When Barbershop broke out as an unexpected hit in 2002, it was one of those rare movie successes with the defining trait of modesty. Modesty is an even rarer quality in sequels, but Barbershop 2 miraculously retains its predecessor’s unassuming air. As the movie once again follows the loud, passionate conversations in a South Side

A comic satirist in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, French director-star Jacques Tati created his most ambitious playground with Playtime. One reason Tati chose to shoot in 70mm – a widescreen format whose larger film frames allow for a brighter picture and sharper focus – was to be able to fully capture

Writer-director Blake Edwards and star Peter Sellers followed up 1963’s The Pink Panther with this much more tightly focused farce. This time Sellers’ inept Inspector Clouseau is the star – he seems to have come to the picture with a specific character in mind rather than a collection of slapstick shtick. The bumbling and fumbling

Robin Williams dials things down a notch or two for RV, and that proves to be just the right volume level for director Barry Sonnenfeld’s (Men in Black) tolerably manic family comedy. Williams’ Bob Munro, saddled with a distracted wife (Cheryl Hines, from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm), a mouthy daughter and a wannabe gangster son,

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Writer-director-star Albert Brooks trumps himself while playing a smug American comedian named Albert Brooks, who is tapped by the U.S. government to go on a fact-finding mission to India and Pakistan. Once you get the movie’s central, oft-repeated joke – that isolated America is desperately out of touch with the cultures it is warring against

Mild expectations – the best way to approach a Woody Allen film – will aid enjoyment of this slight experiment that plays with the forms of tragedy and comedy. Two parallel narratives – one serious, the other comic – follow a troubled woman (Radha Mitchell both times) who crashes a dinner party. With Will Ferrell