Mindhunters (2004)

Thriller Rated R

Mindhunters is a movie in search of a brain. This grisly whodunit, in which a serial killer picks off a team of FBI trainees who have been stranded on an abandoned island, seems to change its mind at least three times in the final 10 minutes about who the actual murderer is. With career-low performances

Moonlight Mile (2002)

Drama Rated PG-13

This has the ache of real pain, considering writer-director Brad Silberling based the story on the 1989 murder of his girlfriend. The movie follows Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose fiancee is killed on the eve of their wedding. As Joe and the murdered woman’s parents (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon) try to carry on with

Yards, The (2000)

Drama Rated R

A somber, dark and artful crime drama set among the New York City subway yards, where the wheels of business turn on corruption and graft. Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron and James Caan each give touching, tragic performances – their characters sigh with regret more than they talk – but it’s Joaquin Phoenix as a bribery

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

Drama Rated R

  A disarmingly gentle account of a trip taken by revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) across South America when he was 22. Directed by Walter Salles, the movie’s politics are subtle – you’d be hard-pressed to draw a line from here to the Cuban Revolution, of which Guevara was an instrumental part –

BachelorMan (2003)

Comedy Rated R

This independent comedy is far more ambitious than necessary, with computer-animation, slick special effects and an ensemble cast all in service of a sitcom script. David DeLuise (son of Dom) stars as Ted, an unrepentant ladies’ man who meets his match when he falls for his new neighbor (Missi Pyle). The ensuing comedy mostly consists

Moulin Rouge (2001)

Musical Rated PG-13

This postmodern musical traces a mythologized love story – that of the doomed affair between a naive young writer (Ewan McGregor) and a nightclub courtesan (Nicole Kidman) in 1899 Paris – but its true concerns are strictly aural and visual: the way the vibrant colors of a cancan dancer’s dress meld into a moving rainbow

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

Horror Rated R

A gruesome and generic horror movie which denies everything that made The Blair Witch Project 1999’s best film. In catering to those who couldn’t appreciate the daring minimalism of the original – off-screen noises, shaky camera work, long patches of darkness – new director Joe Berlinger offers up a series of horror cliches that would

Lake House, The (2006)

Drama Rated PG

An adaptation of a South Korean existential romance, this certainly moves and feels like few love stories from this country. You could call it slow, but a kinder word would be contemplative. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock star as tenants of the same lakeside home who communicate, via letters left in the mailbox, even though

Hidalgo (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Despite the “true-story” claims of its advertising campaign, Hidalgo is based on bunk – contemporary scholars contend the exploits of Old West cowboy Frank T. Hopkins have been greatly exaggerated. Still, his stories make for rousing legends. As Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen, playing another reticent hero) travels to the Arabian desert to participate in a 3,000-mile

School for Scoundrels (2006)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Starring Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) as a bullied traffic cop who takes a course in self-confidence from a boorish womanizer (Billy Bob Thornton), this means to trace Heder – and his character’s – transformation from lovable loser to just plain lovable. Yet the movie’s gooey pursuit of that goal works in direct opposition to the