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CAPITAL
IDEAS
"The Widow of Saint-Pierre"
chronicles redemption and sacrifice in a historical backwater
ON
THE ROCKS
Ten films that
will make you want to drink alone
LOST
IN ACTION
"Exit Wounds" features
a Steven Seagal looking bored out of his mind, and editing where
there once was unforgettable ability
NEWFOUND
GLORY
Hope gets sneaky
in "It All Starts Today"
A
REAL WORLD WAR
The most expensive
European film to date, "Enemy at the Gates" accomplishes much with
a story that contains very little
UNREEL
STRUGGLE
Jon Lewis goes
deep with "Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle Over Censorship
Saved the Modern Film Industry"
BLOW
HARD
Raise your hand
if you're tired of quirky UK comedies featuring quaint townsfolk
who engage in outlandish contests. Oops, here comes "Blow Dry."
A
DYING ART
Pop-damaged "Too
Tired to Die" fails to motivate
BAD
COMPANY
Set before and
during the Bay of Pigs invasion, the woeful "Company Man" follows
a private-school teacher who becomes a CIA operative in Cuba
more
>
OLD
DOG, NEW TRICKS
Extreme opposites
attract in the slightly offbeat boy-meets-girl tale "When Brendan
Met Trudy"
DON'T
WASTE THE TIME
"15 Minutes" wastes
a good cast on a contrived, pseudo-cathartic revenge fantasy
COULD
IT BE... SATAN?
IMAX film "Haunted
Castle" has lots of buzz, but no soul for rock 'n' roll
MOGULS
& MOBS
In "Movie Wars,"
critic Jonathan Rosenbaum takes on the "media-industrial complex"
and how it controls the movies we see
SPOT
CHECK
It's dog-bites-testicle
in the woeful "See Spot Run"
GAY
BLADES
Set among the samurai
of the 19th century, Nagisa Oshima's "Taboo" is a surprisingly subdued
affair
QUESTIONS
OF CLASS
In "The Taste of
Others," a factory owner falls for a stage actress while a promiscuous
bodyguard tries to go steady with a hash-dealing barmaid
POLISHED
UP
With "Last Resort,"
Pawel Pawlikowski promises to be one of the greatest Polish filmmakers
outside Poland
BUMMER
VACATION
Six kids uncover
a scheme that would eliminate summer break in "Recess: School's
Out"
CAUGHT
IN A TRAP
Elvis heist flick
"3000 Miles to Graceland" is hypnotically awful
FLOGGING
THE MONKEY
Brendan Fraser
stars in "Monkeybone," the half-animated tale of a cartoonist horrified
at the big sellout
NO
KIDDING
Hell is for children
in the compelling British coming-of-age tale "Ratcatcher"
ACTION,
JACKSON
"Pollock" unsympathetically
follows the artist from near-anonymity, through the height of his
artistic powers, and all the way to his alcohol-filled final days
A
FINE CUBAN
"Life Is to Whistle"
offers a dreamlike narrative about the quest for happiness
STONED
AGAIN
A mammoth box set
sums up Oliver Stone, every blustery bit
SMELLY
MESS
"Sweet November"
remakes the equally emetic 1968 original
BACKYARD
WAR
"Kippur" conveys
the strangeness and futility of a war so close you could reach it
in your Fiat 128
EROS
FOR RENT
Love and sex beyond
the Hollywood mainstream
PREDICTING
OSCAR
A look at likely
nominations in the five major Academy Award categories
GREETING-CARD
SENTIMENTS
"Moon Shadow,"
about a mathematician who travels to his childhood villa in Sicily,
falls victim to aggravating arthouse sentimentality
SEOUL
MUSIC
"Chunhyang," the
97th film directed by Im Kwon Taek, is also one of the first Korean
films to win distribution in the U.S. It's a fable worth retelling.
DUMB
& BUMMER
"Saving Silverman"
can't even rescue itself
UNDERNEATH
IT ALL
Tom Gilroy's first
feature, "Spring Forward," is a subtly powerful reminder that there
are few experiences more transfixing than gazing into another human
face
LOST
IN TIME
Featuring a confused
performance by Jordana Brewster, "The Invisible Circus" is yet another
feeble attempt to deal with the baggage of the 1960s
LEAVE
IT BEHIND
The latest from
the underground Christian movie industry, "Left Behind" turns Biblical
scripture into boneheaded action-adventure
MANNEQUINS
"Head Over Heels"
gets its ill-fitting comedy off the rack
TO
DUB OR NOT TO DUB
Debating the merits
of film subtitles
CLAIM
STUMPING
Sarah Polley gives
a standout performance in Michael Winterbottom's unconventional
Western, but "The Claim" is subtle to the point of being obscure
GUNS
& BETTYS
"Sugar & Spice,"
the latest of the hopefully waning trend of cheerleader movies,
plays its potentially dark premise too safe
SINGING
SOPRANO
William H. Macy
plays a hit man in therapy in the exhausting "Panic"
BLOOD
BROTHERS
"Shadow of the
Vampire" details an unholy alliance between director and vampire
on the set of "Nosferatu"
CRUEL
FATES
Sean Penn's "The
Pledge" shrouds a study of character as destiny in the guise of
a murder mystery
DEATH,
DRUGS & DOGGEREL
You can learn a
lot of wrong lessons about New York City by watching "Once in the
Life"
HOUSE
OF PAIN
Terence Davies'
"House of Mirth" adaptation finds the hypocrisy in Edith Wharton's
age, and ours
ART
OF DARKNESS
Film noir is a
genre you shouldn't shed too much light on
MONDO
TIJUANA
If you like it
rough, take a ride on the "Night Train"
UNWRAPPING
SUSPENSE
In director Sam
Raimi's gripping new thriller, "The Gift," a psychic Cate Blanchett
confronts a terrorizing Keanu Reeves
FIRST
RATE
The MovieLens site
does a good job of recommending movies you would actually enjoy
watching
WHY
MOVIES DISAPPOINT
Rewinding seven
influential developments in the cinema over the past decade
SEEING
DOUBLE
"Double Take" slams
together every predictable plot turn you can imagine, then accelerates
them so they often come off very funny
TRUST
BUSTED
Ryan Phillippe,
Tim Robbins, Claire Forlani and Rachel Leigh Cook miss an opportunity
to craft an intriguing techo-thriller in "Antitrust"
OVEREXTENDED
FAMILY
A three-hour contemporary
family drama with an intricate soap-opera plot, "Yi Yi" is nonetheless
Taiwanese writer-director Edward Yang's first international success
AGONY
& ECSTASY
A legend in life
and death, Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini made excess into
art
MIXING
IT UP
In "O Brother,
Where Art Thou?" the Coen brothers sing the praises of cultural
miscegenation
SICILIAN
PIE
"Malena," Giuseppe
Tornatore's tale of a soldier's wife fending for herself in WWII
Sicily, is alternately teasing and brutal
DUDE,
WHERE'S THAT VIDEO?
The best teen movies
you've probably never seen
TAPPING
A VEIN
Horrormeister Wes
Craven exec-produced "Dracula 2000," a surprisingly stylish and
frequently clever stab at the vampire legend
FEARFUL
NEW CENTURY
Who would deny
that the world we live in is as scary, insincere and strange as
an Alfred Hitchcock movie?
OVERSTUFFED
The conventional
sex comedy "Chocolat" is a plummy art-house ham with all the trimmings
FAST-FORWARD
TO THE FUTURE
Staying home New
Year's Eve? Ring in 2001 with some New Year's-themed films.
HORSEFEATHERS
With his take on
"All the Pretty Horses," Billy Bob Thornton sends Cormac McCarthy
to the glue factory
ROLLING
IN THE AISLES
As writer-director
David Mamet deftly shows in "State and Main," it takes just as much
effort and commitment to make a bad movie as it does to craft a
good one
EYE-POPPING
DISCS
A sensual force
of nature enters homes everywhere with the recent DVD releases of
Brigitte Bardot's films
CAGE
GETS A GLIMPSE
"The Family Man"
is a far more engaging film than the deplorable trailer would lead
you to believe
AFFABLE
LOSERS
Although the writing
isn't as clever as the movies "Dude, Where's My Car?" emulates,
Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott are charming
POOR
PAGEANT
"Miss Congeniality"
forces audiences to endure another round of Sandra Bullock playing
cutesy--but at least William Shatner is a hoot
SEA
CHANGE
Shanghai is the
scene for doomed romance in "Suzhou River"
HOME
IS FOR HEARTBURN
Our national melting
pot gets stirred up in "What's Cooking?"
DRAGON
YAWNER
"Dungeons & Dragons"
isn't a dreadful movie, just routine and a little uninvolving
ROUND
& ROUND
Taiwanese melodrama
"Yi Yi" explores the cycles of life
EAR
SHOTS
Family members
take sides in a debate over deaf culture in the documentary "Sound
and Fury"
FLATLINERS
If it weren't for
all the yelling, "Proof of Life" would be DOA
VERTICALLY
CHALLENGED
Mountain-climbing
movie "Vertical Limit" chokes on thin air
KILLER'S
KISS
William H. Macy
stars in "Panic," a middle-age angst movie with a twist
SADE
STORY
"Quills" offers
an intriguing look at the last years of the Marquis de Sade
MIGHTY
APHRODITES
Remarkable characters
find love at the "Venus Beauty Institute"
RESERVOIR
DOGS REUNITE
The Steve Buscemi-directed
"Animal Factory" adapts the novel by convict-turned-author Edward
Bunker about life in San Quentin
IT
CAME FROM THE NORTH POLE
This year roast
"It's a Wonderful Life" on an open fire and check out these lesser-known
Yuletide film classics
REMEMBERING
STEVE MCQUEEN
Twenty years ago
this month, the last really convincing American film actor met an
untimely death
SEEING
SPOTS
Rehashing the original,
"102 Dalmatians" does its talky, overwrought business
POPCORN
SEASON
It's the time of
year for more movies than you can shake your laser at
NO,
BUT I READ THE MOVIE
Books into films
or films from auteurs: Let's make up our critical minds
MEAN
GREEN GRINCHY MACHINE
"How the Grinch
Stole Christmas" is a reminder of what Hollywood can do
SCRIPT
STATIC CLINGS
Despite solid direction
and strong performances by Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, "Bounce"
suffers from screenplay failure
ALL
WE WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
Which fall films
will be tasty Thanksgiving treats, and which ones will be lumps
of coal in our stockings?
PLAYING
GOD
Schwarzenegger
continues his investigations into the future, taking on evil scientists
in "The 6th Day"
PARIS
MATCH
The Rugrats return
with another dose of their animated mayhem with "Rugrats in Paris,"
which will appeal to kids and adults alike
WHERE
ARE THE BOOBS?
If Hollywood is
going to keep making crappy movies, the least it can do is give
us some nudity
AGGRESSIVELY
TEDIOUS
Cobbled together
from bits of "Run Lola Run" and "Reservoir Dogs," "Non-Stop" is
a gruelingly tedious po-mo Japanese crime flick
HONOR
UNBOUND
"Men of Honor"
mixes in all of Hollywood's military cliches
DEVILISH
FUN
Adam Sandler's
"Little Nicky" serves up a macabre mixture of sinister laughs and
satanic undertones
RAVEN
THRILLER
Michael Jackson
will play Edgar Allan Poe in a film. Really. We swear. No joke.
HEALTHY
PURSUIT
"Just Looking,"
a peek at 1950s carnal curiosity directed by "Seinfeld"'s Jason
Alexander, is a charming, ribald memory tale
PERSIAN
PERSONA
"A Time for Drunken
Horses" finds a Bergman among the Kurds
WEARING
THE UNION LABEL
"Live Nude Girls
Unite!" examines the power of group action in the sex-work industry
BAG
IT
With "The Legend
of Bagger Vance," Robert Redford glosses over America's racist past
and leaves Will Smith smiling and nodding
JOIN
THE CLUB
There's little
romance but lots of good gay-community examples in forgettable comedy
"The Broken Hearts Club"
HEAVY
PETTING
Manimals make for
some hairy allegory in "The Wolves of Kromer"
PAINTING
BY NUMBERS
"Goya in Bordeaux"
is a lushly filmed wallow in the loves and tribulations of the long-suffering
artist
CHANTASTIC
Jackie Chan weaves
a splendid film out of "The Legend of Drunken Master"
JACK'S
BACK
In "The Nightmare
Before Christmas," filmmakers Tim Burton and Henry Selick proved
Halloween is the best holiday of all
LOVE
BARKS
"Moonlight Whispers"
puts teen romance on a leash
RAINER
DROPS
"Water Drops on
Burning Rocks" resurrects a sexy, outrageous Fassbinder story
NOT
SO RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS
"Pay It Forward"
warms the heart without cheap tricks
INSIDE
THE GLASS BOOTH
"The Specialist"
documents the chilling trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann
FODDER
OF OUR COUNTRY
Exploring the nature
of love in "George Washington"
CHRONICLING
THE KINDERTRANSPORT
A documentary about
the mass rescue of children from the Nazis, "Into the Arms of Strangers"
offers no easy endings
HOOD
WINKING
"One" rehashes
the old neighborhood good seed/bad seed drama
HEAL
THYSELF
"Dr. T and the
Women" finds Richard Gere drowning in femininity
LADIES
PAN
"Ladies Man" Tim
Meadows stars in another unfunny widget from the SNL movie miss
machine
TOURETTE'S
TALE
"The Tic Code"'s
tale of an afflicted musician manages to work out a complex relationship
between mother and son
EASYGOING
EMPATHY
"Catfish in Black
Bean Sauce" finds an African-American couple adopting a pair of
Vietnamese waifs after the fall of Saigon
UNDERGROUND
MEN
"Dark Days" throws
light on a small band of people who live in New York City's subway
tunnels
WANDERING
MAN
Award-winning gay
drama "Urbania" mistakes opacity for profundity
STILLER
RUNS DEEP
Ben Stiller brings
depth to the unexceptional "Meet the Parents"
FRENCH
TWISTED
A labyrinthine
love affair complicates "Alice and Martin"
THE
PEACEMAKER
An Irish housewife
turns activist in "Titanic Town," a perceptive film about the Troubles
QUIRKY
CINEMA
In "Barenaked in
America," Barenaked Ladies are as eager to please as performing
seals. You'll either want to pinch their cheeks or punch their lights
out.
PIGSKIN
POLEMIC
Denzel Washington
brings human drama to the football actioner "Remember the Titans"
IT'S
A DOG'S LIFE
Canines endure
the sins of their handlers in Christopher Guest's brilliant "Best
in Show"
SHOOTING
PHISH
Official tour doc
"Bittersweet Motel" reveals little beyond the fact that the band
deliberately lops off people's heads when asked to pose for pictures
with fans
FACTORY
SHOWROOM
The French "Human
Resources" stays intense despite the fact that its naturalistic
characters spend most of their time debating the 35-hour work week
WHAT
POSSESSED THEM?
Billed as "the
version you've never seen," Warner Bros.' 27th anniversary re-release
of "The Exorcist" adds 12 minutes of footage and clumsily remastered
sound
CRUZ
CONTROL
Penelope Cruz sautees
her way through a postcard San Francisco in "Woman on Top"
SCI-FI,
SEQUELS & SURPRISES
Watch for some
fun and craziness in Hollywood's unconventional autumn lineup
HARD
KNOCK LIFERS
Hip-hop doc "Backstage"
locates the angry, aching pulse that fuels the music
DON'T
WATCH
"The Watcher" is
a textbook study of the oversights music-video directors make in
helming poorly written feature films
TAKE
THE BAIT
Jamie Foxx is on
the run in Antoine Fuqua's sensationally stylish and surprisingly
smart "Bait"
FOR
THE LOVE OF MIC
"Duets" explores
the world of karaoke singing, and it does so rather sweetly at that
END
OF THE INNOCENCE
A restored version
of the 1970 Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter" chronicles
the death of a dream
HIGH
FIDELITY FOR WOMEN
"Love and Sex"
overcomes occasional sentimentality with a clever screenplay, sexual
straight talk and a razor-sharp sense of comic timing
BIGGEST
TENT
IMAX proves the
perfect theatrical vehicle for Cirque du Soleil's "Journey of Man"
TOY
GLORIES
"Buzz Lightyear
of Star Command" pops an intelligent, lively science-fiction cartoon
into VCRs
NOT-SO-GREAT
SCOTS
Fantasy film series
grinds to a halt with "Highlander: Endgame"
WHIPPING
WHIPPED
Amanda Peet has
the talent and stunning good looks to steal parts from Heather Graham.
But this is not a good career move, girlfriend.
BLEAK
PREVIEWS
One of the worst
ideas in marketing--ever--is coming to an ATM near you
BANG
FOR YOUR BUCK
The Shooting Gallery
Film Series aims to put American cinema back on target
ANYTHING
THAT MOVES
Internet movie
sites do big things with small screens
FALL
FILM PREVIEW
Lady boxers, blissed-out
bohemians take center screen
DERIVATIVE
DRECK
"The Art of War"
plays the greatest hits of the nineties action movie
ONE
LAST HEIST
Low-key, character-driven
"The Opportunists" is an actor's dream
OLDER,
NOT WISER
It's "Goodfellas"-meets-"Golden
Girls" in surprisingly amusing "The Crew"
GIVE
ME AN S-H-I...
"Bring It On" is
like a journey through hell except with less interesting dialogue
SMOKIN'
GROOVE
The documentary
"Grass" has the paranoid quality of a pothead who thinks the government
has nothing better to do than follow him around all the time
LIZARD
LOUNGING
"Godzilla 2000"
offers a typical, hilarious chapter in the time-honored series
THE
ULTIMATE RADICAL
Abbie Hoffman biopic
"Steal This Movie" works because it never sinks to caricature
EARLY
FALL
Decline and cliché
in "Autumn in New York"
MIND
EXPANDING
"The Cell" fires
our synapses with powerful images
THEY
GOT JOKES
"The Original Kings
of Comedy" rule in their onscreen gig
IRREGULAR
JOE
Flashing back with
1970s hippie-tripped "Joe"
OFF
TARGET
"Girl on the Bridge,"
the story of a woman who restores a knife-thrower's faith, suffers
from a dull performance by Vanessa Paradis
STREET
MAGIC
"Wonderland" makes
ordinary urban loneliness seem transcendent
HUMDRUM
BUM
A loafing oaf preaches
macho nonsense in "The Tao of Steve"
NO
BLESSING
Kim Basinger tries
to protect her 6-year-old niece from satanic forces in the implausible
"Bless the Child"
CHASING
NOIR
"The Woman Chaser"
mines its humor by deftly weaving early sixties cool with the pathos
and neuroses of the late nineties
SMOKE
SCREEN
Not even Brenda
Blethyn can rescue the wispy "Saving Grace"
GEEZER
PLEASERS
"Space Cowboys"
might be the year's most inoffensively, self-effacingly entertaining
movie
MULTIPLE
PERSONALITY DISARRAY
Taking a bite out
of "Coyote Ugly"
A
SIDE OF BACON
Exploring "Hollow
Man"'s baser instincts
WHO'S
YOUR DADDY?
In "American Pimp,"
the Hughes brothers explore how and why pimps serve as cultural
models for black men
CHO
AND TELL
In "I'm the One
That I Want," comedian Margaret Cho milks laughs out of crossing
sexual boundaries
CHEESY
GOODNESS
Trashy teen thriller
"The In Crowd" is the great American junk-food movie
WAIST
OF SPACE
Is "Nutty Professor
II: The Klumps" any good? Fat chance
EYE
TIMES
On the strange
life and exceptional cosmetics of Tammy Faye
THE
TOYS ARE BACK
"Pokemon: The Movie
2000" beefs up the plot and works for kid viewers
LOLLIPOP
KID
A twentysomething
man refuses to grow up in "Chuck & Buck"
I
SEE DULL PEOPLE!
Harrison Ford and
Michelle Pfeiffer unravel the sketchy mystery of "What Lies Beneath"
AMERICAN
CUTIE
"Loser" looks for
luck in all the wrong places
METAL
MELTDOWN
Aliens, warlords
and boobies--oh, my! It must be "Heavy Metal 2000."
YET
ANOTHER MARVEL
"X-Men" join Hollywood's
comic-book pantheon
RATING
THE CRITIC
A self-confessed
film geek struggles to find relevance in his work
NATIVE
AMERICANA
"Coming to Light:
Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians" details a photographer's
obsession with documenting Native-American life
BREAKING
THE WAIFS
"Trixie"'s toxic
pixie, Emily Watson, runs her career into a brick wall
THE
OTHER KID
"Kikujiro" is a
sweet picaresque tale of the physical and emotional journey of an
ill-matched nine-year-old boy and the man who serves as his guide
PRIMO
PRIMA
Don McGlynn's documentary
"Louis Prima: The Wildest!" is an excellent musical remembrance
of the legendary trumpeter and vocalist
MOOD
SWINGING
Lars von Trier
lurches from the outrageously absurd to a finish that ranks with
the best of Ingmar Bergman in "The Idiots"
WALKING
WOUNDED
Alison Maclean's
"Jesus' Son" eyeballs oddballs
CRY
HARD
"Disney's The Kid"
reaffirms that Bruce Willis is a first-rate actor
MISSIONARY
POSITION
Mormons take a
leap of faith in "God's Army"
NOTHING
UP ITS SLEEVE
"The Adventures
of Rocky and Bullwinkle" reeks of try-anything panic
FLAMING
TIGERS
Opening up Siegfried
and Roy's "Magic Box
TAKING
WING
Spain's "Butterfly"
deftly explores the relationship between a little boy and his teacher
MAN'S,
MAN'S WORLD
"American Pimp"
looks at the lives of street-level middle managers
DON'T
TREAD ON MEL
"The Patriot"'s
revolution is a musket in the head
MOVIE
WITH A PORPOISE
"Dolphins" delivers
what we expect from IMAX films: stunning landscape footage, user-friendly
science info and a positive environmental message
REANIMATION
A classic cartoon
meets modern eye-candy in "Fantasia 2000"
FATHER
DAYS
Chris Roe took
his dad around the world interviewing other fathers and sons for
"Pop & Me"
TOYS
OF SUMMER
A summer movie's
true test is the quality of its toy store tie-ins
FAKING
IT
"Boys and Girls"
is an inferior, teen version of "When Harry Met Sally"
SHINING
MOMENTS
In "Sunshine,"
a masterful Ralph Fiennes plays three generations of Hungarian Jews
struggling to fit in
MONTANA
BOUND
Rachael Leigh Cook
essays a young woman's journey of self-discovery "The Hi-Line"
TITANIC
A.E.
This animated sci-fi
adventure is lost in space
LAST
RESORT
With "Winter Sleepers,"
Tom Tykwer creates a head-spinning tale of fate, accident and human
error
PARTY
OF 500
"Groove" hard-sells
the rave lifestyle
SOLID
PULSE
"Better Living
Through Circuitry" spins out a solid overview of the electronic
music scene
FOAM
ALONE
The makeup is impressive,
but "Big Momma's House" falls flat in every other way
AUTO
EROTICISM
Car-lust returns
with the remake of "Gone in 60 Seconds"
DEVIANT
BEHAVIORS
"8 1/2 Women" inspects
sexuality and desire from a discomforting distance
TALES
FROM THE BIBLE BELT
"Dirty Pictures"
makes a lulling drama out of the Mapplethorpe controversy
LOVE,
BRAZILIAN STYLE
"Bossa Nova" is
a beautiful, airy ode to life and love in Rio
HARD
TO BELIEVE
"Passion of Mind"
is actually dopier than every other Demi Moore film
RUSSIAN
TO FREEDOM
"East-West" reveals
a murky Cold War chapter in European-Soviet relations
PALM
READINGS
Separating the
con artists from Cannes artistes
SHANGHAI
SURPRISE
Jackie Chan has
finally found his American secret weapon: Owen Wilson
HOWLER
In "Screwed," the
writers of "Ed Wood" turn in inauspicious directorial debuts in
this awful dognapping yarn
GOOD HEAVENS MISS YAMAMOTO!
She blinded me
with Scientology: more horrifying, true tales of "Battlefield Earth"
COMING
OF AGE, GENTLY
French-Canadian
writer-director Léa Pool's "Set Me Free" (Emporte-Moi) stands apart
from the genre's usual fare
HYMNS
TO THE SILENCE
The mesmerizing
Antonioni film "Beyond the Clouds" probes life's often silent realities
SADLY
BEAUTIFUL
"The Color of Paradise"
displays an uncommon sensitivity to the natural world
HOW
LONG MUST I WAIT?
Waiting in line
can be a good thing
JURASSIC
SAP
Disney's "Dinosaur"
doesn't live up to the gigantic hype
TITLE
WAVE
A fine cast can't
hide the lapses in "The Big Kahuna"
ONE
STEP BACK
Jamie Foxx follows
up his impressive dramatic performance in "Any Given Sunday" with
a less-than-impressive lead role in the silly romantic comedy "Held
Up"
HOLLYWOOD
ON DRUGS
The big screen's
portrayal of substance abuse has changed with the times
BATTLEFIELD
MIRTH
The plot and acting
of "Battlefield Earth" are laughably convoluted
JOE
MEETS JOE
In "Joe Gould's
Secret", Stanley Tucci dissects writer and subject
TRAFFIC
JAMMED
"Human Traffic"
is "Friends"-meets-"Trainspotting"--and that's no compliment
A
TOUCH OF CLASS
With "Up at the
Villa," Sean Penn transforms from bad boy to playboy
PUMPING
UP A LEGACY
We still like Mike,
but "Michael Jordan to the Max" too often pushes aside beautiful
game footage for infomercial hang time
DREAM
ON
"I Dreamed of Africa"
offers dreamy scenery but little drama
BLANK
SLATE
Everything old
is old again in the crushingly familiar "Flintstones in Viva Rock
Vegas"
SERIOUS
MAXIMUS
Ridley Scott's
epic "Gladiator" is long on action, but short on wit
BAKKER
SECRETS
Seeing life through
"The Eyes of Tammy Faye"
BAREFOOT
& PREGNANT
"Where the Heart
Is" shows some real heart, but little realism
TUNED
OUT
"Frequency" turns
a boring, complex theory into a boring, complex movie
SECOND
CHANCE
In "Me Myself I,"
a woman discovers her alternative life didn't run true
TELEPHONE
GAMED
"Gossip" is the
most provocative of the current teen flicks, with its cautionary
tale of a planted fib gone wildly out of control
FLOWER
GIRLS
"Flowers of Shanghai,"
set amid China's luxurious 19th-century brothels, is a rapturously
claustrophobic, hypnotic and soporific film
MORE
BREAD?
"The Waiting Game"
is about actors trying to make it--surprise!--by waiting tables
BLONDE
AMBITION
"The Girl Next
Door" reveals the woman behind porn star Stacey Valentine
HEROES
& SUBS
The underwater
adventure of "U-571" makes a deep impact
BEDTIME
STORY
"Sex: The Annabel
Chong Story" focuses on one woman's complex sexual history
WINNING
BET
Gambling is the
ultimate mind game in the startling, claustrophobic thriller "Croupier"
CHANNELING
KAFKA
"The Interview"
evolves into a terrific classical yarn of crime and detection
LESSONS
OF POVERTY
"Not One Less"
is a gentle, unhurried and somewhat atypical slice of neo-realism
from one of China's best-known directors
TRINITY
WITH A TWIST
Edward Norton's
"Keeping the Faith" raises issues of faith, loyalty and trust in
a humorous and winning way
RUMBLE
STUMBLES
"Ready to Rumble"
wrestles with good taste, and loses
SANDRA
ON THE ROCKS
Sandra Bullock
tries for rehab laughs in "28 Days"
BLACK
IRISH
Three Irish bachelors
go looking for love in blarney-filled "The Closer You Get"
SO,
SO LONG
How greed, ego
and technology conspire to make movies painfully long
LEFT
HOOKED
"Southpaw" documents
the life of Francis Barrett, the first Traveller from Galway to
represent Ireland in the Olympic Games
MAWKISH
& HAWKISH
"Rules of Engagement"
is laughably unsophisticated when it comes to both global politics
and questions of truth
MEETING
CUTE
Despite its Dogma
95 trappings, "Mifune" is a sweet misfits-find-each-other love story
HAPPY
RETURN
Despite a silly
premise, "Return to Me" is a perfectly fine romantic comedy
CARTOON
DOUBLOONS
Disney duplicator
Dreamworks hits paydirt with "The Road to El Dorado"
PLANET
ZERO
"Here on Earth"
goes wrong every step of the way
SKULLS
DRUDGERY
"The Skulls" will
leave you bored out of yours
SUICIDE
MISSION
Keeping the violence
offscreen, "The Terrorist" draws a bead on the psychology of terrorism
MOVIEFONE
BLUES?
Moviefone may find
that its number is up
CASE
OF THE SHAKES
"Romeo Must Die"
seems as if its script was passed through a fan before being turned
into one awful movie
FEELING
FIENNES
"Onegin" raises
the question: Has Ralph Fiennes taken on one too many blue-blood
roles?
DEATH
WARMED OVER
"Final Destination,"
a film about outwitting death, is an example of a good concept in
the hands of a filmmaker who goes over the top
JUST
SAY JULIE
With "Miss Julie,"
Mike Figgis cooks up a searing film version of August Strindberg's
button-pushing play
KEEPING
IT UNREAL
The wrestling documentary
"Beyond the Mat" shamelessly exploits its bizarre subjects
NUCLEAR
WAR GAMES
With "Deterrence,"
writer-director Rod Lurie delivers a tightly paced, real-time drama
that's smart and politically sophisticated
ERIN
GO BRA
In "Erin Brockovich,"
Julia Roberts throws everything into the part, from that effervescent
smile to an innate sense of comic timing
LEASH
LAWS
Jim Jarmusch's
"Ghost Dog" packs a loud bark but soft bite
GOING
IT ALONE
"Orphans" serves
up working-class-woes with a twist
SLOUCHING
TOWARD BABYLON
Pitch-perfect "Judy
Berlin" writes a bittersweet love letter to suburbia
MISSION:
ABORTED
This red planet
movie is more like a black hole
DARK
SIDE OF OZ
Looking for the
Wizard's psychedelic soundtrack
LIFE
IS BEAUTIFUL?
"Beautiful People"
tracks the lives of Londoners thrown together by chance or circumstance
at a time of wildly different crises
WEEPY
JAMMIN'
Anjelica Huston
plucks heartstrings as a plucky Irish widow in "Agnes Brown"
SLEEK
STALKINGS
Lives and crimes
collide in the intelligent, stylish thriller "Following"
HO
HUM
Equipped with a
humming mechanical penis, Garry Shandling gets down to earth in
the perky-yet-predictable "What Planet Are You From?"
STAYING
AFLOAT
"Drowning Mona"
manages to overcome the bile, nastiness and amputee gags that at
first threaten to drown it
GOAAAAAL!
Tibetan monks get
a kick out of soccer "The Cup"
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