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Film Clips
Reviews by Diane Daly, James DiGiovanna, and Linsay Hernon.
AMELIE. A quirky introvert searches for her Prince Charming in this fable spiced with vibrant creativity, juvenile practical jokes, a world-traveling garden gnome and a reclusive brittle-boned painter. Audrey Tautou stars as the shy, hopeless romantic with a troubled past who discovers that her life's purpose is being a guardian angel to the good and a playful prankster to the bad. However, once she finds her true love-to-be, she has problems being her own guardian angel. The French actress brightens the screen with her enchanting energy and touching nature in this original delight by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. --Hernon
A BEAUTIFUL MIND. Disproving over 150 years of economic theory, determining advanced algorithms among a cluster of pigeons, teaching at MIT, marrying a student, working as a code breaker for a covert government outfit to thwart Russian nuclear capabilities, receiving insulin shock treatments in a state psychiatric ward and winning the Nobel Prize are some of the achievements of a lonely genius who only wanted to create one original idea and lose his virginity. Russell Crowe ages 47 years on screen to play genius John Nash with depth, charisma and humanity. He?s joined by a stellar cast and crew to create a multilayered gem that touches the heart, mind, body and soul. --Hernon
BEHIND ENEMY LINES. Behind Enemy Lines stars Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, but never mind; not even Hackman can do a thing with this un-fun compendium of random manly action-movie clichés. Wilson plays a Navy flier shot down over Bosnia who sees something he shouldn't and then has to run and run and run from rotten scowling genocidal guys. And he keeps littering, which helps them. However, bullets cannot touch him and he always shoots true, so he survives against all odds to make his admiral (that would be Hackman) proud, but not before Hackman also does the right thing, ruining his career, because those NATO nancy-boys won't step up to the plate and save our boy. It just goes on like that, and half an hour in you realize the filmmakers think we're all idiots. We do get to see some really nice weathered granite exposures in Slovakia, however, and very beautiful footage of trees. --Downing
BIG FAT LIAR. Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) is in the middle of an implausible but fun and ludicrous Home Alone kind of Saturday morning popcorn flick for 9-year olds who need to escape from their intense third-grade woes. Here, the sitcom star goes to Hollywood as the boy who cried wolf and needs to prove to his used-to-proud pop that a slumming bigwig film producer (Paul Giamatti) stole his ticket out of summer school and transformed it into a big budget summer blockbuster. But when the pompous producer refuses to fess up, little Muniz infiltrates Universal Studios to pull several Macaulay Culkin-like pranks from orange dye in the shampoo bottle to rewiring the convertible BMW. Director Shawn Levy creates endless situations that could and would never happen, a supporting cast of caricatures, and an Erkel cop with a crime-fighting poultry sidekick, but the three-time Golden-Globe nominee makes a decent transition from TV to film that will hold the audience and keep them entertained throughout. --Hernon
BIRTHDAY GIRL. Surprise! This film begins as a romantic comedy, morphs suddenly into a much darker one, and finally dances aptly enough between categories that it defies definition altogether. For once, Nicole Kidman's performance, as a Russian mail-order bride, is convincing down to the accent, and thankfully she is also able to skirt just above the sexually violent mind games that have characterized more than one of her previous starring roles. The rest of the cast, which includes Vincent Cassel of Amelie, is strong enough to carry the film's strange energy, but it baffles me no Russian actors were cast instead. Still, you'll thank the director for the happy ending, however cliché. --Daly
BLACK HAWK DOWN. A great movie, if not a great "film," Black Hawk Down tells the mostly true story of 100 American troops who were trapped behind enemy lines and surrounded by thousands of armed militia men during a botched raid in Somalia in the mid 1990s. Director Ridley Scott is in top form, and he's well complemented by an impeccable cast, including standouts William Fitchner and Ewan MacGregor. The music, by Hans Zimmer (who scored Thin Red Line), fits in perfectly, and the cinematography by Slavomir Idziak is astounding. It's a perfectly paced flick that will make 144 minutes vanish like Al Gore's political career. --DiGiovanna
BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. While I suppose it's not unusual to see a movie about two adventurers who are buddies and come from different races and cultures and who use their special kung fu powers to fight against a giant killer wolf and a cabal of evil papists and beautiful, papally-sanctioned, lingerie-clad, prostitute-assassins, it is odd for such a film to be French. So, for the sheer strangeness of seeing the French make an American-style movie, it might be worth going to see Brotherhood of the Wolf. Also, as Brotherhood well illustrates, the one thing that the French do much better than the Americans while making junky movies is throw in a lot of nudity, so perhaps there's still something to be gleaned from what the French call "French culture" and what we like to call "soft-core porn." Not surprisingly, shortly after Brotherhood of the Wolf was released in France, a survey in the French cinema magazine Le Film Français showed that 80 percent of French filmgoers thought that French films were much better lately than they had been in the past two decades, a historical period notable in French cinema for its almost complete lack of giant, killer wolf-monsters. --DiGiovanna
GOSFORD PARK. Robert Altman is probably the most inconsistent filmmaker in Hollywood, having made several of the best and worst American films of the 20th century. With Gosford Park he manages to rein in his love of violence, sexism and violent sexism to produce what is perhaps the finest indictment of the English class system in cinematic history. Multiple storylines interweave during a weekend outing at an English country manor, with the servants downstairs and the lords and ladies upstairs crossing paths to gossip, berate and procreate. At some point someone is murdered, and several of the ladies' dresses need laundering. Whatever shall be done? Stop by your local cinny to find out, and enjoy the performances of Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Richard E. Grant, Stephen Fry, Alan Bates, Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Emily Watson and, well, just about every British actor who wasn't off playing a hobbit or wizard last year. --DiGiovanna
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE. Gorgeous production design, lovely cinematography, a mega-Brit all-star cast, fine young actors and the hopes and prayers of millions couldn't save this over-stuffed, too-long and quite unnecessary adaptation of the hugely popular crossover kids' book. Director Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Nine Months) brings his bullying "Hey, look, Ma!" touch to Hogwarts, and doesn't even try to resist throwing in every special effect once done better by a more original director. (The ham-fisted John Williams soundtrack doesn't help.) Still, the film can only accelerate the juggernaut of youthful literary appreciation J.K. Rowling's ideally addictive novels have started rolling. Save your money to buy the next Potter in hardback; after you scarf it you can rent it to your friends. --Downing
HOW HIGH. After seeing this flick I had to run out and call the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make sure it was nominated in the categories of Best Film Made By People Who Were No Doubt Completely Stoned During Filming, and Best Performance By An Actor Whose Last Name Is Apparently "Man." Method Man and Redman star as two really stoned guys who somehow conned a film distributor into sending this unfinished collection of sight gags to theaters around the country ? I mean as two guys who get into Harvard because they smoke the ashes of their dead friend. Seriously. They use him as fertilizer and grow pot and smoke it and it makes them smart enough to get into Harvard. And that's the least implausible part of the script. Although, actually, it's almost worth seeing just to check out how poorly edited a film a can be. --DiGiovanna
I AM SAM. This overly sappy Hollywood custody battle needs a little caffeine kick of its own to crank it up a notch from Oxygen Channel schmaltz to attention-getting drama that borders at least somewhere close to reality. Sean Penn stars in a sensational performance of a mentally challenged father working at the home of the extra double grande low fat low foam latte iced mocha who struggles to raise his loving daughter (Dakota Fanning) by himself on his Starbucks salary and Beatlemania metaphors. Once the Department of Family and Child Services gets wind of this, the two are separated and the unrealistic tear-jerker pushes full throttle with an impatient, self-centered pro bono lawyer (Michele Pfeiffer) becoming the parent she always wanted to be, a heartless prosecuting attorney (Richard Schiff), and an undying bond between father and daughter. Kleenex please. With the exaggerated screenplay, plot holes, and the tacked on ending after tacked on ending, it's a shame that the talent of the one-time Oscar nominee is wasted here. However, it should not stop him from getting another Best Actor nod. --Hernon
IMPOSTOR. Director Gary Fleder: the man, the myth, the legend. The master of creativity. The guru of ingenuity. His latest film reaches epic proportions and marks a new era. It is an incomparable masterpiece destined to surpass all before it and live on for generations to come as the cornerstone of American Cinema. I'm talking technologically savvy intergalactic war plots incorporating ultra-imaginative electromagnetic devices designed to thwart enemy infiltration, and a never-before-seen cat-and-mouse chase between a hard-nosed special agent and an alleged genetically superior robot programmed to kill. Move over, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Look out, Star Wars, Episode II. The ultimate sci-fi movie has arrived at last. (Do I need to work on my sarcasm, or was it obvious from the start?) --Hernon
IN THE BEDROOM. Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek star as an older couple dealing with the most unpleasant of empty nests in this overly long, but often excellent, film. Too much time is wasted in the middle third, and the final section is full of Hollywood clichés, but on the whole In the Bedroom is a successful exploration of a relationship rocked by external events. Nick Stahl plays their son, and Marisa Tomei gives a surprisingly strong performance as a young mother whose abusive, estranged husband is making her life less than pleasant. The real star of the film may be the Maine landscape and lensman Antonio Calvache's almost painfully beautiful cinematography. While In the Bedroom drags quite heavily in the middle, the camerawork and acting largely, if not entirely, make up for it. --DiGiovanna
JIMMY NEUTRON. Deep within his top secret chambers secured by DNA-match entry codes are an ultra-sensitive alien transmission device, a highly dangerous shrink ray gun, and a personalized rocket ship, all of which he invents to pass the time. This extremely advanced technological wizard is Jimmy Neutron, the pint-sized grade-school boy with a pompadour. When all parents are abducted by aliens and held captive by the minions of Poultra, God of Wrath, the children turn to the boy genius to lead them in their intergalactic rescue mission on amusement-park spaceships. This completely implausible full-length Nickelodeon cartoon by writer/director John A. Davis is based on a 1995 animated short. Although it lacks the wit and reality needed to please a crowd over four feet tall, it does have a kid-like charm with fun and fast-paced creativity for the dreamy-eyed first grader. --Hernon
JOE SOMEBODY. Picking a fight is OK as long as you are trained by a cynical beer-guzzling sensei and become a tone-deaf karaoke king and an uncoordinated squash partner as a result. And always remember to pretend to be someone you are not in order to impress your pseudo friends by telling lies and using Noxema as hair gel. These are the lessons that a spineless middle-aged loser teaches his 12-year-old daughter as he regresses to the pitiful schoolboy immaturity of challenging a beef-headed bully to a duel in this cinematic garbage that amazingly managed to sneak a release date in the midst of peak Oscar time. If writer John Scott Shepherd's pathetic script does not thwart your interests as it should, be warned of Tim Allen's cookie-cutter so-called acting, the unconvincing love interest of a closeted smoker/wellness guru and Greg Germann's recycled Ally McBeal character with perverted Fishisms and all. --Hernon
K-PAX. He traveled to Earth faster than the speed of light to study life in its early stages of evolution. Or did he? He can see ultraviolet light. Or can he? He writes in hieroglyphics. Or does he? He is a knocker at a slaughterhouse in a remote New Mexico town. Or is he? He witnessed the horrific murder of his wife and daughter. Or did he? Prot (Kevin Spacey) is a 337-year old alien from the planet K-PAX, which lies 1,000 light years away in the constellation Lyra with its seven purple moons and two suns. Or is he a savant suffering from extreme delusions that were caused by a traumatic past? Director Iain Softley explores the loaded issues of faith versus science and reality versus apparition in this highly crafted adaptation of Gene Brewer's novel. It will stir a thought-provoking discussion during the car ride home. --Hernon
KANDAHAR. One of the most interesting things about Iranian cinema is how uniformly excellent the acting is, so Kandahar, by Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, comes as quite a surprise, insofar as the acting is so deeply, tremendously awful. On the other hand, the script sucks too, so I guess there's a certain parity there, but even if you have to deliver dialogue like "you wear a burqha--this beard is my burqha--," you'd think you could do it without sounding like you're reading the line off a cue-card. Still, Kandahar occasionally manages to get past the terrors of it's acting and provide some real insight into the horrors of living in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Viewed as a documentary, it's actually a fairly successful, beautifully photographed film. Of course, it's not actually a documentary, but, you know, if you're feeling generous you could just pretend that it is one, and maybe have an educational experience, if not an aesthetically rich one. --DiGiovanna
KATE AND LEOPOLD. Audiences are stuck with yet another lame and predictable fish-out-of-water flick as a nameless, faceless aspiring Nobel Prize winner (Liev Schreiber) travels through the windows of time and returns from 1876 with the overly refined Duke of Albany (Hugh Jackman). Of course, this dignitary now must fumble his way through today's technological advances of telephones, toaster ovens and tater tots until he stumbles upon the inevitable love interest. The always-adorable Meg Ryan plays the single suitor who, to no surprise, is swept off her corporate feet by the Duke's stuffed-shirt ways just before he must return to the 19th century. The film's finale does not stray from the unshocking format, either, but the messages about fate, values and love's boundless powers as well as the actors' attention-getting performances manage to raise this film's status from failure to adequate popcorn flick. --Hernon
KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST. The grueling torture and unbearable suffering are finally over and now I can wreak vengeance on this inane drivel that has assured itself a slot on my Worst Films of 2002 list. Writer/director/star Steve Oedekirk, for some reason, decided to use footage from the 1976 martial arts film Savage Killers and incorporate his own ridiculous storyline involving an acrobatic Kung Fu baby, a Matrix brawl with bovine, and The Chosen One who bears the mark of Infinite Wisdom, which is none other than Tonguey, the talking tongue. Wait. It gets worse. I have yet to mention the utterly annoying, ear-popping voiceovers all done by the brunette Dana Carvey look alike, the absurd sound effects used, or the childish special effects which all should have deterred the Fist from having entered in the first place. --Hernon
LIFE AS A HOUSE. Director Irwin Winkler's sappy melodrama piles on gobs of emotional schmaltz as an alienated father unites his dysfunctional family through long-winded predictability. Kevin Kline stars as a jaded architect with a terminal illness who decides to follow the "life is short" motto and save his troubled son (Hayden Christensen) from fully going over to the Dark Side. He also tries to rekindle an old flame with his disapproving ex-wife (Kristen Scott Thomas), and gain acceptance from the condemning community while he is at it. The metaphor of building a house is the attempt at originality that writer Mark Andrus uses to make this magical ball of happiness come together, but all that rises is a monotonous and easily forgettable film. --Hernon
LORD OF THE RINGS. I imagine that this is a fairly successful translation of J.R.R. Tolkein's work to the big screen, insofar as it's precious, pretentious and full of annoying lines like "Rest now, for you are weary from sorrow and toil." Also, every 20 minutes the band of adventurers is in deadly peril with no hope of escape, and lo and behold yet another Deus pops out of yet another machina and saves the day. On the other hand, the Howard Shore soundtrack is really atrocious. Imagine John Williams, then multiply him by John Williams, and you get the idea. Plus, the ever grating Enya wrote some original songs. And the hobbits, well, they're supposed to be small, so every time they stand next to a full-size person, they're either replaced by child actors, or oddly foreshortened by camera tricks, or just computer animated, and the transitions are not smooth. The sets are gorgeous, though, and I think if you had never seen a movie before you'd find this one dazzling. My advice: Bring the kids, bask in their wonder, and then leave about halfway through when they start to get bored and cranky. (By the way, I am a complete churl and pretty much everyone besides me loved this movie.) --DiGiovanna
THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. If you're the kind of mug who falls for some frail only to find she's playing you for a patsy, and so you stick a shiv in her romeo and put the big frame-up on your dame, well, this is the flick for you. It's got every noir cliché, and it's shot with shadows so sharp and beautiful you're likely to cut your eyes looking at them. Billy Bob Thornton is surprisingly apt as Ed Crane, a barber who dreams of becoming a dry cleaner. Scarlett Johansson is hot as ice playing the girl he chastely loves, and Tony Shalhoub turns in his usual perfect performance as a lawyer whose defense strategy is to cite the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: "The more you look, the less you know." Definitely a must-see for fans of the genre, Man Who Wasn't There is not the Coen brothers' best film, but it's got enough Fritz Lang-style lighting and James M. Cain-style plot twists to make most noir-heads happy. Well, as happy as a noir-head gets. --DiGiovanna
MONSTER'S BALL. Billy Bob Thornton plays the exact same character he played in The Man Who Wasn't There, which is a good thing, because it means he isn't acting all over the screen. Instead, his highly restrained performance stands out because he's so unlikable as a corrections officer who lives with the racist father he hates and the non-racist son he despises. While the plot, about a white man falling in love with a black woman (Halle Berry), is pretty standard stuff, and the cinematography is a collection of shots borrowed from other films, there are some excellent moments, thanks to the performances of Thornton, Peter Boyle and, surprisingly, Heath Ledger, who shows he can do more than look pretty in a teen movie. Berry is also passably decent, which is a big step up from her previous films, where she basically just played a woman with fabulous breasts. --DiGiovanna
MONSTERS, INC.. Name: James P. Sullivan. Year: 2001. Place: Monstropolis. Mission: To collect the screams of as many children as possible in order to stock the city?s power source without coming in contact with a toxic-to-the-touch toddler. The entire monster population is relying on this blue-haired, two-horned dinosaur and his sidekick, a bipedal talking eyeball, to alleviate the scream shortage and rejuvenate the suffering city. Pixar's Academy Award-winning computer-animation studios open up a whole new world of vindictive chameleons, Jabba-the-Hut paperwork Nazis and over-zealous child detection agents who are on high alert to secure the area from a fatal code 23-19. Will the furry fiend succeed? Will the nemesis get away with his evil plot? Or will the unthinkable occur and revolutionize life as we know it? Turn to your local movie theaters to find out what really goes on behind your closet doors, or at least to see the trailer for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. --Hernon
MOULIN ROUGE. Imagine a 10-hour acid trip condensed into two hours. Now turn the volume up to 11. Got it? Well, you're not even close to how excessive Moulin Rouge is. This tale of a young bohemian wannabe in fin-de-siècle Paris is all noise, flash and pop music medleys. The dialogue is glommed together from a variety of top-40 hits, the costumes are so dazzling that they'd hurt Stevie Wonder's eyes, and the sets look like they're going to explode from being over-gilded. If you've been in a coma for a while, this might be just the thing to wake you up. Of course, after a few minutes of it you'll just want to go back to peaceful oblivion. Luckily, Nicole Kidman's wooden acting provides a bit of relief from this otherwise over-lively production. Also starring Ewan McGregor and John Leguizamo, who somehow manages to be even more annoying than this film itself. --DiGiovanna
MULHOLLAND DRIVE. This may be David Lynch's best film, and thus one of the best American films of the last 20 years. It's impossible to summarize as it moves with the logic of a long, beautiful and not always comfortable dream. An amnesiac actress with a sordid past meets up with an innocent Canadian who wants to be a movie star. Together they criss-cross Hollywood's dark underbelly, finding conspiracies, romance and long-legged midgets. As characters shift identities, story elements contradict each other, and everything repeats from different, mutually exclusive perspectives, a set of possible interpretations emerge. The audience is left to figure out which, if any, are true. Even if the idea of thinking while watching a movie is unappealing, you might just find that this movie works because each individual scene is a complete delight in itself. At times the funniest, scariest, creepiest, sexiest film of the year, Mulholland Drive has something for everyone who truly loves movies. --DiGiovanna
OCEAN'S 11. Mayday, mayday: We're a hit! I repeat: We are a hit! Oscar's latest golden boy has taken over the helm; People Magazine's multi-million-dollar cover crew has replaced the Rat Pack and witty, wry dialogue has infiltrated our basic caper framework, which has sustained us for over 40 years, Sir. Do you copy? Affirmative, Commander, but it's like they say, with the right cast and crew, anything is possible. Over. In this remake of a 1960 dud, director Steven Soderbergh leads Hollywood's A-listed actors with virtuosity and vibrant speed. George Clooney plays Frank Sinatra's old role of Danny Ocean, the cool ex-con with a devious plan to knock over several major Vegas casinos. Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon are just a few more names added to this 2001 version, along with intellectual plot twists involving hidden agendas, high-tech wizardry and subtle humor, which the original film desperately needed and this update now delivers. --Hernon
ORANGE COUNTY. Slackers, stoners and space cadets are stuck in suburbia in this dumbfest by a collection of cameos and notable offspring. The young Tom Hanks (Colin Hanks) stars as an aloof beach bum turned obsessed literary hound with newfound determination to become the next Cardinal Frosh after reading a life-altering novel by an esteemed Stanford professor. This is easier said than done while living with a disheveled alcoholic mother, a comatose stepfather, a drugged-out couch potato brother and high school friends and staff that all have the intellect of yarn. With fast-paced bonehead tricks, daring comic relief by Jack Black and random appearances by a diverse cast including Ben Stiller, Chevy Chase, Lily Tomlin and Schuyler Fisk (Sissy Spacek's daughter), director Jake Kasdan manages to make the grade and follow in his father's footsteps. --Hernon
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. One of the most visually exacting films ever made, The Royal Tenenbaums tells the story of a family of faded childhood prodigies through their odd effects. A room full of naïve paintings of a grade-school crush, a flaming pink hallway, a 9-year-old girl in a giraffe suit, complete with fake bullet wounds, and also some kinda strange stuff make up the optical complement to one of the best soundtracks in recent memory. If you enjoyed director Wes Anderson's Rushmore you'll no doubt love Royal Tenenbaums. If you didn't like Rushmore I have nothing further to say to you, and you might as well go back to your day job of picking nominees for the Academy Awards. --DiGiovanna
SHALLOW HAL. Welcome, class, to Inner Beauty 101. Today's guest lecturers are the notorious writing/directing duo, the Farrelly Brothers. Good morning, children. You see, regardless of what guys look and act like, they only date calorie-counting, brainless beauties with silicone-enhanced breasts, which means that all of you smart and funny fatsos should lose your relationship fantasies and go volunteer for the Peace Corps where you belong. Now, take our friend, Hal, for example. He is a superficial potato with limbs and Elvis sideburns who always chooses the gorgeous over the grotesque; that is, until a brawny self-help guru hypnotizes him to see the personality before the appearance. Therefore, all of you love-obsessed losers should find someone under a deep hypnotic spell, since the Peace Corps won't even accept your buck-tooth pimple face because inner beauty is a bunch of garbage. And that concludes Inner Beauty 101. --Hernon
THE SHIPPING NEWS. E. Annie Proulx?s popular novel is adapted for the screen by director Lasse Hallstrom (Cider House Rules) with mixed results. Though it's beautiful to look at, Kevin Spacey blows the lead role by adopting Haley Joel Osment's acting style. Hey, it's cute when you?re a 10-year-old, but it just doesn't play on a homely 47-year-old man. Spacey plays Quoyle, a man haunted by the childhood memory of his father throwing him in a lake. Somehow, he winds up becoming the star reporter at a small newspaper in Newfoundland, where he finds love and family and other good-feeling type stuff. If you like pretty, emotionally manipulative movies, and are willing to sit through a long one, then you might find The Shipping News a refreshing break from the holiday TV specials. It?s marginally more profound than Rudolf Fights Tooth Decay, but not quite as philosophically rewarding as Baby Jesus Versus The Santa-Bots. --DiGiovanna
SLACKERS. Billed as a light comedy, this implausible collection of white teen boy fantasy images manages to be the most deeply disturbing film since In the Company of Men. Set on a college campus, it follows group of slacker students who agree upon being blackmailed to "get the girl" for the enraged geek who has been stalking her for years, babbling "I love her and I hate her! I want to put her in a locked room ..." Amid the predictable turn of events is a montage of racist images involving a buffoonish Japanese teacher, a bouncing fat black secretary and a violent Latino "bum." Women over 30 also pour out of the subplots, haggard and hungry for sex from these young men, as is Cameron Diaz in arguably the most degrading cameo appearance in history. --Daly
SNOW DOGS. A dog eat dog world gets a happy-go-lucky Bob Saget sitcom makeover with the champion of brainless kids' flicks at the helm. Brian Levant, of Problem Child and Jingle All the Way infamy, directs this loose adaptation of Gary Paulsen's novel with bloated cheeziness that stars Cuba Gooding, Jr. as a big city dentist who journeys to Alaska to discover his roots. Soon the ignorant city slicker turns makeshift mush master to carry his family's name by competing in the distinguished Arctic Challenge against the feared Thunder Jack (James Coburn) and the Fabio of dog sledding. Despite the utter simplicity, exaggerated fakeness, and nonstop optimism by the characters who probably suffered more from cheek ache with their constant smiles than frostbite with the subzero temperatures, the film has a good natured purity that is reassuring. Lest we forget the cute and cuddly Siberian Huskies that undoubtedly brighten the screen. --Hernon
TORTILLA SOUP. Big Night cooked up tasty Italian treats, Soul Food fired up good Southern home cooking, and now director Maria Ripoll's remake of Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman stirs up savory Mexican meals with a mouth-watering medley of mayhem, marriage and marjoram. Hector Elizondo stars as a widowed restaurateur who is losing his senses, literally, since he can no longer taste or smell. Nonetheless, the gourmet chef pulls out all the stops when preparing delectable Sunday-night feasts for his three grown daughters: an entrepreneur with dad's cooking talents, a shy science teacher with her own little schoolgirl crush, and a free-spirited misguided rebel, all of whom deliver life-altering news as their own contribution to their traditional family dinner. Though the final serving tastes like a stale after-dinner mint coated in a contrived Hollywood happy ending, the appetizers and the main course combine a wholesome blend of laughter, warmth and even a revival of Chiquita Banana. --Hernon
VANILLA SKY. Although after Magnolia we should no longer be surprised that Tom Cruise can act, it's still a surprise. He turns in a decent performance in Vanilla Sky, though the real stars are the gorgeous, highly saturated cinematography and Penelope Cruz's twitchy and occasionally naked performance as Cruise's love interest. The story is a multi-layered mystery, a series of dreams-within-dreams that might frustrate the short-attention-span masses who like things explained immediately. Don't worry; everything is cleared up in the end, and like Cruise's body, the middle sections are just as fabulous, and worth working your way through. --DiGiovanna
A WALK TO REMEMBER. Smell cheese? Close; this film actually reeks of more formula than a Levittown nursery. Count the clichés: The popular high-school senior punished into the lifestyle of a drama geek; the square girl with beauty gradually revealed; her forbidding reverend father; the unscripted onstage declaration of love. Had enough formula? Ready to spit up? Well, get comfy, baby, there's more in the bottle, from the terminal-disease victim's list of wishes becoming reality to that sentimental last wish, the wedding. Peter Coyote's smooth performance is the only lullaby in this colicky sob fest. Run, don't walk, to any available alternative. --Daly
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