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

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Thriller Rated R

If you like movies that work as dreams rather than narratives (meaning you’re in it for the experience, not the dramatic payoff), then don’t miss this conundrum from writer-director David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks). The ostensible plot follows an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) who tries to help an amnesiac (Laura Elena Harring) recover her

Alone in the Dark (2005)

Horror Rated R

Nearly 14 paragraphs of introductory, explanatory text still couldn’t make sense of this video-game adaptation, which involves ancient civilizations, creatures of darkness, secret government agencies and bizarre experiments on orphans. Oh, and yes, there is a mad scientist. It’s all bad-movie good for a while, then just deadening. With Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff –

Tailor of Panama, The (2001)

Drama Rated R

A jaunty spy movie based on the book by John Le Carre. Pierce Brosnan devilishly tweaks his James Bond image as a disgraced British spy who’s ordered to twiddle his thumbs in Panama, where he runs into an expatriate tailor (Geoffrey Rush) who may be more than he seems. There’s as much winking as acting

Trouble With Harry, The (1955)

Comedy Rated NR

Landing right in the middle of his richest period is this Alfred Hitchcock lark, a curious comedy that neither looks back at Rear Window nor ahead to Vertigo, but rather exists in some goofy space all its own. It’s as if Hitchcock went on vacation, but kept working. Filmed in throbbing Technicolor and expansive VistaVision,

I Spy (2002)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Owen Wilson refined his off-kilter act into marketable Hollywood shtick for this outing. Eddie Murphy, who’s been selling his wiseacre routine for years, welcomes him into the sell-out club, playing a boxer who teams up with Wilson’s dopey spy.