Greatest Game Ever Played, The (2005)

Drama Rated PG

If it weren’t for professional obligations, this would have been my chance for the greatest nap ever taken. A dramatization of Frances Ouimet’s (Shia LaBeouf) unlikely performance at the 1913 U.S. Open, it features soft sunsets on verdant golf courses and a caressing, inspirational score, both telling symptoms of the picture’s basic problem. This is

Green Mile, The (1999)

Drama Rated R

More admirable than exciting, The Green Mile is another prison-set period drama adapted by director Frank Darabont from the writings of Stephen King. Darabont is an old-fashioned storyteller, and this tale of a head guard (Tom Hanks) on a Depression-era death row who meets a condemned man with miraculous powers (Michael Clarke Duncan) proceeds with

Hide and Seek (2005)

Horror Rated R

I can’t imagine what the filmmakers did to poor little Dakota Fanning to make her look so wan in this thriller, short of filling her with tequila shots the night before filming. She plays a dour kid who moves with her father (Robert De Niro) after her mother’s suicide to rural New York, where she

Joshua (2002)

Drama Rated G

An intriguing query that’s often posed in Christian circles – What if Jesus came back today? – gets a toothless dramatization in this independent feature. Tony Goldwyn stars as a drifter (and carpenter, natch) who rejuvenates the spiritual life of a small town in a variety of hokey ways. The production values and performances are

Reno 911!: Miami (2007)

Comedy Rated R

Comedy Central’s “Reno 911!” has been one of my favorite channel-surfing stops, so it was a relief to discover that the joke holds up for nearly 80 minutes on the big screen. This “Cops” spoof moves the group to Florida for a police convention, but its emphasis on caught-on-tape idiocy remains. The sexual humiliation of

Boat Trip (2002)

Comedy Rated R

The mugging comedic duo of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Horatio Sanz are just two of the many problems in this tone-deaf comedy, which follows two heterosexual buddies who mistakenly book themselves on a gay cruise. Of course the heroes eventually learn to overcome their homophobia – enabling the movie to safely revel in its own.

Roger & Me (1989)

Documentary Rated R

Michael Moore broke onto the national scene with this screen screed against the automobile factory closings across his home town of Flint, Mich., in the late 1980s. Right from the start, Moore’s knack for using comedy to illuminate injustice is nearly outweighed by his considerable flaws: a whiny narcissism, cheap-shot tactics and maddening tunnel vision.

High Crimes (2002)

Thriller Rated PG-13

Another woman-in-peril movie from Ashley Judd, very similar in its pseudo-feminist tone to Double Jeopardy, Eye of the Beholder and Where the Heart Is. This time she stars as a glitzy lawyer defending her husband (Jim Caviezel) against a military conspiracy. There’s plenty of emotional manipulation here (including the callously casual use of a miscarriage

Tears of the Black Tiger (2007)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Equally influenced by Thai genre films of the 1960s and classic Hollywood westerns, writer-director Wisit Sasanatieng’s tribute film is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Or, rather, it is like things I’ve seen many times, but in an entirely new way. The archetypal story centers on Black Tiger (Chartchai Ngamsan), a sharp-shooting bandit who is in

Monsoon Wedding (2001)

Drama Rated R

Anyone who’s ever been part of a wedding will enjoy the way director Mira Nair captures the giddy chaos surrounding such an occasion, even if the titular event here takes place in contemporary India. The movie focuses on a four-day celebration of an arranged marriage between a young New Delhi woman and an engineer from