Princess Mononoke (1997)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Equaling the imagination of any Star Wars film is this fantasy eco-fable from Hayao Miyazaki, about a prince who tries to broker peace between protective animal gods of the forest and the human marauders who are devouring the land in the name of progress. You might expect a good vs. evil dichotomy here, but Princess

Pianist, The (2002)

Drama Rated R

The Pianist surprises us with history. We know going in that everything portrayed here actually happened during the German occupation of Poland, but the movie’s litany of horrors still manages to catch us unawares. Based on the memoirs of Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (a muted, mesmerizing Adrien Brody), the movie traces one man’s evasion of

Roll Bounce (2005)

Family Rated PG-13

Coasting on sheer joy, this genial, feel-good family drama reveals what a perfect pairing of subject and medium roller skating and movies can be – it’s a celebration of movement in an art form defined by movement. Tracing the coming of age of a roller-rink teen (a sweetly gawky Bow Wow) and his buddies in

Running Scared (2006)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Paul Walker’s attempt to toughen up, like Ashton Kutcher’s in The Butterfly Effect, feels the need to include child pornography as a plot point. Even without that stomach-churning element, Running Scared – in which Walker’s low-level mobster spends one night trying to recover an incriminating gun – operates as an abhorrent exercise in child endangerment.

Transamerica (2005)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Transamerica stars Felicity Huffman as a man awaiting a sex-change operation who suddenly discovers he has a 17-year-old son. Once you get your bearings there is actually far less than meets the eye here. Everything about the movie feels gimmicky, including Huffman’s mannered performance. Less a woman than an awkward compilation of “womanly” affectations, Huffman’s

Russian Ark (2002)

Drama Rated NR

Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark revisits 300 years of Russian history by wandering through St. Petersburg’s endless State Hermitage Museum in a single take. The camera flits among centuries as easily as it moves from room to room. It’s best not to try to apply logic to the movie and instead wonder at its bravura technical

Inland Empire (2007)

Drama Rated R

A nearly three-hour opus that in its few coherent moments centers on an identity crisis suffered by a Hollywood actress (Laura Dern), this will try the patience of the most devoted fans of director David Lynch. Mood, motif – these are the usual rewards of a Lynch picture, but even they wear out their welcome

Cries and Whispers (1972)

Drama Rated R

Set in the late 1800s, this Ingmar Bergman picture follows two sisters who have returned to the family mansion to sit at the death bed of another sister. Three lifetimes’ worth of jealousy, spite and regret percolate in the red-painted rooms, with only the genuine care and affection of the family servant offered as respite.

What Lies Beneath (2000)

Thriller Rated PG-13

With this thriller about married empty-nesters (Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford) living in a haunted house, director Robert Zemeckis was accused of aping suspense master Alfred Hitchcock, but he’s really reinvigorated the genre by giving it a modern twist. After the couple’s daughter leaves for college, she’s replaced by a ghost who’s trying to avenge

Puccini for Beginners (2007)

Comedy Rated NR

If Woody Allen, at the height of his smugness, were to make yet another angst-ridden, New York romance and add a lesbian twist, it might look something like the insufferable Puccini for Beginners. Painfully pleased with its own cleverness, of which there isn’t much, the movie follows a romantic triangle involving an on-the-rocks New York