Bovie Movie

The Living Daylights represents the first appearance by Timothy Dalton as “Bond…James Bond.” Based very, very loosely on an obscure Ian Fleming short story, the film finds Bond assigned to aid in the defection of KGB agent Jeroen Krabbe. 007 must prevent an unknown sniper from killing Krabbe before he can reach the West. The mysterious assailant turns out to be the luscious Maryam d’Abo, who like practically everyone in the film except Bond is Not All That She Seems. The plot wends its way through a scheme to trade several million dollars’ worth of diamonds for weapons, which will be shipped off to mercenaries worldwide. The climax takes place high above the clouds in a cargo plane loaded with opium. Dalton would play Bond one more time in License to Kill (1989) before handing the franchise over to Pierce Brosnan.

In 1977, George Lucas released Star Wars, the ultimate sci-fi popcorn flick-turned-pop-culture myth machine. It quickly became the biggest money-making film of all time and changed the shape of the film industry. After two successful sequels (1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi) that extended the story of the first film, Lucas took some time off to produce movies for others, with mixed success. In 1999, Lucas returned to the Star Wars saga with a new approach — instead of picking up where Return of the Jedi left off, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace would be the first of a trilogy of stories to trace what happened in the intergalactic saga before the first film began. Here, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is a young apprentice Jedi knight under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson); Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), who will later father Luke Skywalker and become known as Darth Vader, is just a nine-year-old boy. When the Trade Federation cuts off all routes to the planet Naboo, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are assigned to settle the matter, but when they arrive on Naboo they are brought to Amidala (Natalie Portman), the Naboo queen, by a friendly but opportunistic Gungan named Jar Jar. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan plan to escort Amidala to a meeting of Republic leaders in Coruscant, but trouble with their spacecraft strands them on the planet Tatooine, where Qui-Gon meets Anakin, the slave of a scrap dealer. Qui-Gon is soon convinced that the boy could be the leader the Jedis have been searching for, and he begins bargaining for his freedom and teaching the boy the lessons of the Force. The supporting cast includes Pernilla August as Anakin’s mother, Terence Stamp as Chancellor Valorum, and Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi master Mace Windu. Jackson told a reporter before The Phantom Menace’s release that the best part about doing the film was that he got to say “May the Force be with you” onscreen.

Bruce Willis returns as misfit cop John McClane in the third film in the Die Hard series. McClane has fallen on hard times; after moving to New York City and breaking up with his wife, he’s developed a drinking problem and has been suspended from the NYPD. However, his past comes back to haunt him in the form of Simon (Jeremy Irons), a terrorist bomber who has been using McClane as his contact as he plants a series of bombs in public places and gives McClane inane “clues” to their whereabouts in the form of riddles and bizarre games. McClane soon discovers he’s been involved in Simon’s scheme as part of a personal grudge; while associated with an international terrorist group, Simon is also the brother of the man McClane threw off the side of a skyscraper several years back (in the original Die Hard). Now McClane, with the help of a Harlem shopkeeper named Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), has to find out where Simon has planted the bombs, guess where he’ll strike next, and try to find his base of operations before more bombs go off and thousands of people die. The supporting cast features Graham Greene and Colleen Camp; singer Sam Phillips made her acting debut as a member of Simon’s terrorist group (Phillips never speaks, so as to not to reveal her Texas accent).

Washington Irving’s tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman gets a few new twists in a screen adaptation directed by Tim Burton. In this version, Ichabod (Johnny Depp) is a New York City detective whose unorthodox techniques and penchant for gadgets make him unpopular with is colleagues. He is sent to the remote town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of bizarre murders, in which a number of people have been found dead in the woods, with their heads cut off. Local legend has it that a Hessian ghost rides through the woods on horseback, lopping off the heads of the unsuspecting and unbelieving. Ichabod refuses to believe in this legend, convinced that there must be a logical explanation for the murders. In time, Ichabod becomes smitten with a local lass, Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), who is the sweetheart of the burly Brom Bones (Casper Van Dien), and he becomes determined to capture the murderer to prove his bravery and win her heart. Christopher Walken, Jeffrey Jones, and Christopher Lee highlight the supporting cast; Lee’s appearance is particularly apt, since Burton has cited the Hammer films of the 1960s as a major influence in making this film. Andrew Kevin Walker and Tom Stoppard contributed to the screenplay.

A mother and daughter flee to a strange abandoned town to seek out answers to the daughter’s nightly psychological turmoil in Brotherhood of the Wolf director Christophe Gans’ adaptation of the popular survival horror video game. Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) is a very sick child, yet rather than seeing her child suffer the cruel indignities of the medical profession, Rose (Radha Mitchell) ignores her husband’s (Sean Bean) pleas and absconds with her ailing daughter to the fog-enshrouded town of Silent Hill. A town drenched in darkness and inhabited by a strange collection of menacing specters, Silent Hill seemingly swallows young Sharon whole upon arrival. Determined to get her daughter back at any cost, Rose sets out to explore the mysterious Silent Hill, only to discover an evil so powerful that it possesses the ability to transform anything it wishes. With the deeply disturbing history of the town slowly coming into focus through the dense fog, Rose soon realizes that both she and her daughter may be little more than simple pawns in a much larger, and seemingly supernatural, game.

Anne Rice’s best-selling romantic horror tale about the origins of a centuries-old vampire inspired this popular, atmospheric chiller. One of director Neil Jordan’s major Hollywood productions, the film stays close to its source material, retaining the frame of a young reporter (Christian Slater) interviewing a man who claims to be a 200-year-old vampire. The man, Louis (Brad Pitt), shares his story, beginning in 18th-century New Orleans with his first encounters with the charismatic and decadent vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise). Lestat converts Louis to blood-sucking and immortality, but Louis fails to adopt Lestat’s cavalier attitude, instead tormenting himself with guilt over his new nature. The two vampires remain deeply, if reluctantly, connected over the years, while becoming intimately involved with others of their kind, including Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), a mature immortal in a young child’s body. Fans of the novel raised numerous objections, particularly after Rice initially spoke out against the casting of Cruise as Lestat; further casting difficulties followed the death of River Phoenix, whose role as the interviewer was assumed by Christian Slater. Rice later recanted her objections, and the combination of thrills and gothic romance proved popular with audiences.

The war against the forces of darkness becomes a family affair in this cinematic prequel to the popular video game Bloodrayne. In 16th century Europe, Lord Kagan (Ben Kingsley) is an evil ruler who holds more power than any man alive, but he still dreams of having more, and when he’s told of three magic talismans who, when united, will give him intense supernatural strength and the gift of immortality, he will stop at nothing to attain them. However, three warriors who have learned how to battle the forces of darkness — Vladimir (Michael Madsen), Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez), and Sebastian (Matt Davis) — have formed the Brimstone Society, with the goal of stripping Kagan of his power and restoring justice to their land. They can’t accomplish this on their own, though, so they enlist the aid of Rayne (Kristanna Loken), a half-human, half-vampire who can approach Kagan’s sinister gifts while having a desire to do good. However, Rayne is torn about signing on with the Brimstone Society, and for a good reason — Kagan is her father. Scripted by actress, screenwriter, and video-game enthusiast Guinevere Turner, BloodRayne also stars Geraldine Chaplin, Udo Kier, Billy Zane, Michael Par?, and Meat Loaf Aday.

This haunted house chiller is the second feature from Dark Castle Entertainment, the mid-budget outfit put together in 1999 to remake the cheesy horror genre pictures of William Castle by his daughter, Terry Castle, and producers Gilbert Adler, Robert Zemeckis, and Joel Silver. Financially ravaged and widowed by a fire that is consuming him with guilt, Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub) is left to raise two kids on his own: beautiful teenager Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and grade school student Bobby (Alec Roberts). Good news suddenly drops into their lives when a lawyer visits and reveals that they have inherited a lavish home from a late uncle, Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham), an eccentric ghost hunter. The Kriticos family moves into the remote house only to discover its odd secret: the dwelling contains a state-of-the-art, elaborate system of moving glass walls that trap spirits inside. Soon the ghosts, which can only be seen through the use of special high-tech spectacles, are loose in the elaborate contraption and are none too thrilled about their predicament. With the exits sealed, the family members try to learn the secret of Uncle Cyrus’ bizarre mansion and survive supernatural assaults with the help of sassy housekeeper Maggie (Rah Digga), neurotic psychic Rafkin (Matthew Lillard), and Kalina (Embeth Davidtz), an activist championing the civil rights of ghosts. The eyeglasses through which the spirits can be viewed in Thirteen Ghosts (2001) were part of a ballyhoo gimmick involving pairs of spectacles handed out to audiences for screenings of the 1960 original, which was presented in “Illusion-O.”

George A. Romero, who revolutionized the American horror film in 1968 with the instant classic Night of the Living Dead, returns to his dystopian zombie cycle with this horror thriller. In Land of the Dead, the zombies whose numbers had been slowly but steadily growing through Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead now dominate the streets of most American cities, while urban skyscrapers have been taken over by surviving humans, usually greed-addled opportunists who allow the living to stay in their fortified compounds for a price. Guarding the buildings are rough-and-tumble mercenaries who have learned to do battle with the zombies, making use of powerful weapons to gain advantage. But as the zombie civilization grows, the creatures have begun to slowly evolve, with their dormant thought processes beginning to awaken, and as unrest begins to ferment among the mercenaries and the entrepreneurs who pay them, the ghouls may have found a way to defeat the last stronghold of humanity. Land of the Dead stars Dennis Hopper as arch capitalist Kaufman, and Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Robert Joy, and Asia Argento as some of the mercenaries; Asia Argento’s father, Dario Argento, served as a producer on one of the earlier films in the series, Dawn of the Dead.

In Slither, James Caan plays Dick Kanipsia, a recently paroled car thief whose plans to go straight are interrupted when his best pal Harry Moss (Richard B. Schull) is shot and killed. As he lies dying, Moss advises Kanipsia to seek out fellow crook Barry Fenaka (Peter Boyle), who knows where a huge amount of money stolen by Moss is hidden. Aware that he himself is a marked man, Kanipsia has to play it cool en route to Fenaka. This proves difficult when his erstwhile travelling companion, dopehead Kitty Kopetzky Sally Kellerman, robs a roadside diner in his presence. Since nothing is ever quite what it appears to be in Slither, perhaps we shouldn’t tell you any more. This truly serpentine tale served as the feature-film directorial debut of Howard Zieff, the former TV-commercial helmsman responsible for the famous Spicy Meatball ad.