A rock-and-roll fantasy fulfilled: the lead singer of a Pittsburgh "tribute band" (not a "cover band," thank you) gets tabbed to take over the duties of his idol in a British metal band called Steel Dragon. The genial fun-poking at uncreative copycats evaporates fast when we hit the big-time, to …
Not just a dysfunctional family; a determinedly, unrelentingly oddball, eccentric, wacky, weird, kooky, cracked family; but only a rarely and very mildly funny family. (None of this deters Gene Hackman, as the long-absent head of the clan, from his normal excellence.) Wes Anderson, the director, favors frontal and centered compositions, …
Genial, self-satisfied, moderately dull sequel on the unending and unchanging chemical reaction between mismatched Hong Kong and L.A. cops, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Tucker continues to be a sore spot for his refusal at any point to resemble a cop. He is nevertheless nearly as funny as his co-star, …
Feel-good pablum for teens, about a motherless small-town girl who goes to live with her jazzman dad (we hear he's "pretty good," though not for ourselves) and who transfers into an inner-city school where a new black boyfriend revives her dreams of dancing. Julia Stiles, as distinct from her lower-body …
Strenuously lowbrow antics around the attempts of two postadolescent losers to rescue a third loser (and fellow member of a Neil Diamond tribute band) from domination by a ball-busting beauty. With Steve Zahn, Jack Black, Jason Biggs, Amanda Peet, and a cameo by Neil Diamond; directed by Dennis Dugan.
Conformist bad-taste comedy (incest, stroke, roadkill, prosthetic limbs, and such), made with the stamp of approval, if no creative input, from the Farrelly brothers: producers only. Director J.B. Rogers shares their negligence about the image, their satisfaction with a pallid palette. Chris Klein, Heather Graham, Orlando Jones, Sally Field.
Absurdist political comedy set on Election Day in Iran, more precisely the desolate island of Kish in the Persian Gulf. The officious election official, a city woman in a heavy chador that leaves only her face exposed and requires constant readjustment, has until five o'clock to round up every vote …
Unbothersome fluff to do with romance and destiny and the One Right Person. Jonathan and Sara, meeting cute at a glove rack during Christmas rush (he shopping for his current girlfriend, she for her boyfriend), spend several magical hours together, and then separate without knowing the other's name: he writes …
Wildly romantic, bewilderingly convoluted love story from Spanish filmmaker Julio Medem (Lovers of the Arctic Circle). Not only do you have to sort through a scrambled chronology, but, because one of the characters is a novelist, you also have to separate illustrated fiction from the facts on which the fiction …
A misleading title, except perhaps in tone, for a British caper picture that perches on or near the same edgy edge as Guy Ritchie's Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. A gagster's gangster film. The big difference, however, between Jonathan Glazer's debut film and either of Ritchie's is …
An enterprising Englander brings motion pictures to turn-of-the-century China (yes, the audience scatters at the sight of Lumière's oncoming train), opening the gates to traditional Eastern themes of Old vs. New, Commoner vs. Noble. Ann Hu's tribute to the pioneers is sweet, simple, even simple-minded, and ever so slow. Her …
A high-concept low comedy from the Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby. The concept, which might from these filmmakers pass for sensitivity, enables the babe-chasing hero (Jack Black, a serviceable Joe Blow) to see the inner beauty of the people around him after he has spent a short time in a …
From the E. Annie Proulx novel about a widower named Quoyle who returns with his daughter Bunny to his Newfoundland roots, and becomes (among other things) the ace reporter on a local rag called The Gammy Bird. A tall tale, a dark tale, a droll tale, arch, sardonic, grotesque, gaudy, …
This computer-animated twist on the Beauty-and-Beast theme -- the chivalric quest of a lonely, touchy, Scots-accented ogre and his volunteer sidekick, a wisecracking ass sans Sancho Panza, to rescue a martial-arts princess from a fire-breathing dragon and a Machiavellian bridegroom -- is relentlessly clever, relentlessly ironic, relentlessly hip, or just …