Undertow (2004)

Drama Rated R

As in his little-known, independent efforts George Washington and All the Real Girls, director David Gordon Green specializes in capturing the idiosyncratic flickers in life that never leave us. Undertow traces the legacy of violence handed down from one generation of men to another when an ex-con (Josh Lucas) pays a visit to his brother

Starsky & Hutch (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Starsky & Hutch accomplishes something truly unique: It has more funny actors than actual laughs. Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell and a rejuvenated Jason Bateman all appear, but the two stars in particular are clearly coasting. Director Todd Phillips (Old School), meanwhile, can’t decide whether his movie is a spoof of the

Timeline (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Michael Crichton’s time-traveling novel – about a team of archeologists transported to medieval France – comes to the big screen courtesy of seasoned professional Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon). Never quite thrilling, never quite dull, its overriding virtue is its competence. Paul Walker heads the ensemble cast with his usual easy charm, but the script’s reliance

Vera Drake (2004)

Drama Rated R

The transformation Imelda Staunton undergoes in this period drama is astounding – all the more so because it doesn’t involve tricks such as makeup or weight loss. From British realist Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies), Vera Drake follows a prim and proper housecleaner in 1950s England who performs abortions for poor women on the side

Way of the Gun, The (2000)

Action/Adventure Rated R

As the directorial debut of Christopher McQuarrie, the screenwriter behind The Usual Suspects, this certainly is a posturing and excessive crime flick, but there also is wit, gentleness and even a flickering conscience. Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro both give strong performances as a pair of hoods who kidnap a pregnant woman (Juliette Lewis)

White Oleander (2002)

Drama Rated PG-13

White Oleander features another Oprah’s Book Club heroine, the kind who earns nobility and respect through contrived suffering. In this adaptation of Janet Fitch’s novel, a 15-year-old girl (Alison Lohman) is shuttled among a series of foster homes where she survives shootings, beatings and suicides, among other traumas. What doesn’t kill you may make you

Biker Boyz (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Like exotic birds conducting an elaborate mating ritual, the motorcycle racers in Biker Boyz huff and preen in their Day-Glo leather outfits, trading tough-guy stares with each other and sultry ones with the cleavage-baring babes in the crowd. It all amounts to one of the silliest movies around, a laughable piece of posturing that makes

Broken Flowers (2005)

Comedy Rated R

Bill Murray continued his study of disillusioned men in dire need of jump-starts with this story of an aging ladies man on a road trip to visit four former flames. He would seem to have found the perfect pairing in director Jim Jarmusch, whose stone-faced comedies share with Murray what can only be called an

City by the Sea (2002)

Drama Rated R

City by the Sea does with artful subtlety what the similarly themed Road to Perdition did with artsy pretension: Both movies explore the way legacies of violence are passed down from fathers to sons. Robert DeNiro plays a New York City detective who discovers the prime suspect in his latest murder investigation is his estranged,

Distant (2002)

Drama Rated R

A movie that’s less about drama than the possibility of drama, Distant is one of those imports built on silent passages and prevailing ambiguity. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan matches such art-film cliches with his theme: the emotional distance between people that can be so difficult to bridge. Set in Istanbul, the movie follows a