Infernal Affairs (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

That Hollywood staple – the undercover cop picture – gets an Asian spin with Infernal Affairs, an import that elevates such genre concerns to the near-mythic. The sinuous story pits a cop posing as a gangster (Tony Leung, Hero) against a mole in the police department (Andy Lau, House of Flying Daggers). Their taciturn showdowns

All About the Benjamins (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Stars Ice Cube and Mike Epps – playing a bounty hunter and a con man, respectively, who partner to thwart a diamond heist – riff on familiar genre notes here with the skills of a polished comic team. Their spirited chemistry turns what could have been another contemporary blaxploitation picture into a guilty pleasure you

Johnny English (2003)

Comedy Rated PG

I admire British comedian Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) for reviving the nearly silent, slapstick-heavy style of early greats such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. I just wish he was good at it. Johnny English, a disposable spy spoof, has a few decent gags, but even those are hampered by laborious setups and a thudding

All the Pretty Horses (2000)

Drama Rated PG-13

There sure are some beautiful vistas in this romantic Western, but they only allow you to see the movie’s laborious cliches more clearly. Clumsily adapted by director Billy Bob Thornton from Cormac McCarthy’s best-selling novel, the movie follows a young Texan (Matt Damon) who falls for the daughter (Penelope Cruz) of a wealthy rancher in

Kinsey (2004)

Drama Rated R

In its rush to enshrine its scientist subject (Liam Neeson), Kinsey essentially becomes a piece of science itself: clinical, methodical, emotionally detached. The movies, however, involve other things – feelings, for one – and the main failing of writer-director Bill Condon’s film is that it’s afraid to fully consider what effect the man’s academic approach

All the Real Girls (2003)

Drama Rated R

For anyone who’s ever been bruised by romance, All the Real Girls will have the bittersweet flavor of a forgotten crush, a messy breakup, a lovers’ spat. Writer-director David Gordon Green’s beautiful, lyrical film – which traces the doomed affair between a 20-something lady’s man (Paul Schneider) and a younger girl (a riveting Zooey Deschanel),

Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Family Rated PG

The story of a troublemaking alien who visits Earth disguised as a dog and is adopted by a feisty orphan girl in Hawaii, Lilo & Stitch takes a lot of glee in being naughty before it finds some small satisfaction in being nice. This holds as many lessons for little ones as something like Spirit:

Almost Famous (2000)

Drama Rated R

Writer-director Cameron Crowe (Say Anything, Jerry Maguire) celebrates writing, rock and the art of growing up with his usual optimistic passion. Based on Crowe’s own experiences as a 16-year-old writer for Rolling Stone, the movie follows a teen-age rock journalist on tour with the fictional band Stillwater in the early ’70s. Patrick Fugit is a

A Mighty Wind (2003)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Another reliably hilarious mock documentary from writer-director Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show), this time about a folk-music reunion concert. As the male half of a once-popular Sonny and Cher-type duo, Eugene Levy is both the movie’s funniest character and its most touching.

Almost Salinas (2001)

Drama Rated PG

Contrived as a drama and hokey as a comedy, Almost Salinas features Frasier star John Mahoney as the crotchety owner of a diner in a small California town near the site of James Dean’s fatal car crash. When a movie crew for a biopic on Dean descend on this little corner of the world, a