America Ferrera, a young actress of abundant curves and even more abundant spunk, plays a bright, independent high school senior whose collegiate aspirations clash with the traditional values of her Mexican-American family. True, each American immigrant subculture seems to produce this movie sooner or later, but Ferrera’s invigorating freshness single-handedly keeps Real Women Have Curves

The state of an affluent California family on the brink of disaster, as seen through the eyes of their newly hired Mexican housekeeper (Paz Vega). Writer-director James L. Brooks mines plenty of emotional truths, while Adam Sandler holds his own against the impressive female cast – particularly Tea Leoni as his cripplingly insecure wife and

This is consistently in over its head, and not just because it’s an often-amateurish independent drama. As long as this suburban-teens-run-amok story captures the familiar rhythms of high school, the movie is on firm ground. As a nihilistic morality play, however, it stumbles. Parry Shen is likable as an honor student gone bad, but director

In case anyone in the conscious universe wasn’t aware of it yet, this universal punching bag pointed out that Jennifer Lopez is attractive. Oh sure, there’s a plot – something about two mob gofers (Lopez and Ben Affleck) who butt heads while pairing up on a kidnapping – but director Martin Brest stages most scenes

Like a stiff dance routine, Honey follows the carefully plotted steps of a showbiz melodrama, albeit updated for the hip-hop age. That the movie follows the rise of a dancer and choreographer in the music-video business (Jessica Alba, struggling with rap slang) and features some high-energy hoofing only makes the well-worn story look more wooden.

Like a funeral, this understated tragedy is somehow full of both grief and consolation. A mother (Sissy Spacek) and father (Tom Wilkinson) in a small Maine town succumb to despair when the romance between their son and a single mother comes to a horrible end. Under the steady hand of first-time director Todd Field, every

This MTV Films production references The Breakfast Club about midway through, and the movie’s few good moments echo the spirit of existential, youthful rebellion captured by that 1985 minor classic. This time students from varying high school cliques come together to steal the answers to the upcoming SAT exam. If you can look past the

Clint Eastwood directs himself, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as aging pilots with one last chance to travel to space. The geezer gags – charming at first – soon wear thin, and since the movie has nothing else on its mind, all we’re left with is a tired space-disaster flick.

This somber romance moves with the speed of a curing wound, but the pacing’s appropriate since the movie is about emotional healing. Jennifer Lopez plays a Chicago cop with a fractured past who engages in a tentative relationship with a stranger, played by Jim Caviezel, whose own past is so tragic he won’t even discuss

Apparently nothing was going to deter director-star Kevin Spacey from making Beyond the Sea, not limited interest in the life of 1950s and ’60s crooner Bobby Darin, not a thin, cornball script, not even an alarming age difference between himself, as Darin, and the pixie-like Kate Bosworth as Darin’s wife, Sandra Dee. Beyond the Sea