Bovie Movie

Dan Brown’s controversial best-selling novel about a powerful secret that’s been kept under wraps for thousands of years comes to the screen in this suspense thriller from director Ron Howard. The stately silence of Paris’ Louvre museum is broken when one of the gallery’s leading curators is found dead on the grounds, with strange symbols carved into his body and left around the spot where he died. Hoping to learn the significance of the symbols, police bring in Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a gifted cryptographer who is also the victim’s granddaughter. Needing help, Sophie calls on Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a leading symbologist from the United States. As Sophie and Robert dig deeper into the case, they discover the victim’s involvement in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members have been privy to forbidden knowledge dating back to the birth of Christianity. In their search, Sophie and Robert happen upon evidence that could lead to the final resting place of the Holy Grail, while members of the priory and an underground Catholic society known as Opus Dei give chase, determined to prevent them from sharing their greatest secrets with the world. Also starring Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, and Alfred Molina, The Da Vinci Code was shot on location in France and the United Kingdom; the Louvre allowed the producers to film at the famous museum, but scenes taking place at Westminster Abbey had to filmed elsewhere when church officials declined permission.

Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, the impish impresarios of gross-out comedy, take their body function-inspired humor to new extremes in this mixture of live action and animation. Bill Murray stars as Frank, a zoo worker suffering from the effects of an unknown malady he contracted after eating an egg contaminated with simian saliva. Unknown to Frank, the inside of his body is actually a city (the City of Frank) teeming with cellular life, where the mysterious illness he’s fighting is an invading enemy that must be defeated at all costs. It’s up to Osmosis Jones (voice of Chris Rock), a white blood cell cop, and Drix (voice of David Hyde Pierce), a rookie over-the-counter medication, to hunt down and stop a lethal virus (Laurence Fishburne) who’s got an inferiority complex. Along the way, the partners visit Frank’s runny nostrils (Booger Dam) and a bar called, appropriately enough, the Zit. Osmosis Jones costars Molly Shannon and Chris Elliott, and features the vocal talents of William Shatner, producer Joel Silver, and singer Brandy Norwood.

Youthful wizard Harry Potter returns to the screen in this, the second film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s wildly popular series of novels for young people. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) return for a second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Headmaster Dumbledore (Richard Harris), Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith), and Hagrid the Giant (Robbie Coltrane) are joined by new faculty members Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), a self-centered expert in Defense against the Dark Arts, and Sprout (Miriam Margolyes), who teaches Herbology. However, it isn’t long before Harry and company discover something is amiss at Hogwarts: Students are petrified like statues, threats are written in blood on the walls, and a deadly monster is on the loose. It seems that someone has opened the mysterious Chamber of Secrets, letting loose the monster and all its calamitous powers. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione set out to find the secret chamber and slay the beast, speculation is rife that one of the heirs of Salazar Slytherin, the co-founder of the school, opened the chamber as a warning against the presence of “mudbloods” (magic-users of impure lineage) at the school — and that the culprit may be fellow student Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets featured Richard Harris’ second and final appearance as Headmaster Dumbledore; he died less than a month before the film was released in the United States.

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.

A band of renegades on the run in outer space get in more hot water than they anticipated in this sci-fi action-adventure adapted from the television series Firefly. In the 26th century, the galaxy has been colonized by a military force known as the Alliance, but its leadership has not gone unquestioned. The Alliance was once challenged by a league of rebels known as the Independents, but the Alliance emerged victorious after a brutal civil war, with the surviving Independents scattering around the galaxy. Also wandering the edges of the galaxy are the Reavers, who have won few allies due to their violent behavior and habit of ripping apart their enemies and eating them before they’re dead. Capt. Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), who fought as an Independent in the galactic war, is the head of Serenity, a rogue frieghter ship whose crew includes Mal’s first mate, Zoe (Gina Torres), who fought alongside him in the war, her husband, hotshot pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), sunny but dependable mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and hard-nosed gunman Jayne (Adam Baldwin). The crew of Serenity wander the galaxy, taking on whatever work they can get, from criminal activities like smuggling and stealing to legitimately offering transport to travelers. Passengers aboard Serenity include professional “companion” Inara (Morena Baccarin) and holy man Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), but the real trouble aboard the ship comes with the arrival of Simon (Sean Maher) and his teenage sister, River Tam (Summer Glau). In time, the crew discovers that River has remarkable psychic powers and was being held captive by Alliance forces until Simon came to her rescue. Now the Alliance is hot on the heels of Serenity and its passengers, with The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a sinister Alliance tracker, leading the chase. Serenity was written and directed by Joss Whedon (in his directorial debut), creator of Firefly, which only lasted 11 weeks on the air but gained a powerful cult following who rallied to get the show released on DVD after its cancellation, leading to impressive home-video sales and and an eventual motion picture deal. A couple of months prior to Serenity’s theatrical release, reruns of Firefly were picked up by the Sci-Fi channel, adding even more fans to its cult following.

Indications were that this action sequel was in trouble before production began, when the male lead from the first film, Keanu Reeves, declined a role in the follow-up. Sandra Bullock returns as Annie Porter, an accident-prone ditz who is thrilled when her boyfriend Alex (Jason Patric) presents her with two tickets for a cruise ship vacation to the Bahamas. The trip is a peace offering presented because Annie has just learned that Alex is a police officer who’s been lying to her about his choice of profession. Little does the happy couple know that the disgruntled John Geiger (Willem Dafoe), designer of the ship’s computer system, has plotted a violent takeover of the vessel and a diamond hijacking that puts everyone on board in mortal danger. Being the dashing police officer he is, Alex leaps into action and tries to stop Geiger, but not before the ship crashes at top velocity into a Caribbean port town. Sandra Bullock agreed to star in this flop of a sequel in order to get financial backing for a pet project, Hope Floats (1998), a low-budget drama that turned a healthy profit.

As the sun begins to dim along with mankind’s hope for the future, it’s up to a desperate crew of eight astronauts to reach the dying star and re-ignite the fire that will bring life back to planet Earth in a tense, psychological sci-fi thriller that re-teams 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle with writer Alex Garland and producer Andrew Macdonald. The skies are darkening, and the outlook for planet Earth is grim. Though the encroaching darkness at first seems unstoppable, scientists have concocted one desperate last-ditch plan to buy the human race a temporary reprieve from the grim future that looms just past the horizon. A crew of eight men and women has been given a nuclear device designed to literally re-ignite the sun and sent hurdling through infinity on the most crucial space mission ever attempted. Suddenly, as the crew loses radio contact with mission control, everything begins to fall apart. Now, in the darkest reaches of the galaxy, the men and women who may hold the key to ultimate survival find themselves not only struggling for their lives, but their sanity as well. Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Cillian Murphy, and Michelle Yeoh star in a film that asks audiences just what would become of mankind if the sky suddenly went black.

Based on the comic book miniseries by Alan Moore, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen takes place in an alternate universe where the characters of several literary classics exist in reality. As if that weren’t enough, they’ve been assembled together in 1900 by Queen Victoria as a team of evil-fighting heroes. Among them are Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery) from H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines; Mina Harker (Peta Wilson) from Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Tom Sawyer (Shane West) from several works by Mark Twain; Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray; Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah) from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; The Invisible Man (Tony Curran) from H.G. Wells book of the same name; and several others. Working together, the odd assortment of characters must combine their powers to defeat a mysterious villain and save the world from certain destruction. Directed by Stephen Norrington (Blade), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also stars Jason Flemyng, Tom Goodman-Hill, and David Hemmings.

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.

This big budget “re-imagining” of the 1968 original departs somewhat from both that classic science fiction film and the source novel by author Pierre Boulle. Mark Wahlberg stars as Leo Davidson, an astronaut of the early 21st century whose unauthorized mission to rescue a chimp companion from a mysterious space storm goes awry when he and his ship are lost through a rip in the fabric of time. Leo crash-lands on a planet where intelligent, talking apes are the dominant species and humans a conquered slave class. Befriending both a chimpanzee activist named Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who’s sympathetic to humans, and a beautiful human rebel, Daena (Estella Warren), Leo quickly becomes a prominent figure of resistance to his fellow humans. This makes him an instant source of irritation for the militant and ambitious General Thade (Tim Roth) and his trusted adjutant, Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), who intend to hunt Leo down and crush the burgeoning human uprising. War looms between ape and human as Leo and his band head for a sacred site deep in an off-limits desert, where secrets about the planet’s ape and human ancestry wait to be revealed. Planet of the Apes is directed by Tim Burton and features the original film’s star, Charlton Heston, in a cameo role as the dying father of Thade.