Bovie Movie

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.

Sleepless in Seattle director Nora Ephron originally made a name for herself as the writer of romantic comedies such as Heartburn and When Harry Met Sally. She continues the genre with You’ve Got Mail, marking her second collaboration with actors Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The story brings romance and courtship into the electronic age of the World Wide Web via e-mail and chat rooms. Joe Fox (Hanks) and Kathleen Kelly (Ryan) live and work blocks from each other on New York City’s Upper West Side. Their lives are practically intertwined. They both shop at the same place, frequent the same coffee shop, and even own competing bookstores on the same street. They also both have significant others of their own. Joe has the overly hyper book editor Patricia Eden (Parker Posey), while Kathleen lives with the scholarly newspaper columnist Frank Navasky (Greg Kinnear). Then they meet in a chat room. Though they keep their identities secret (they’re known only by screen names “NY152″ and “Shopgirl”), they tell each other everything about their lives, including their private feelings, which slowly turn into affection for each other. When Joe decides to open a new branch of his “Foxbooks” chain that risks putting Kathleen’s “Shop Around the Corner” out of business, the tension between them escalates. Surely her boutique business will be lost to the conglomerate with a built-in newsstand and coffee bar. When Joe sees Kathleen waiting for him in the restaurant where they agreed to meet up, he puts two and two together, but cannot face her, given their agreement not to reveal each others’ names and professions. How can he reveal himself to her now, knowing that he is the cause of her misery? Hopefully, love will conquer all.

Borrowing liberally from the French film La Totale, this is an action picture, domestic comedy, and political thriller rolled into a crowd-pleasing ball of entertainment. Producer James Cameron wrote and directed the film. Henry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a workaholic computer salesman neglecting his mousy wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), a legal secretary. Simon (Bill Paxton) seduces Helen with the lie that he is a secret agent; he’s really a used car salesman. Harry suspects that Helen is cheating on him, and he sends a few colleagues to kidnap them. Helen then discovers that Harry is a secret agent by night, working for a shadowy group called the Omega Sector. Harry and his partner Gib (Tom Arnold) are trying to find four nuclear warheads that have disappeared from a former Soviet republic.

A woman meets her future in-laws and discovers they don’t much care for her in this comedy from writer and director Thomas Bezucha. Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) is a successful young businessman who is dating Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker), and has asked her to spend Christmas with his family, with plans to ask his mother Sybil (Diane Keaton) for the titular family wedding band and propose to Meredith on Christmas. Meredith is more than a bit nervous about meeting Everett’s folks, and things only get worse when they arrive — Meredith is by her nature straight-laced and a bit uptight around strangers, while Sybil and family patriarch Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) are free-thinkers who, except for Everett, have raised a family of cheerfully rebellious children, most notably younger daughter Amy (Rachel McAdams), older brother Ben (Luke Wilson), and adopted sibling Thad (Tyrone Giordano, who is both deaf and gay.
Meredith and the Stone family do not get along well at first, especially Sybil, who is appalled at the prospect of Everett giving Meredith the family’s heirloom wedding ring; in dire need of moral support, Meredith asks her younger sister, Julie (Claire Danes), to join her for Christmas with the Stones. However, the plan runs into a snag when Everett’s head is turned by pretty Julie, and Meredith finds herself on the receiving end of attention from slobby Ben.

Oceanic wise guys meet up with a small fish who has a big attitude in this computer-animated comedy. Don Lino (voice of Robert De Niro) is the patriarch of a family of sharks who lord over a bustling aquatic community based along a massive underwater reef. Don Lino has two sons, Frankie (voice of Michael Imperioli) and Lenny (voice of Jack Black); Frankie is a carnivorous tough guy who takes after his father, but Lenny is, at heart, a kind soul who has earned the ire of his dad by becoming a vegetarian. One of Don Lino’s cronies is Sykes (voice of Martin Scorsese), who runs a “whale wash” where Oscar (voice of Will Smith) scrubs aquatic mammals for a living. Oscar is a small but ambitious fish who dreams of making something of himself, and when a dropped anchor accidentally kills Frankie, Oscar is suddenly (if mistakenly) celebrated as “the shark killer.” Oscar’s overnight fame attracts the attentions of Lola (voice of Angelina Jolie), a slinky dragon fish who woos Oscar away from his steady date, Angie (voice of Ren?e Zellweger); however, Oscar strikes up a friendship with Lenny and has to decide what to do when Don Lino and Sykes decides it’s time to “take care” of the “different” shark. Also popping up in Shark Tale’s all-star voice cast are Peter Falk, Vincent Pastore, Ziggy Marley, and Katie Couric.

Writer/director Nicole Kassell makes her feature film debut with the drama The Woodsman. Co-written by Steven Fechter, the original script won first place at the Slamdance Screenplay Competition in 2001. Kevin Bacon plays Walter, a child molester who gets out of prison after serving a 12-year sentence. He returns to his old town and tries to start over by working at a woodyard. Fortunately, his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt) helps him get a place to live. He even strikes up a relationship with local gal Vickie (Bacon’s real-life wife, Kyra Sedgwick). However, Walter still struggles with his past and the suspicions of co-worker Mary-Kay (Eve) and Detective Lucas (Mos Def). The Woodsman premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the dramatic competition.

A mismatched group of bored suburbanites longing to escape the stress of their daily lives and embrace the freedom of the open road finds that it takes more than polished chrome and leather jackets to truly experience the biker lifestyle in this revved-up road comedy starring John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy. Upon trading the comfort of their couches for the thunderous rumble of two-wheeled street machines, these four adventurous riders cross paths with the notorious Del Fuegos — an authentic biker gang that doesn’t take kindly to the weekend warrior type.

In this powerful and disturbing drama, Danny Balint (Ryan Gosling) is a member of a gang of racist skinheads who espouses a vile but well-articulated philosophy of anti-Semitism. Danny also has a secret — he is a Jew, and was a top student in Hebrew school before he began to ask too many questions about the deeper implications of the teachings in the Torah and the Old Testament, leading to his expulsion. Angry and confused, Danny began to explore the philosophies of the neo-Nazi movement, which he soon came to embrace through a mixture of anger over the tragic history of the Jewish people, bitterness over his experiences in Hebrew school, and a loathing of himself. Danny soon becomes a key member of a skinhead sect led by Curtis (Billy Zane) and Lina (Theresa Russell), but while Curtis and Lina believe that the desire for cultural assimilation by many American Jews will lead to their self-destruction, Danny advocates a more direct and violent approach in dealing with the “enemy.” Danny gains the admiration of his fellow skinheads for his intelligence and commitment, and wins the affection of Carla (Summer Phoenix), a group member with severe masochistic tendencies. But in time Danny’s beliefs begin to shift once again, just as the truth about his background becomes known to his comrades. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, The Believer was inspired by the true story of Daniel Burros, a member of the American Nazi Party who committed suicide in the 1960s when it was revealed by the press that he was born to a Jewish family.

Adapted from Umberto Eco’s best-selling novel, director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose is a 14th century murder-mystery thriller starring Sean Connery as a Sherlock Holmes-esque Franciscan monk called William of Baskerville. When a murder occurs at a secluded Benedictine Abbey, William is called in to investigate. As he and his apprentice, Adson von Melk (Christian Slater), delve deeper and deeper into the case, more dead bodies begin to turn up. Eventually, Bernardo Gui, an inquisitor played by F. Murray Abraham gets involved, but he may not have the best intentions. Sean Connery’s performance earned him the award for Best Actor at the 1988 British Academy Awards.

Radio legend and 3-D pioneer Arch Oboler brings his story, Alter Ego, to the screen in a low-budget yarn that benefits from a strong cast and direction. Joan Ellis (Phyllis Thaxter) hears a voice in her head (in flashbacks) shortly before she is to be married. She flees to another city and even takes up with another man to rid herself of the voice, but random words bring it back at unexpected moments. The voice ultimately tells her to kill her husband-to-be, and when a psychiatrist (Edmund Gwenn) determines on the eve of her execution that Joan is possessed by a split personality, a struggle ensues to see which one will survive. Oboler uses radio techniques and tense scripting to bring his thriller to visual life.