In a difficult role, Oscar nominee Joan Allen delivers a masterful performance in Rod Lurie’s engrossing but unconvincing 2000 political drama The Contender.
Miscast cast (Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire et al) + heavy directorial hand hinder Curtis Hanson and Steve Kloves’ Wonder Boys movie adaptation.
A less effusive Shakespeare in Love rehash, Stage Beauty fails to delve into the complexities of gender and sexual identity.
The Oscar-nominated The Grandfather works both as a Fernando Fernán Gómez showcase and as an irresistible message movie.
Best Actress Oscar nominee Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence is seriously marred by its own inauthentic ‘rawness.’
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.
The all-star ‘existential’ David O. Russell satire I Heart Huckabees is all but unwatchable; its notable moments actually took place behind the scenes.
Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga’s overreaching psychological drama 21 Grams is immensely helped by 5 stellar performances.
Naomi Watts delivers an exceptional performance - or rather, two of them - in David Lynch’s unsettling Hollywood horror tale Mulholland Dr..
John Cassavetes’ landmark and widely admired 1968 independent drama Faces is a narrative wreck and a long-winded cinematic chore.
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.
In a less showy role, Ethan Hawke effortlessly steals Antoine Fuqua’s mediocre 2001 cop thriller Training Day from Oscar winner Denzel Washington.
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.
Michael Moore’s blockbuster documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 incinerates the warmongering George W. Bush White House and the eagerly complicit American media.
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.
Gaping narrative issues hinder Sam Mendes’ gangster noir Road to Perdition, otherwise a great showcase for stars Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.
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.
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.