Bovie Movie

After incorporating elements of comic book style and design into many of his films, director Sam Raimi helms this straight-ahead, big-budget comic book adaptation, which also marks acclaimed young actor Tobey Maguire’s first dip into live-action blockbuster filmmaking. Spider-Man follows the template of the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko source material, with hero Peter Parker an orphaned, intellectual teen loner living in Queens with his aunt (Rosemary Harris) and uncle (Cliff Robertson), and dreaming of the girl next door, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). On a field trip to a Columbia University lab, Peter is bitten by a genetically altered spider and overnight he gains superhuman strength, agility, and perception. At first, Peter uses his powers for material gain, winning a wrestling match with a purportedly lucrative prize. But when Peter apathetically fails to stop a burglar from robbing the wrestling arena, a tragedy follows that compels him to devote his powers to fighting crime — as the superhero Spider-Man. When he’s not busy fighting crime in a spider suit, Peter moves into an apartment with his best friend, Harry (James Franco), and begins work as a photographer at the Daily Bugle. Meanwhile, his do-gooder alter ego finds a nemesis in the form of the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), a super-powered, megalomaniacal villain who happens to be the alter ego of Harry’s father, weapons-manufacturing mogul Norman Osborn. Spider-Man was written by the prolific blockbuster scribe David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Panic Room).

A gifted forger and confidence man attempts to stay one step ahead of the lawman determined to bring him to justice in this comedy-drama from Steven Spielberg, based on a true story. Frank W. Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a 16-year-old high school student who finds himself emotionally cut adrift when his mother, Paula (Nathalie Baye), leaves his father, Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken), after Frank Sr. falls into arrears with the Internal Revenue Service. One day at school, Frank Jr. attempts to pass himself off as a substitute teacher, and easily makes the subterfuge work. His small-scale success gives Frank some ideas, and he soon discovers bigger and more profitable ways of hoaxing others, passing himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor, and an attorney. Along the way, Frank learns how to become a master forger, and uses his talent and charm to pass over 2.5 million dollars in phony checks. Frank’s increasingly audacious work soon attracts the attention of Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), an FBI agent who is determined to put Frank behind bars. Frank seems to enjoy being pursued by Carl, and even goes so far as to call Carl on the phone to chat every once in a while. While posing as a doctor, Frank falls in love with Brenda Strong (Amy Adams), a sweet girl working as a candy striper. When Frank asks Brenda to marry him, he decides to assume a new identity to impress her father, Roger (Martin Sheen) — who happens to be the District Attorney of New Orleans, LA. Catch Me If You Can was based on the autobiography of the real Frank W. Abagnale Jr., who has a cameo in the film and today works on the side of the law as a top consultant on preventing forgery and designing secure checking systems.

The second prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy takes place ten years after the events depicted in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. Now 20, young Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is an apprentice to respected Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Unusually powerful in the Force, Anakin is also impatient, arrogant, and headstrong — causing his mentor a great deal of concern. The pair are ordered to protect Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), the former queen of the planet Naboo, now representing her world in the Galactic Senate. Someone is trying to assassinate her on the eve of a vote enabling Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) to build a military force that will safeguard against a growing separatist movement led by mysterious former Jedi Count Dooku (Christopher Lee). After another attempt on Padme’s life, Obi-Wan and Anakin separate. The young Jedi and Padme fall in love as he escorts her first to the security of Naboo and then to his home world of Tatooine, where the fate of his mother leads him to commit an ominous atrocity. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan travels to the secretive planet Kamino and the asteroid-ringed world of Geonosis, following bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) and his son, Boba (Daniel Logan), who are involved in an operation to create a massive army of clones. A vicious battle ensues between the clones and Jedi on one side and Dooku’s droids on the other, but who is really pulling the strings in this galactic conflict? In late 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones: The IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 120 minutes in order to meet the technical requirements of the large-screen format.

A young man finds that the moves he learned on the street may help him make a better life for himself in this youth-oriented musical drama. DJ Williams (Columbus Short) is a 19-year-old growing up in Los Angeles; while DJ is at heart a good kid and a gifted street dancer, he runs with a dangerous crowd, and one night an underground dance competition turns into a brawl and DJ ends up in jail. DJ’s younger brother has already died a violent death, and his mother, hoping to put him back on the straight and narrow, sends DJ off to Truth University, a historically African-American college in Atlanta. At first, DJ feels like a misfit at Truth, but when he gets a chance to show off his dancing skills, he attracts the attention of two campus fraternities. Greek life is a major presence at Truth, and each year the fraternities take part in a “stepping” competition, in which the members show off their synchronized dance moves. DJ joins the ONO house, and is eager to help them take the championship away from their campus rivals, but in time he also comes to understand the brotherhood and community service that’s a key part of his fraternity’s background. DJ also has more on his mind than dancing and studying when he meets April (Meagan Good), a beautiful coed. Produced under the title Steppin’, Stomp the Yard also stars Ne-Yo, Brian J. White, and Jermaine Williams.

In this family-friendly comedy drama, Walter (Haley Joel Osment) is a shy and bookish boy just short of his teens whose mother impulsively decides to leave him for the summer with his eccentric grand-uncles, Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine). Walter isn’t especially happy about being left in the middle of Texas with two old men, while Hub and Garth aren’t too pleased to be stuck minding a boy, especially one who isn’t accustomed to hunting, fishing, or firearms. When Walter starts hearing local gossip about his uncles’ wild and wooly pasts, he begins asking a few questions, and while Hub and Garth don’t enjoy having the boy poking into their pasts, as they start telling tales of their youthful adventures, they find themselves itching for some new adventures in their lives. Soon Walter is a semi-willing accomplice as his elderly guardians rediscover the wild, impulsive spirit of youth. Secondhand Lions was produced in part by the well-respected visual effects house Digital Domain, who also helped create the imagery for the film’s flashback sequences.

The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic’s gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight. His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans’ hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone’s best work and Cruise’s best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter’s book, won for Best Director.

The true story of one woman’s effort to keep her family afloat under difficult circumstances comes to the screen in this bittersweet comedy drama. Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore) was a woman of intelligence, talent, and pluck living in the small town of Defiance, OH, in the 1950s. Evelyn was married to Kelly Ryan (Woody Harrelson), a man who gave her ten children but not much else; Kelly had a severe drinking problem, struggled to hold on to a job, and tended to spend his money as soon as he earned it. It was seemingly up to Evelyn to support the family, but with ten kids to look after, taking a job outside the home hardly seemed practical. But the resourceful Evelyn discovered a way to bring some extra money into the household — at a time when a number of companies held contests to find new advertising jingles for their products, Evelyn had a genius for coming up with slogans and winning contests, and for the better part of a decade Evelyn kept food on the table and a roof over her head by dreaming up jingles, tag lines, and ad headlines and winning contests with her handiwork, often selling the merchandise she won to pay the bills. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio was based on the best-selling memoir by Terry Ryan, who was the sixth of Evelyn Ryan’s ten kids.

Adapted from the novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season tells the story of a family whose turmoil is brought to the surface by a young girl’s unexpected talent. Eleven-year-old Eliza (Flora Cross) is the invisible element of her family unit — her mother and father (played by Juliette Binoche and Richard Gere) are both consumed with work and busy avoiding their faltering marriage. Her brother, praised for musical genius, is wrapped up in his own adolescent life. Eliza ignites not only a spark that makes her visible but one that sets into motion a revolution in her family dynamic when she wins a spelling bee. Finding an emotional outlet in the power of words and in the spiritual mysticism that he sees at work in her unparalleled gift, Eliza’s father pours all of his energy into helping his daughter become spelling bee champion, further distancing himself from his wife and son. A religious studies professor, he sees the opportunity as not only a distraction from his life but as an answer to his own crisis of faith. His vicarious path to God, real or imagined, leads to an obsession with Eliza’s success and he begins teaching her secrets of the Kabbalah. Now preparing for the National Spelling Bee, and with her family spreading further and further into four separate directions, Eliza looks on as a new secret of her family’s hidden turmoil seems to be revealed with each new word she spells.