One Hour Photo (2002)

Thriller Rated R

A creepy conceit – that the photo developer (Robin Williams) at a supermarket is secretly obsessed with a family whose pictures he handles – is left unexploited in this disappointing independent feature. At first, writer-director Mark Romanek seems firmly in control of his material, laying out this paranoid fantasy with careful framing and bright colors.

National Treasure (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

This means to land somewhere between a kiddie flick and a PG-13 action extravaganza, yet I don’t remember similar efforts from my youth – say, Raiders of the Lost Ark – being quite so bland. A monotone Nicolas Cage plays an adventurer whose family has been hunting an ancient treasure for generations. Only the series

Original Sin (2001)

Thriller Rated R

Angelina Jolie has always tried too hard to maintain her sexy reputation (few other people with lips as big as hers feel the need to do so much pouting), but she manages to outdo herself here as a conniving seductress who targets a rich coffee grower (Antonio Banderas) in turn-of-the-century Cuba. Trying to sexualize every

Oliver Twist (2005)

Drama Rated PG-13

The question of why anyone would bother to make another film version of Oliver Twist is not answered by director Roman Polanski. This works just fine as one of those tony, well-mounted adaptations destined to be shown in high school English classes, yet whatever the reason for tackling the picture (some have pointed to the

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