Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Documentary Rated R

Michael Moore’s assault on all things George W. Bush makes valid points, yet his methods still have a tinge of madness. Haphazardly jumping from topic to topic, throwing out accusations faster than a viewer can consider them, Moore’s movies can be as sloppy as his public persona. Yet he is a patriot in a way

Curly Top (1935)

Musical Rated NR

To put Shirley Temple’s influence in perspective, consider that at the age of 9 she had the box-office drawing power of Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon combined. Curly Top shouldn’t be watched while eating a candy bar – the combined sugar content with this tale of an orphan (Temple) who is adopted by a millionaire

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

Comedy Rated R

Writer-director Kevin Smith’s flimsiest film – a road comedy featuring the two crude, New Jersey slackers who have popped up in all of his movies – also may be his funniest, at least to the chosen few. In an admirable gesture of independence, Smith makes movies only for loyal fans of his sophomoric sensibility, not

Decalogue I (1989)

Drama Rated NR

“…when tragedy arrives, it unfolds with the horrific, unadorned awfulness that defines real-life despair.”

Jersey Girl (2004)

Drama Rated PG-13

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

Die Hard (1988)

Action/Adventure Rated R

The definitive 1980s action flick, Die Hard distilled the shoot-’em-up formula to its essence, trapping a cop – Bruce Willis as John McClane – in an office building while bad guys hold the employees hostage. The movie’s greatest asset is its purity – perfectly streamlined even at 132 minutes, there is nothing superfluous to distract

King Kong (2005)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Above everything else it has – SUV-sized bugs, dinosaur stampedes, streets of 1930s New York that are as vividly hustling and bustling as Michigan Avenue today – King Kong exudes an unabashed fondness for the 1933 creature feature it updates. This is the movies’ looniest love story, between a blond bombshell and a giant gorilla,

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Drama Rated R

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

Kill Bill – Vol. 1 (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated R

There’s only one way to explain the exhilarating and exhausting emptiness of Quentin Tarantino’s bloody revenge flick starring Uma Thurman. Facing a severe case of writer’s block, Tarantino must have tried to scribble his way out of it, couldn’t and decided to go ahead and make a movie out of the whims his writing exercises

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Drama Rated R

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