Starring Liam Neeson as the polemical sex researcher, Bill Condon’s otherwise well-made Kinsey movie biopic suffers from an excess of scruples.
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Robert Siodmak’s 1957 political drama The Devil Strikes at Night asks whether serial killers are any worse than socially sanctioned mass murderers.
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A first-rate Tom Hanks learns no one is indispensable in Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis’ adventure flick exalting the Triumph of the Human Spirit nonsense.
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John Frankenheimer and Dalton Trumbo’s anti-Semitism drama The Fixer is ruined by a preachy and simple-minded script, and by badly miscast lead Alan Bates.
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Stagy screenplay and 3 of its 4 leads hinder Fred Zinnemann’s early drug addiction drama A Hatful of Rain. Eva Marie Saint is the sole standout.
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Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks can’t save Nora Ephron’s unromantic and unfunny (but commercially successful) 1993 romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle.
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Best Actor Oscar nominee Johnny Depp is flawlessly weird in the surprisingly entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
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In a difficult role, Oscar nominee Joan Allen delivers a masterful performance in Rod Lurie’s engrossing but unconvincing 2000 political drama The Contender.
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Miscast cast (Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire et al) + heavy directorial hand hinder Curtis Hanson and Steve Kloves’ Wonder Boys movie adaptation.
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A less effusive Shakespeare in Love rehash, Stage Beauty fails to delve into the complexities of gender and sexual identity.
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Oliver Stone opts to ignore the facts in his brazenly dishonest yet engrossing political thriller JFK, an account of the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination.
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Best Actress Oscar nominee Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence is seriously marred by its own inauthentic ‘rawness.’
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Starring Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton, Marc Forster’s 2001 drama Monster’s Ball offers quality moments that fail to amount to a satisfying whole.
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Gaping narrative issues hinder Sam Mendes’ gangster noir Road to Perdition, otherwise a great showcase for stars Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.
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Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga’s overreaching psychological drama 21 Grams is immensely helped by 5 stellar performances.
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Naomi Watts delivers an exceptional performance - or rather, two of them - in David Lynch’s unsettling Hollywood horror tale Mulholland Dr..
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Meryl Streep is the 1 bright spot in Jonathan Demme’s mundane and mostly poorly cast 2004 remake of the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate.
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Chris and Paul Weitz’s reactionary audience-pandering comedy About a Boy (2002) stars Hugh Grant as a man who tragically discovers his inner family man.
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In a less showy role, Ethan Hawke effortlessly steals Antoine Fuqua’s mediocre 2001 cop thriller Training Day from Oscar winner Denzel Washington.
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Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Alfonso Cuarón’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004 adaptation proves that CGI and movie magic aren’t the same thing.
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Michael Moore’s blockbuster documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 incinerates the warmongering George W. Bush White House and the eagerly complicit American media.
Valerie Perrine overshadows a badly miscast and painfully unfunny Dustin Hoffman in Bob Fosse’s problematic 1974 Lenny Bruce biopic Lenny.
Paul Schrader’s well-made and great-looking Affliction movie adaptation is marred by absurd situations and Nick Nolte’s overwrought performance.
The Oscar-nominated The Grandfather works both as a Fernando Fernán Gómez showcase and as an irresistible message movie.
The all-star ‘existential’ David O. Russell satire I Heart Huckabees is all but unwatchable; its notable moments actually took place behind the scenes.
John Cassavetes’ landmark and widely admired 1968 independent drama Faces is a narrative wreck and a long-winded cinematic chore.
The 1928 Pre-Code Western In Old Arizona is of historical interest as the first ‘outdoor’ talkie and for its risqué sensibility. Warner Baxter stars.