Nanny McPhee (2005)

Family Rated PG

This adaptation of the Nurse Matilda books wants to be an amalgam of Mary Poppins, the Harry Potter films and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events – Emma Thompson, also the screenwriter, plays a magical governess of sorts who tends to a rowdy British brood of seven children – but the movie really belongs

Proof (2005)

Drama Rated PG-13

Gwyneth Paltrow suffers beautifully again as the depressive daughter of a dying, delusional math professor (Anthony Hopkins) in this adaptation of the stage play she performed in under returning director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). It’s all very earnest and weighty – with some nice on-location filming at the University of Chicago – but I

Serving Sara (2002)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Further evidence that Matthew Perry, “Friends” star and king of inconsequential movie comedies, is a strictly small-screen talent. This time he plays a process server trying to deliver divorce papers to a Texas trophy wife (Elizabeth Hurley), and it’s painful to watch him flub his way through nearly two hours of lifeless, would-be comedic situations.

Thing About My Folks, The (2005)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Writer-star Paul Reiser plays a very “Mad About You”-type New York married man whose even-keel life takes a hit when his mother abruptly leaves his father, Sam (Peter Falk), after 47 years of marriage. Much kvetching and bonding between the men ensues. Reiser claims to have written the role of Sam with Falk in mind,

Undisputed (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated R

With all the subtlety of a knockout punch, Undisputed chronicles the inevitable showdown between the undefeated star of an interprison boxing program (Wesley Snipes) and a real-life champion prize fighter recently convicted of rape (Ving Rhames, doing Mike Tyson without the lisp). The movie has a few moments of enjoyable silliness, but like the buildup

Changing Lanes (2002)

Drama Rated R

This begins as a provocative exploration of class divisions, as a car accident between a hotshot attorney (Ben Affleck) and a poor divorced father (Samuel L. Jackson) escalates into a dangerous feud. Then, as the two men continue to disrupt each other’s lives in increasingly frightening ways, the movie becomes an even more interesting consideration

Eurotrip (2004)

Comedy Rated R

As you would expect from a sequel of sorts to the frat-house comedy Road Trip, Eurotrip runs on crude humor, sex gags and a “Girls Gone Wild” level of nudity. Yet it’s all elevated by a penchant for inspired lunacy. As four high school friends meander from London to Rome – leaving no Continental stereotype

House of D (2004)

Drama Rated PG-13

David Duchovny makes an awkward writing-directing debut with this drama about an artist (Duchovny) recalling his turbulent adolescence in 1970s Greenwich Village. Anton Yelchin is maddeningly idiosyncratic as the artist as a young man – he has the mannered, halting speech pattern of a nervous stand-up comic – while Duchovny’s wife Tea Leoni provides the

Last Holiday (2006)

Drama Rated PG-13

Rarely has a bad idea – in this case, remaking a 1950 tear-jerker with Queen Latifah in the Alec Guinness role – arrived on screen with its obvious badness so intact. Everything that sounds wrong about this project is. Latifah plays a mousy department-store salesclerk who embarks on a European vacation when she is diagnosed

In the Land of Women (2007)

Drama Rated PG-13

"Brody…cranks out soft-core porn scripts in Los Angeles and yearns to author a memoir of his high school years. I have a feeling the world has more use for the soft-core porn."