Outbreak (1995)

Thriller Rated R

Realizing you can’t shoot at a virus, director Wolfgang Petersen transforms this initially chilling scientific thriller into a generic action flick. Army disease expert Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) has enough on his hands while fighting a lethal African virus, but then he stumbles across a government conspiracy as well. Gunfights, helicopter chases and other predictable

Don Juan DeMarco (1995)

Romantic Comedy Rated PG-13

Johnny Depp – softly comic, genuinely romantic, all seemingly on a whim – nicely embodies the tone of this quirky little romantic fable, in which Depp plays a young man who believes he is the world’s greatest lover and Marlon Brando is the doctor who intends to cure him of his amorous delusion. Of course,

My Family (1995)

Drama Rated R

A movie of epic proportions told on a personal scale, My Family follows three generations of Mexican-Americans living in L.A.’s East Side. Director and cowriter Gregory Nava uses the Sanchez family itself as the movie’s protagonist, and the result is a full-bodied portrait of an entire clan. That said, special notice should go to Jimmy

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Horror Rated R

The careers of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees – the horror icons at the center of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th series, respectively – have lasted longer than anyone would have guessed – long enough for this mercenary showdown in which the monsters take on each other. Freddy vs. Jason aims

Friday Night (2002)

Drama Rated NR

“…renders obsolete any of the tawdriness or moralizing that’s normally associated with the idea of a one-night stand.”

Fido (2007)

Comedy Rated R

“…picks up where Shaun of the Dead left off.

Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)

Action/Adventure Rated NR

  The inherent distraction built into nearly every movie directed by German legend Werner Herzog – wondering how he got the actors, let alone his camera, in such godforsaken places – dominates in this recreation of a Spanish explorer’s doomed expedition down the Amazon River. It doesn’t really matter, though, if such distracting thoughts undermine

Demonlover (2003)

Drama Rated NR

When a movie’s press material spends as much time insisting that the film means something as the material for Demonlover does, it’s a pretty good indication that the picture in question is meaningless. Demonlover, from French director and critical darling Olivier Assayas, isn’t quite that empty. Its flimsy narrative thread – involving a pending merger

Mafioso (1962)

Comedy Rated NR

A revival more than 40 years after its initial release brought this sneaky black comedy deserving new life. What begins as a family farce steeped in Italian stereotypes – Italian clown Alberto Sordi plays a buttoned-up factory supervisor in Milan who brings his wife and daughters for a visit to the earthy, connected Sicily of

Door in the Floor, The (2004)

Drama Rated R

In this bitter, bracing drama, Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger – both excellent – play Ted and Marion Cole, a wealthy but miserable married couple struggling to survive the death of their young sons years earlier. She has sunk into a near-coma of grief, while he lashes out via repeated infidelities. It’s not a pretty