Full Frontal represents the first time you know from the start you’re watching a Steven Soderbergh film, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Like the eclectic filmmaker’s breakthrough debut, 1989’s Sex, Lies and Videotape, this low-budget ensemble effort follows a bunch of 30-somethings (Blair Underwood and Julia Roberts among them) yammering about their love

You may go into Hanging Up expecting to laugh, but don’t be surprised to come out of the theater in tears – and cheap ones at that. Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow and Diane Keaton star as sisters who are caring for their ailing father (Walter Matthau), but the movie bypasses any interplay between the three

A provocative showcase for the underappreciated talents of Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense), this follows an Australian geologist (Collette) who gets stuck chaperoning a Japanese businessman (Gotaro Tsunashima) through the Outback. Australian director Sue Brooks clearly is influenced by her regional predecessors. Her landscapes echo the ghostly atmosphere of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock,

Pulsing with gung-ho machismo, the Desert Storm war drama Jarhead is like having one of those manly energy drinks injected right into your veins. There is a conscience to be found beneath the bravado, but it is the grunting that wins out. In the movie, the American soldiers get juiced up by watching various war

Money, money money. That’s what everyone wants in Boiler Room, an often riveting update of 1987’s Wall Street set in the same New York stockbroker scene. You’ve seen this before, but the macho posturing, seductive language and breakneck energy that all go into the art of the sale still fascinate. With Ben Affleck and Vin

If it weren’t for professional obligations, this would have been my chance for the greatest nap ever taken. A dramatization of Frances Ouimet’s (Shia LaBeouf) unlikely performance at the 1913 U.S. Open, it features soft sunsets on verdant golf courses and a caressing, inspirational score, both telling symptoms of the picture’s basic problem. This is

More admirable than exciting, The Green Mile is another prison-set period drama adapted by director Frank Darabont from the writings of Stephen King. Darabont is an old-fashioned storyteller, and this tale of a head guard (Tom Hanks) on a Depression-era death row who meets a condemned man with miraculous powers (Michael Clarke Duncan) proceeds with

An intriguing query that’s often posed in Christian circles – What if Jesus came back today? – gets a toothless dramatization in this independent feature. Tony Goldwyn stars as a drifter (and carpenter, natch) who rejuvenates the spiritual life of a small town in a variety of hokey ways. The production values and performances are

“…takes a tragic real-life story and forces it into the shape of a thesis statement.”

The acting is as good as you’ve heard – Oscar winner Halle Berry pulls off way more than a makeup-free publicity stunt – but this somber drama detailing the cautious romance between a white prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) and a black waitress throws too many tragedies at its characters’ feet. For every real emotion