVDs ever released by Warner Brothers because they make a critical error in the release. While many films offer widescreen on one side and full screen on the other, this film offers only one version — a widescreen film broken into two sides. Viewers have to flip the DVD over to watch the second half of the film; 19 chapters are on side A and the last 15 chapters are on side B. Goodfellas is a classic film, and the DVD offers a great video transfer and excellent Dolby Digital 5:1 Surround, but no DVD fan will accept the two-sided format. In terms of extras, there are very few, limited only to theatrical trailers, production notes, and cast bios. For many, this Martin Scorsese classic is a must-have for any collection, but those who can wait for a future, corrected release of this film are better off watching the widescreen VHS tape. Language option in English and French and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

Midnight Express is a harrowing tale of a na?ve American caught in a nightmare of his own making thousands of miles from his home. Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is an American tourist visiting Turkey with his girlfriend Susan (Irene Miracle) when he’s caught by customs officials trying to smuggle a large amount of hashish out of the country. The crime would normally carry a sentence of four years, but officials decide to make an example of Billy, and he draws a 30-year sentence despite the promises of his Turkish legal counsel. While Susan and Billy’s father (Mike Kellin) pledge to do everything they can to speed Billy’s release, in fact there’s little than can be done. Billy quickly finds himself in a hellish prison that’s a nightmare of filth, violence, rape, inedible food, and unspeakable health conditions. However, Billy gains a few confidantes behind bars: Jimmy (Randy Quaid), an American in a constant state of emotional overdrive; Max (John Hurt), an intelligent, drug-addicted Englishman; and Erich (Norbert Weisser), a gay Scandinavian who is attracted to Billy but accepts his gentle refusals of sex. Before long, Billy is convinced that he can take no more, and he makes plans to take the “midnight express” — jailhouse slang for escape. While his friends are willing to help, they also make clear that almost no one who has tried to escape has lived to tell the tale. Based on a true story, Midnight Express was a box-office hit which won wide acclaim for the performances of Brad Davis and John Hurt; and the screenplay, by Oliver Stone, won an Academy Award.

James Cox directs the sleazy Hollywood murder tale Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. Using a non-linear plot structure, the film explores different perspectives of the quadruple homicide that occurred on July 1, 1981, in the Hollywood Hills. At the lowest point of his career and the height of his drug addiction, Holmes was implicated in the murders of the Wonderland gang: Ron Launius (Josh Lucas), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Barbara Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner), and Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo). Launius’ wife, Susan (Christina Applegate), was the only survivor. Led by Detective Sam Nico (Ted Levine), the police investigation reveals a dark criminal underworld surrounding Holmes, his disapproving wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), and his innocent teenage girlfriend, Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth). Eric Bogosian stars as notorious Hollywood nightclub owner Eddie Nash. Wonderland premiered at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival.