At first 21 Jump Street is bad, it's really bad. But as a first season it begins to develop into real characters with real stories towards the end, eventually becoming that edgy show that upstart network Fox dreamed of, instead of an extended after-school special. Besides Johnny Depp is so young and so cute. There's some real shining lines, especially in the first episode. And there is real power in the late 80s nostalgia for those who feel we're far enough away from that decade crossover to enjoy it yet again.

Tommy Hanson (Depp) is a new cop, just graduated from the academy top of his class, with a baby face and a chip on his shoulder. When a bust goes awry he's reassigned to a special group of undercover cops young enough to pass as high school students. The unorthodox gaggle of fresh-faced fuzz are stationed in an old converted chapel on Jump Street. Doug Penhall (Peter Deluise) is th...Read the entire review

When a book or play is adapted to fit the screen, be it the silver or the small, seldom does it really survive the transition. Angels in America is a beautifully written piece of stage drama and HBO manages to do it justice. The imagery and dialogue are retained in a way that is poetic and profound, if at times, only a very little bit too dramatic for your television.

When waspy Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) tells his Jewish, politically enthusiastic and cynical Louis (Ben Shenkman) that he has AIDS Louis spirals into panic mode, eventually leaving Prior. After this he takes up with Joe Pitt, who is, unknown to Louis and against almost all his morals, a married, Mormon, Republican lawyer. In Joe's life is the obnoxious but high powered Roy Cohn (Al Pacino), a real historical figure, who though gay himself, and dying of AIDS, is rampantly homophobic. Roy is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenb...Read the entire review

Movies with much initial hype are in constant danger of being unable to live up to expectation. Dogville, is such a film of daringly independent, but ultimately disappointing, beauty.

Dogville is filmed wholly in a dark stage, wherein the town is painted, map-like, in mercilessly straight white outlines of houses, the main street, the dog. The harsh and shifting stage lights, multiple shadows, the minimal but very present props and set, lend the film and extremely theatrical quality.

Grace (Nicole Kidman) appears, mysteriously, after a string of gunshots, in a poor depression era town, high in the Rockies. In order for the town of Dogville to shield her from the mobsters who seek her she must earn the trust of each town-member individually. Her ally in this endeavor is Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany), an aspiring writer/philosopher and jobless, rich boy, drifter. Amid protests tha...Read the entire review

Soap's first season was as brave and controversial as it was cheeky. The serial's Second Season continues its soap opera spoof ridiculousness and takes it to a whole new level. If television audiences thought prime time's first openly gay character was shocking, then this season's possessed baby, mafia kidnapping, and alien abduction might surprise. And yet Soap, the Complete Second Season remains timely and poignant.

Soap, as its intro so eloquently tells you each episode, is the story of two sisters. Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) is married to a wealthy philanderer, Chester (Robert Mandan), and has two grown daughters, Corrine (Diana Canova) and Eunice (Jennifer Salt) and a teenage son, Billy (Jimmy Baio). They also have a sarcastic black butler, Benson (Robert Guillaume). Jessica's sister, Mary Campbell (Cathryn Damon), decidedly lower income, is recently remarried to...Read the entire review

Cop shows of the 70s are not at all comparable to today's popular Law and Order spin-offs. Starksy and Hutch is a grand trip into the past. The dynamic duo shoot first and ask questions later, handle all the evidence, move all the bodies, and are way more hunky (if not quite as funny) as Jerry Orbach. If you have dreams about Gran Torinos, and still like to don cable knit sweaters and striped Adidas, Starksy and Hutch: The Complete 2nd Season's 21 hours of pure 70s style action won't disappoint.

The Movie
A show in its sophomore season can sink or swim, even after a wildly successful first season. Starsky and Hutch is made to be an action show and it certainly doesn't fail on that account. What is perhaps surprising is that the 2nd Season also manages to successfully add genuine drama AND humor to the mix. Because the TV audience has gotten to know the boys ...Read the entire review

Though it may have painted a more realistic picture of the mythic hero, King Arthur was not saved from summer blockbuster cliché and groan-inducing writing. Only a few things make the film worth watching: the complicated (if unexplored) 5th century politics, a cool fight scene or two, and the painted Keira Knightly.

Lancelot's (Ioan Gruffudd) voiceover begins the tale of the conquering Romans who have indebted Lancelot to serve the Roman army after his family's tribe, the Sarmatians, were defeated. He is taken to faraway Briton where he, along with several other enslaved Sarmatians, serves under the half Roman, half Briton King Arthur (Clive Owen) for 15 years. On the day they are made to be free, the Roman Bishop (Ivano Marescotti) sets them the impossible task of rescuing a Roman family from invading Saxons. Though they have battled Britons in the past, they now team up with Guinevere (K...Read the entire review

I hate myself for telling you to rent The Terminal despite all the times I rolled my eyes and shook my head in disgust as I watched. But I also counted the times I laughed as well as loathed, and in comparison, I guffawed just a bit too much to say that it was irredeemable.

Viktor (Tom Hanks) a tourist from a little known Eastern European country, lands in New York to find out his country has been thrown into civil war and his papers are no longer valid and he cannot enter the US. As his country is no longer recognized, he cannot return there either, so he is doomed to roam the halls of JFK's international terminal. Viktor, whose English is very poor, unluckily finds an adversary in the newly appointed Field Commisioner, Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci). Dixon continually tries to get Viktor off his hands by attempting to trick him into criminally entering the country, or claiming asylum. But V...Read the entire review

What could be better than trashing corporations and Connecticut at the same time? or revealing the normative American ideal to be the performative campy thing that it is? Only the all new, remake of the 1970s classic retaliation against Donna Reid, The Stepford Wives. Through its transition to the present day, it managed to keep all the quirk of the original while adding completely new elements, both in plot and style.

Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is a successful network exec who gets canned when a deranged reality show participant goes on a shooting spree. Her ever-faithful husband Walter Kresby (played by the slightly pudged but still cute-as-a-button Matthew Broderick) resigns his position at the station too. In an attempt to salvage a life and some sanity, they leave Manhattan for the peace of a gated community in Connecticut called Stepford. But little miss rain cloud struggles to g...Read the entire review

I often like to watch movies made from books before reading their literary counterparts so that I can fully enjoy it without constant comparison. But if you try to watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban without a pretty thorough background, you'll be quite lost. Nevertheless, Potter fans will surely enjoy this latest frolic through the world of magic. All the elements are there, even if there is a twinge of disappointment and some of the real emotion lost to time constraints and making sure all the relevant plot twists were covered.

The Prisoner of Azkaban begins the summer before the kids' third year at Hogwarts. And, as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is now a teenager, his poltergeist-like tendencies pop up as he accidentally blows up his aunt at the dinner table. When he flees to The Leaky Cauldron, instead of the reprimand he expects, he is greeted with a message of caution fro...Read the entire review

Worldwide disaster movies have their own brand of "we all came together in the face of horrible adversity" charm, which is at times endearing, at times annoying, but always cloyingly sentimental. The Day After Tomorrow is such a film. The adventure is meaningful and fairly well done, and even features that cute actor from Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal). It was enough for me to enjoy for the most part.

Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) predicts the coming a new ice age, brought on by humanity's own destructive processes, particularly those leading to the Greenhouse Effect. Little does he know that this will happen, not in a hundred years, but in a few days. As stormy weather continues to brew, Jack tries to convince the government of the impending doom to little avail. Only with southernmost states are safe enough to evacuate to Mexico, yet Jack packs up his extreme weather...Read the entire review

If you needed to see a movie that reinforces your belief that wars are stupid and pointless, then Troy is good for at least that. The characters are all wonton, vain and selfish. While they may come through as interesting historically, or as a study in morals, when reading Homer's epic The Iliad, upon which Troy is loosely based, here they only appear as vapid and unsympathetic.

Agememnon (Brain Cox) is a Greek king who consistently conquers all the city-states around him. His best warrior is the famed Achilles (Brad Pitt) who is seemingly indestructible. When Agememnon's brother Menelaus's (Brendan Gleeson) wife Helen (Diane Kruger) is whisked away by the handsome Trojan Prince Paris (Orlando Bloom), Agememnon finally has his excuse to invade Troy. Achilles agrees to go. Although he is the greatest fighter the world is ever known he has a formidable foe in Hector (Eric Bana), the ...Read the entire review

Although clichéd and schlocky to the highest degree, something about Van Helsing caught my fancy. I must've been in a good mood; I'm not sure. But it at least didn't pretend to be impressive or cinematic. It's cg and effects were fun, if not mind-blowing, it's characters silly if not full. If you like chasing the monsters and the baddies, it's a good flick for you.

Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is an amnesiac monster catcher, commissioned by the Vatican and less than loved by the people, as he is often considered a murderer. On a particularly harrowing mission to Transylvania to kill Count Dracula he is accompanied by the timid but brilliant inventor and Fryer Carl (David Wenham). Immediately upon arrival Van Helsing meets the brazen and beautiful love interest Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale). She and her troubled brother are the last of their line, charged with the task of slaying t...Read the entire review

Remember when Denzel Washington used to do good movies? Well, those days are officially over with the release of Man on Fire. For all its 2 and a half grueling hours, Malcolm X it is not. Though there was no intermission, moviegoers just came and went like it was a TV show. A film with no substance just has no business lasting that long, especially when the story doesn't really start until and hour and a half in.

Former Marine, with a drinking problem, Creasy (Denzel Washington) visits an old buddy in Mexico (Christopher Walken) and ends up staying as a bodyguard to a wealthy Mexico City family, after a series of brutal kidnappings in the city. Though Creasy's tough exterior seems impenetrable, inevitably the family's charming daughter Pita (Dakota Fanning) overcomes his fortress, steals his heart, and gives him a reason to continue living. Marc Anthony and Radha Mitchell play Pita'...Read the entire review

Connie and Carla is another indie comedy from the mind of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Nia Vardalos. And while, as a women's studies major I can never stop thinking about the social implications of various performances of gender, in the end Connie and Carla, did right by pretty much everyone, while still remaining genuinely hilarious.

Connie and Carla are lifelong friends who want nothing more in life than to perform. Unfortunately, their variety dance numbers are relegated to Midwestern dinner theaters populated my senior citizens and Chicago O'Hare's empty lounges. When they see a mobster who lent them some dough for costumes get blown away, they know they have to go on the run. They figure on someplace with no culture, to ensure they won't be found, and settle in LA. After bombing in the job market Connie realizes that they can not only earn enough bucks to stay afloat but co...Read the entire review

I can only describe Tarantino's most recent, two-volume film as masterful. The slightly more introspective Volume 2 of Kill Bill is every bit as lively as the first installment with even more satisfying insights.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 finally gives our heroine a name, Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman), as we follow her to her next three victims and delve into her past. The unshaven and sad figure of Bud (Michael Madsen) contrasts with the starkly angled and beautiful, yet ruthless Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). In this installment Kiddo continues her self-proclaimed "roaring rampage" with only two more obstacles standing between her and Bill (David Carradine), whom we finally get to meet. And throughout her venture, Vol. 2 builds, in a wonderfully excruciating way, to its oh-so satisfying climactic release.

Kiddo's passion for Bill is exposed as Tarantino reveals the charm and br...Read the entire review

I could give The Alamo some credit for not falling into any of the most obvious Hollywood traps. There was no extraneous love story, nor an over reliance on special effect laden battle scenes. But in its bid to become a historical epic, it lost any semblance of audience appeal or interest, which is why I can't give it much credit at all.

After waning political careers, legendary Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) and General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) follow the dream of their very own pet nation as they head west to Texas. Crockett gets to town later than Houston, under the assumption that all the fighting was over and the land was his for the taking. Instead, he finds himself a hapless victim in the bloody massacre perpetrated by Mexico's General Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarría) at The Alamo. We also meet Colonel William Barrett Travis (Patrick Wilson), commander at the Alamo, gallant and ...Read the entire review

The United States of Leland utilizes the same technique of suburban serenity masking suffering and atrocity that American Beauty did so well. And while I was overtaken by the calmly expressive performances of Ryan Gosling, Don Cheadle and Chris Klein, Leland didn't quite live up to the earlier depiction of the pain simmering under the surface of the American dream. The United States of Leland occasionally seems altogether too calm, to the point of unfeeling, without the bald intensity of something like Van Sant's equally deadpan Elephant. And yet, I was also drawn to it, as much for its faults as its tenderness and fragile beauty.

The film opens with the tragic scene of an autistic boy in a sunny park, dead of several stab wounds to his chest. It is apparent that the seemingly detached yet gentle Leland (Ryan Gosling) is the culprit when we are shown his bandaged han...Read the entire review

Among a slew of mediocre 2004 films Hellboy stands out. It was able to successfully combine enough comic book spirit without making the film overwhelmingly comic book flat (like 1990's Dick Tracy. The feeling of the original was preserved as it brought gloriously gross depictions and fairly impressive cg, imagery to the screen. I think those who read the comic should be pleased enough with this entertaining portrayal.

Following a harrowing battle with culturally loaded Nazis, a baby demon is found among the fray. He is bright red with horns and a huge, rock-like, right hand. Instead of following the usual demon path of evil, he is taken in and raised by Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt), as a son and taught to fight for good. (Or, as the professor would say: "Bump back against those things that go bump in the night.") A flash-forward to the present shows a meek but talented FBI agent, J...Read the entire review

I applaud Kevin Smith, creator of the whole line of raw, adolescently-jaded movies such as Clerks, Dogma, et al, for attempting to branch out and sophisticate his work. I really do. I think that those films are almost always entertaining and occasionally brilliant. I find his indulgent duo of Jay and Silent Bob (whom he plays himself) original and humorous. I would expect him to be able to grow and mature...and he has. But not enough for as serious an attempt as Jersey Girl.

Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) works in NYC as busy young music publicist with his also wealthy, and hard-working, wife Gertrude Steiney (Jennifer Lopez) by his side. After she dies in childbirth this new single dad sees his perfect world crash as he loses his job, for an ill-timed outburst and moves home to his father's (George Carlin) house in small town New Jersey. Seven years later, he still desires to return to...Read the entire review

As Taking Lives began to take shape I had pretty high hopes. The opening scene was cryptically engaging. The story followed general crime movie stereotypes but showed promise. The characters were familiar but not annoyingly so. Unfortunately, somewhere in the middle, it fell into an absurdity, and I sat through the remainder of the film just hoping it would end.

Special Agent Illeana Scott (Angelina Jolie) is an FBI profiler called in to help crack a tough French-Canadian case, with only a mutilated body as a lead. (Why an American agent is called to Canada I simply cannot guess but alas, she is). She discovers that the killer takes over the identity of his victim until he kills again. In fact, his family had believed that he had been dead for 19 years. When the killer's mother, Mrs. Asher, claims to have seen her supposedly long dead son, Martin, the pieces begin to fall into place. With...Read the entire review

Lately, it seems the imagination in thriller, mystery, suspense genre has ebbed gradually away leaving this pretty, occasionally aurally enticing, but empty shells. While Secret Window was more engaging than other recent thrillers like Twisted, or last year's Gothika, there were some unfortunate parallels to be drawn.

Based on a Stephen King novella, Secret Window follows mystery writer Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) after his recent separation from his wife (Maria Bello). In his new country home he is visited by a strange southerner, John Shooter (John Turturro) who claims that Rainey not only plagiarized his story, but ruined the ending as well. He demands proof that Rainey published the story in 95, two years before Shooter claims to have written it. As Rainey is continually foiled by various circumstances and fails to produce, Shooter continues to threaten him, upping the ...Read the entire review

Luckily for writer/director Todd Phillips, of Old School and now Starsky and Hutch fame, nostalgia is in in in. And while other recent cop remakes have simply tried to revive the past, Starksy and Hutch whimsically laughs at itself at the same time. Although the end result is not always successful, this change was refreshing.

In case the popular '75-'79 TV show has been forgotten, the basic premise follows two cops in a flashy red and white Ford Gran Torino around Bay City, California. Detective David Starksy (Ben Stiller) plays by the proverbial book and, in the 2004 movie, tries desperately to live up to his mother's legacy as one of Bay City's finest. Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (Owen Wilson) is the cool cop, who doesn't hesitate to use his power to earn a little on the side. He brings his partner into association with Huggy Bear (Snoop Dogg), powerful local pimp and high-class...Read the entire review

Mediocre acting, fair to middlin' plot, and a lack of any real suspense, even if there are a few interesting actors, shots and sounds, does not a great thriller make. It makes an almost entertaining film like Twisted. I love the excitement a good thriller brings, and can often watch them several times, though I know the outcome, but The Client this ain't.

Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) is a tough-as-lavishly-painted-nails cop who gets promoted to homicide at the beginning of the film. Haunted by her parents' gruesome death when she was a young child, she is a tortured soul and severe wino. She was raised by her father's partner, John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson) and has immersed herself in police work. She has little social life, save, random sexual encounters. Within the first few days of her new job, she finds one of these men beaten to death after another night of blackout inducing bi...Read the entire review

Against the Ropes is the second sports flick I've attended recently. The other, Miracle, seemed the type only the sports enthusiast or sappy family movie lover would get into. And I was wrong. When Against the Ropes looked like an interesting mix of woman-makes-good-in-the-old-boys-club, triumph of will and rise from poverty, and sports flick, I was ready to embrace the less than excited boxing-watcher in me. And yet, I was wrong again.

Against the Ropes is inspired by, but by no means a true representation, of Jackie Kallen, one of the most successful female promoters in boxing history. Kallen (Meg Ryan) grew up surrounded by boxing and loves the sport enough to stay in a dead end job with no respect so she can continue to be around it. After another humiliating episode with big shot manager Sam Larocca (Tony Shalhoub), Jackie begins to realize her potential to manage...Read the entire review

Silly, saccharine and sweetly pretty, 50 First Dates, fulfills its role as an offbeat Adam Sandler romantic comedy quite well. It uses all the standard tricks, but each has a unique enough spin to keep me chuckling.

Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) is a marine biologist and full-time tourist womanizer. One day he sees Lucy Whitemore (Drew Barrymore) building a house out of waffles at the local spam and eggs joint. He aids in its construction and they hit it off, making plans to meet the next day. To Henry's chagrin, Lucy acts as if she'd never met him. It is then he learns that Lucy was in a car accident that damaged her short-term memory. She believes every day to be the day of her accident, her father's birthday. So every day Henry must woo her yet again. Lucy's father Marlin (Blake Clark) and brother Doug (Sean Astin), a lisping, steroid using body-builder, keep up the birthday charade, even ...Read the entire review

Barbershop 2: Back in Business has pretty much all the pieces that go into a good movie: full characters, relevant and contemporary plot, and even some interesting effects. And yet, these pieces fit disjointedly together, causing Barbershop 2 to fall short of being a truly remarkable film.

Calvin (Ice Cube) owns and operates the local South side Chicago neighborhood barbershop opened by his father in 1958. Business is thriving and all the characters from the first Barbershop seem to have hit their strides. All remain at the shop except Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas), who has achieved his political goal, working for the black politician Alderman Brown (Robert Wisdom). The well-dressed, but sleazy cell-phone-on-the-hip developer Quentin Leroux (Harry Lennix) provides the plot's tension as he threatens Calvin's livelihood; he plans to open the successful franchise Nappy Cutz across the st...Read the entire review

Before watching Miracle, I couldn't imagine a sports movie that wasn't overdone, melodramatic and full of cliché images. And I still felt that way when the film was over. However, perhaps against my better judgment, I liked it anyway.

Kurt Russell plays Herb Brooks, a former hockey player and the last team member cut from the US Olympic team in 1960, when the US beat the Russians and won the Gold medal. He is given a second chance to reach for the gold as the head coach of a new generation of US Olympic hockey players intent on winning the 1980 games at Lake Placid. Brooks has his work cut our for him as he leads his young team he's worked with for only a few months against the veteran Soviets, considered the best team in the world and unbeaten since that 1960 Olympics.

Though some may consider it distracting, one of the elements that made this sports film engaging for a non-enthusiast...Read the entire review

As it was based on an Elmore Leonard book, you might expect the same sort of irreverent and twisty comedy from The Big Bounce found in Get Shorty or Out of Sight. Unfortunately, the remake is as anti-climactic as the 1969 Ryan O'Neal original. Not quite funny enough to call it a successful comedy, yet not tense enough to be a crime drama, thriller or mystery. The Big Bounce had its endearing moments but, on the whole, left me unsatisfied.

The story follows Jack Ryan (Owen Wilson) that cute, lovable troubled and imperfect fellow that Wilson plays so well. In an attempt to escape his past, Jack runs to Hawaii where he loses his construction job after hitting his racist foreman with a baseball bat. The corrupt company owner Ray Ritchie (Gary Sinise) and his right-hand-man Bob Jr. (Charlie Sheen) threaten him to leave town. Before Jack has too much time to consider the matter, h...Read the entire review

Chaos theory aside, The Butterfly Effect's premise is sound and it definitely caught my attention. Starring Ashton Kutcher in, perhaps, his first serious role, the story follows his character Evan Treborn through his childhood of memory loss to his adulthood of discovery. While initially very engaged by the film, upon reflection I found certain elements lacking.

Under the care of a psychologist, Evan is diagnosed with a strange loss of memory after traumatic incidents and is instructed to journal the events of his life as much as possible. The bizarre disease may be linked to his father's own, which has landed him in a mental institution. We follow Evan until his early teens, when he moves away from his friends and the horrors surrounding them. After several uneventful years Evan begins to reexamine these journals and discovers that he can not only recall these missing moments but change t...Read the entire review

Ben Stiller excels in portraying excruciating and embarrassing love comedies. Along Came Polly follows this tradition, in the footsteps of There's Something About Mary, and others. The repetitious, Polly, however, fails even this task by playing all the same gags without much suspense or feeling.

Rueben Feffer (Ben Stiller) works as a risk analyst at a successful New York City insurance company headed by the sleazy Stan Indursky (Alec Baldwin). He wants nothing more than the wife, 2.5 children and a patrolled housing development in Connecticut. And indeed, it seems he will likely have it until his wife, Lisa (Debra Messing) leaves him on the first night of their honeymoon. A jilted Rueben runs into Polly (Jennifer Aniston) an old friend from junior high, and decides to ask her out. The anti-commitment, and presumably extremely risky, Polly proceeds to drag him out of his blan...Read the entire review