Foul-mouthed writer-director Kevin Smith (Dogma) aims for the smart sentimentality of something like About a Boy with this unfairly dismissed byproduct of the Bennifer saga (Jennifer Lopez appears only briefly). Surprisingly, Smith hits that elusive mark more often than he misses. Ben Affleck plays a single dad struggling to balance his career as a high-profile

A series of vignettes set during one hot summer day on a block in Brooklyn, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing depicts the American melting pot at boiling point. The movie’s refusal to downplay or soothe the racial tension on display is just one reason alarmist critics initially denounced it. Lee plays Mookie, the black

A media critique along the lines of Network, also directed by Sidney Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon dramatizes an actual, botched bank robbery in New York City that turned into a television circus. For the hostages, for the robbers, for the cops and crowd gathered outside, it all becomes a big show, even though lives hang