At its best, this traditional Adam Sandler picture -meaning there’s plenty of sexual innuendo, comic violence and moments of absurdism – spoofs the contemporary need to pigeonhole people according to their perceived problems. Sandler plays a mild-mannered corporate lackey who gets mistakenly assigned to an unconventional anger therapist (Jack Nicholson, delightfully mugging his way through

A far smarter send-up of cultural stereotypes than Bringing Down the House, Malibu’s Most Wanted stars Jamie Kennedy as Brad “B-Rad” Gluckman, a privileged California white kid who acts like he just stepped out of a rap video. The spoofing of hip-hop mannerisms is dead-on, while a plot twist in which two proper black actors

An improperly projected preview screening – in which the first 10 minutes of this lame comedy about money-grubbing buddies made the characters look like they were standing in front of a fun-house mirror – was the only amusing thing about the experience. That’s how bad the National Lampoon movie brand has become – it needs

When Kevin Smith made his microbudget splash with 1994’s Clerks, his was a singular voice that spoke for an entire generation of twentysomething slackers. In Clerks II, Smith returns to the slackers of the first film (Jeff Anderson and Brian O’Halloran), and though there is some hilarious dialogue – particularly for movie geeks – the

No-name actors even for an indie picture, John Lurie, Eszter Balint and Richard Edson convened to play an oddball trio – two male friends and the female cousin of one of them – who drift along from New York to Cleveland to Florida before finally drifting apart. The entire picture drifts, establishing early on Jim

Bruce Almighty takes good care of a great concept – a clod (Jim Carrey) becomes God – though it never quite offers inspired comedy. The religious humor is limited, while Jennifer Aniston, a comedian in her own right, is wasted as the love interest. Yet for Carrey fans who tire of his serious side –

A crude and hilarious riff on the drunken Santa routine – by now as much of a Christmas cliche as Rudolph’s red nose – Bad Santa also has a surprisingly empathetic heart. Billy Bob Thornton, in the title role, and director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World) share the fatalistic worldview of an outcast loser, and it