Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

Drama Rated PG-13

The self-righteous Mona Lisa Smile is set in 1953, and it should have come out in 1954. The movie thinks it’s blazing new trails in the name of feminism, when the path it walks thankfully has long been charred. Julia Roberts plays a free-thinking women’s college instructor bent on teaching her students there’s more to

Real Cancun, The (2003)

Documentary Rated R

Like the MTV reality series it was spun off from, The Real Cancun takes a bunch of self-obsessed young adults, throws them into one house and prods them into behaving as if they were at a junior-high dance. That no one survives with a shred of dignity shouldn’t come as a surprise. These are kids

Sunshine State (2002)

Drama Rated PG-13

Filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Limbo) – who finds movies in towns where the rest of us find a place to fill up on gas – depicts a coastal Florida community weathering a storm of real estate development. The standout of the ensemble cast is Edie Falco of “The Sopranos,” a constant surprise as a

Thumbsucker (2005)

Drama Rated R

Dripping with irony and full of Donnie Darko vibes, Thumbsucker at first seems to be just another Sundance-spawned exercise in suburban teen alienation, but then the movie opens up to consider the adults in its central high-schooler’s life. The title teen (Lou Pucci) suffers from typical adolescent angst, yet Thumbsucker also considers how that angst

Venom (2005)

Horror Rated R

In this infinitely idiotic horror flick, the population of Backwater, La., consists almost entirely of dumb teenagers, making it just the sort of place a demonic maniac would go fishing. And so one does, with all the ruthlessness, cruelty and utter predictability of hundreds of others in countless slasher films before him. The movie piles

Firehouse Dog (2007)

Family Rated PG

“…so overstuffed with heavy themes and convoluted plot lines that it barely manages to squeeze in the requisite gags about canine flatulence.

Bring It On (2000)

Comedy Rated PG-13

This airheaded cheerleader movie tries to be Clueless, director Amy Heckerling’s wise and witty high school spoof, but it ultimately comes off as lower-case clueless, especially whenever the dialogue tries to mimic “hip” teen talk (“Missy’s the pooh,” captain Kirsten Dunst admiringly says about one of her teammates. “Take a big whiff.”) Eventually, the movie

Reaping, The (2007)

Horror Rated R

“If Moses was in the theater, he’d stand up … and demand, ‘Let these people go.’

Dirty Love (2005)

Comedy Rated R

Jenny McCarthy is far more desperate than she needs to be in Dirty Love, her self-penned paean to the dating travails of young Los Angeles babes. She’s so busy trying to prove she doesn’t take herself seriously that she undersells what is actually some serious comedic talent. Pushing her snorting, belching Cameron Diaz-type guys’ gal

Jackie Brown (1997)

Drama Rated R

“…carries a sense of consequence.”