Bovie Movie

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.

After directing the first two movies in the Harry Potter franchise, Chris Columbus opted to serve as producer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and passed the baton to Y Tu Mamá También director Alfonso Cuarón. Though “immensely popular” is an understatement when it comes to Harry Potter, Azkaban is somewhat of a departure from its predecessors, and particularly beloved among fans for its surprise ending. Prisoner of Azkaban also marks the introduction of Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who has escaped from the title prison after 12 years of incarceration. Believed to have been the right-hand-man of the dark wizard Voldemort, whom Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) mysteriously rendered powerless during his infancy, some of those closest to Harry suspect Black has returned to exact revenge on the boy who defeated his master. Upon his return to school, however, Harry is relatively unconcerned with Black. Run by Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) — who is widely regarded as the most powerful wizard of the age — Hogwarts is renowned for its safety. Harry’s nonchalance eventually turns to blind rage after accidentally learning the first of Black’s many secrets during a field trip to a neighboring village. Of course, a loose serial killer is only one of the problems plaguing the bespectacled wizard’s third year back at school — the soul-sucking guards of Azkaban prison have been employed at Hogwarts to protect the students, but their mere presence sends Harry into crippling fainting spells. With the help of his friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), and Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin (David Thewlis), Harry struggles to thwart the Dementors, find Sirius Black, and uncover the mysteries of the night that left him orphaned.

An unpopular high-school girl dies at the hands of her classmates when a cruel prank spins out of control, only to return from the land of the dead to seek revenge as a sexy seductress in this frightful feature from Final Destination screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick. Tamara was a quiet girl, and the cruelty of her classmates was relentless. As their disdain for their mousy classmate reaches a fever pitch, Tamara’s sadistic classmates carry out a vicious practical joke that inadvertently results in the young outcast meeting her doom. Tamara isn’t the kind to stay down forever though, and when the once-homely girl returns from beyond the grave with a killer new look and a body to die for, that’s exactly what her tormentors are about to do.

A charmingly na?ve boy from the English village of Wall travels to a magical, mythical world in search of the falling star that will help him win the heart of his true love in this fantasy adventure starring Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ricky Gervais, and Sienna Miller. For hundreds of years the massive cobblestone barrier that surrounds the sleepy English hamlet of Wall has kept the citizens of the village safe and secure from the malevolent supernatural forces that stir just outside its perimeter. When dashing Tristan Thorne (Cox) promises the fairest girl in the village, Victoria (Miller), that he will prove his love by bestowing her with a genuine falling star, his daring mission sends him on an adventure far outside the comfortable confines of Wall. In order to find the fallen star, Tristan will have to ascend the wall and venture deep into the forbidden heart of the fantastical realm known as Stormhold. Upon discovering that the meteorite he sought was in fact a beautiful girl named Yvaine (Danes), who has stumbled though space and is now being pursued by the King of Stormhold’s (Peter O’Toole) sons (who long to use her cosmic powers to lay claim to the throne), Tristan vows to protect the otherworldly visitor at all costs. But the king’s sons aren’t the only ones in search of the luminous Yvaine; fearsome witch Lamia (Pfeiffer) has become convinced that the young girl’s power can help her to achieve eternal youth and beauty. As Tristan makes his way through Stormhold on a mission to bring the star back to Wall, he will encounter a series of spectacular characters and creatures that will lead him to a fate he never imagined. Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn serves as director and co-screenwriter for this tale of witches and pirates adapted from the novel by fantasy icon Neil Gaiman, who also produces.

A nanny reveals ways of making children behave that are much more effective than a time-out in this fantasy comedy based on the “Nurse Matilda” books for children by Christianna Brand. Near the dawn of the twentieth century, Mr. Brown (Colin Firth) is a widower who must tend to his business as an undertaker while looking after his brood of seven children. Brown’s offspring are a singularly ill-mannered lot who have managed to drive away 17 different nannies when their father arranges for one Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) to help out with the children. McPhee is an strange looking woman with a large nose, protruding teeth, and pock-marked skin, but it isn’t long before the kids realize she has magical powers and isn’t afraid to use them to help keep them in line. While the children aren’t taken with McPhee’s insistence on such things as saying “please” and listening to their elders, it becomes clear everyone has bigger things to worry about. Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury) has insisted that if Mr. Brown cannot find a new wife within a month, she’ll take custody of one of the children and cut off Brown’s inheritance, and while Brown and the widow Mrs. Quickly (Celia Imrie) seem fond of one another, his ineptitude in courtship seems to insure he’ll never get her to the altar. But while the Brown Children realize Nanny McPhee is a formidable opponent, she can also be a valuable ally as they learn to make use of her talents by being better children; they also discover that as they behave better, she begins to look less frightening. Emma Thompson, who played the title role in Nanny McPhee, also wrote the film’s screenplay.

Directed by Mike Newell, the fourth installment to the Harry Potter series finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) wondering why his legendary scar — the famous result of a death curse gone wrong — is aching in pain, and perhaps even causing mysterious visions. Before he can think too much about it, however, Harry boards the train to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he will attend his fourth year of magical education. Shortly after his reunion with his best friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), Harry is introduced to yet another Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: the grizzled Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson), a former dark wizard catcher who agreed to take on the infamous “DADA” professorship as a personal favor to Headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Of course, Harry’s wishes for an uneventful school year are almost immediately shattered when he is unexpectedly chosen, along with fellow student Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson), as Hogwarts’ representative in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, which awards whoever completes three magical tasks the most skillfully with a thousand-galleon purse and the admiration of the international wizard community. As difficult as it is to deal with his schoolwork, friendships, and the tournament at the same time (not to mention his feelings toward the ever unfathomable Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), Harry doesn’t realize that the most feared wizard in the world, Lord Voldemort, is anticipating the tournament, as well.

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.

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.

Four of the most celebrated directors in the independent film community pooled their talents for this episodic comedy. Ted (Tim Roth) is the new bellboy at a beautiful but decaying luxury hotel; he is not having a good time of it on New Year’s Eve, his first night on the job. In one room, a coven of witches are trying to summon the spirit of the goddess Diana; each of the witches must bring a different bodily fluid for their spell to work, but Eva (Ione Skye), who was supposed to bring semen, managed to lose her supplies, and needs Ted’s help for a last-minute replacement. Another room, where Ted was supposed to deliver some ice, turns out to house an angry husband (David Proval), who is holding his bound-and-gagged wife (Jennifer Beals) at gunpoint. A third room is taken by a tough-talking gangster (Antonio Banderas), his doormat wife (Tamlyn Tomita), and their two children; the gangster demands that Ted watch over the kids, who turn out to be mischievous terrors beyond Ted’s wildest imagination. And room number four is where an arrogant film actor (Quentin Tarantino) is holding a party. One of his guests makes a bet that he can get a Zippo lighter to light ten times in a row, with his finger at stake if he loses. Allison Anders directed the first segment, which also featured Madonna, Valeria Golino, and Lili Taylor. The second segment was directed by Alexandre Rockwell, husband of his frequent leading lady Jennifer Beals. Robert Rodriguez directed the third story, while the finale was directed by its star, Quentin Tarantino; the final segment also features Bruce Willis, who appeared unbilled.