AMÉLIE -- (Grade: A) The most magical film this year is French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet's playful fantasy Amélie. This eye-popping tale follows the adventures of a pixyish waitress named Amélie (Audrey Tautou) in Paris' Montmartre neighborhood. Amélie watches movies with wide--eyed amazement, oblivious to the packed Parisian theater audience around her. She catches small details that ordinary moviegoers would ordinarily miss. She loves movies, and the movies seem to love Amélie right back. Dizzy photography and slapstick comedy keep the film moving. Amélie has more than enough trick shots to keep Jeunet's long-time fans happy. -- SR (Rated R.)

A BEAUTIFUL MIND -- (Grade: A) Russell Crowe's characters have heretofore been manly men. He's played tough men of loyalty who'd rather fight than have their honor questioned. In A Beautiful Mind, Crowe plays troubled John Forbes Nash Jr., a man who wants to be a strong intellect. A Beautiful Mind is a loose biopic that follows Nash's journey from his break-though mathematical discovery and acceptance into top-secret government work to his eventual breakdown. Jennifer Connelly continues her comeback with a fine performance as Nash's unfailing wife. In this Oscar hopeful season, A Beautiful Mind is one film that completely deserves its accolades. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

BEHIND ENEMY LINES -- (Grade: D) Behind Enemy Lines is either a response to the current military crisis or a not-so-clever bit of counter programming in light of Tony Scott's new blond-boys-in-trouble pic Spy Games. Behind Enemy Lines covers a military action to retrieve an American pilot (Owen Wilson) who is shot down during a reconnaissance mission over Bosnia. If a film like Behind Enemy Lines is how Hollywood is going to help bolster our spirits, then maybe its time to ask Hollywood to start by boosting its IQ. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

BIG FAT LIAR -- (Grade: D) Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti) and 14-year-old Jason Shepherd (Frankie Muniz) are the two truth-impaired guys who cross paths when Shepard's school assignment turns into Wolf's pitch for a summer blockbuster. By the end of Big Fat Liar, Wolf receives his comeuppance for stealing Shepherd's paper, and Shepherd experiences redemption. Big Fat Liar springs from Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids mold, but TV director Shawn Levy (The Adventures of Jett Jackson) is no Rodriguez. It's too bad the film ends up feeling like a reunion special for a show that never was, thanks to a supporting role from Lee Majors (Six Million Dollar Man). -- ttc (Rated PG.)

BIRTHDAY GIRL -- (Grade: B) Birthday Girl is the rare film that suffers from multiple personalities but is not overcome by its disparate genre stew. What starts out as a quirky British romantic comedy about lonely banker John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin) and his Russian mail-order bride Nadia (Nicole Kidman) quickly descends into noirish territory with the arrival of Nadia's cousin Alexei (Vincent Cassel) and his manic friend Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz). Chaplin and Kidman keep their wits and hearts about them as things begin to spin out of control. Don't assume the ending guarantees happily ever after and you might enjoy the film even more. -- ttc (Rated R.)

BLACK HAWK DOWN -- (Grade: A) Mogadishu. October 1993. U.S. Rangers and Deltas embark on what was supposed to be an hour-and-a-half infiltration mission to capture two lieutenants of a renegade warlord. Seventeen hours later, two Black Hawk helicopters have been destroyed and the U.S. forces have lost 18 men in the most intense and sustained firefight since the Vietnam War. Black Hawk Down honors its subject with a sense that's both relentless and direct without being a polemic or a Hollywood version of the events. -- ttc (Rated R.)

COLLATERAL DAMAGE -- (Grade: D) One of the first things Warner Bros. did in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was to postpone Collateral Damage. In the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a fireman who loses his family to a terrorist attack on a Los Angeles office tower. I don't think audiences will find Collateral Damage's terrorist plot offensive or unpatriotic. At the same time, I can't imagine that anyone will be all that entertained. Boasting 20 explosions too many, Collateral Damage is an action thriller that doesn't know when to stop. -- SR (Rated R.)

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO -- (Grade: C) The Count of Monte Cristo is Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of Edmund Dantes, a falsely imprisoned man (James Caviezel) who escapes from captivity and hatches a Machiavellian plan to take vengeance with the assistance of a recovered fortune. In a surprisingly natural twist on the original story, Dantes' main accuser Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce) happens to be a jealous childhood friend and rival for the affections of Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk). But it is character actor Luis Guzman who steals the show as Caviezel's manservant. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

CROSSROADS -- (Grade: D) It looks like 2002 will be the year that featured the Duel of the Pop Teen Divas. Following Mandy Moore's memorable Walk comes Britney Spears' trip to the Crossroads. Britney is the class valedictorian, who writes poetry and dreams of exposing her midriff. Britney hits the road with two girlfriends (Zoé Saldana and Taryn Manning) and a guitar-playing boy (Anson Mount). If everyone remembers that she's just acting, then everything will be fine, unless she decides to do something like this again. I guarantee that no one wants to see Return to the Crossroads. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE -- (Grade: F) John Travolta is ready for his next comeback. I say "comeback" because, even though he's been here, I wish he hadn't. And that goes double for Vince Vaughn. These two come together for a little Domestic Disturbance, which succeeds only in dumbing down Hitchcock's philosophy of suspense. We see the bad guys (Vaughn and Steve Buscemi) a mile off. We cheer for the good guy (Travolta) as he defeats the bad guy and saves his son (Matthew O'Leary), ex-wife (Teri Polo) and himself. John, why not really go away for a while and then try it for real? -- ttc (Rated R.)

DRAGONFLY -- (Grade: F) Veteran leading man Kevin Costner is earnest in his performance as Chicago doctor Joe Darrow, a man who believes his deceased wife is trying to communicate with him through her former child patients. For director Tom Shadyac, best known for the comedies Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Patch Adams and The Nutty Professor, Dragonfly is his chance to tell a more serious story, this time a Sixth Sense-like supernatural drama. Despite Costner and Shadyac's good intentions, Dragonfly is more high-strung melodrama than creepy ghost story. Dragonfly is every bit as tenacious as the health-care drama John Q., another embarrassing movie that will stop at nothing to drive its audiences to tears. Costner, overflowing with emotional gusto, verges on soap opera hysterics. If he was hoping to jolt his credibility with Dragonfly, pulling a Bruce Willis/Sixth Sense role, I hope he has another plan. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS -- (Grade: B) It's official: Josh Hartnett can do comedy. In 40 Days, Hartnett is Matt Sullivan, a hip and oversexed San Francisco 20-something, trying desperately to shake his obsession with an ex-girlfriend. So Matt vows to refrain from sex for 40 long days. Enter Erica (Shannyn Sossamon), an attractive single woman. Can Matt make it? In terms of weighty films, 40 Days is helium. It's a total romp, broad and generic enough to appeal to the masses. And yet, thanks almost completely to Hartnett, the film rises above the remedial level of Tomcats, the American Pie franchise and other mostly tasteless sex comedies that have surfaced in the last couple of years. -- RP (Rated R.)

GOSFORD PARK -- (Grade: B) On paper, Robert Altman's Gosford Park sounds like an Agatha Christie remake. Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his young wife, Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas), have invited family and assorted friends to their country estate for a genteel shooting party. When a murder disrupts the elegant gathering, it's Constance's maid, Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald), who begins to unravel the source of the foul play. Altman's smug and cynical film stands on its own merits. -- SR (Rated PG.)

HART'S WAR -- (Grade: C) In the recent surfeit of war movies, Hart's War is one of the more earnest ones you're likely to see. Bruce Willis is solemn as Col. William McNamara, a fourth-generation soldier who struggles to make a difference in the war effort from a German POW camp in the Belgian countryside. Hart's War is a matter-of-fact POW movie until the arrival of two black airman turns the film into a courtroom drama. Split down its dramatic middle, Hart's War tells neither story very well and stumbles around its racial themes. -- SR (Rated R.)

IN THE BEDROOM -- (Grade: A) In a film that is all about the inability to express emotions, at least actor-turned-first-time director Todd Field was able to find the perfect face. As the grief-stricken mother, Sissy Spacek embodies every possible emotion in Field's melodrama. Spacek watches as her son (Nick Stahl) carries on with an older, separated mother (Marisa Tomei) with two young boys. Spacek seethes as her husband (Tom Wilkinson) admires the son's youthful indiscretion. Fortunately, In The Bedroom all but guarantees there will be other Todd Field films. -- ttc (Rated R.)

IRIS -- (Grade: A) Actresses Dame Judi Dench and Kate Winslet share the role of novelist/philosopher Iris Murdoch in director Richard Eyre's biopic and it's impossible to say who's better. In a film that mixes Murdoch's college years with her final days when she was stricken with Alzheimer's disease, both Dench and Winslet sparkle with believable, naturalistic performances. They're the soul of this substantive and heartfelt drama, raising the film above woman-in-ill-health melodramatics. The surprises behind Iris are Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent's tour-de-force performance as Murdoch's dutiful husband John Bayley. Like Dench and Winslet, Bonneville and Broadbent divide Bayley's life equally, but Broadbent has the Herculean task of capturing the elderly Bayley's struggles to care for a stricken Iris. Broadbent performs beautifully, and in the process, creates the most engaging character in Eyre's character-driven love story. -- SR (Rated R.)

ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS -- (Grade: A) The cinematic surprise of the year is Italian for Beginners. Film buffs won't know what hit them. Denmark's gritty and cynical Dogme 95 movement unleashes a winning romantic-comedy about a relocated parish minister (Anders W. Berthelsern) and the other lovesick inhabitants of a Copenhagen suburb. Writer/director Lone Scherfig stays true to the Dogme rule book of realistic filmmaking. Italian for Beginners possesses the photographic style of a low-budget documentary. Italian for Beginners' joyful spirit comes out of Scherfig's playful storytelling. By Italian for Beginner's sweet-natured finale, you can't help but be smitten by its charms. -- SR (Rated R.)

JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS -- (Grade: A) Some of 2001's best movies were kids' films, the streak continues with Nickelodeon's animated Boy Genuis. James Isaac Neutron has the big-brained ingenuity of MacGyver and a practical nature for using his inventions to solve the problems of daily life. When he mistakenly brings about the kidnapping of all the parents by hungry, chicken-like aliens, Jimmy leads his pals into space to save the day. I especially enjoyed the campfire scene with frights supplied by a great synopsis of The Blair Witch Project. That scene alone will probably send kids to the video store screaming for the movie. -- ttc (Rated G.)

JOHN Q. -- (Grade: F) The first half of John Q. is an enjoyable blue-collar drama. The second half of John Q. is so relentless in its attempts to generate audience tears that you can't help but laugh out loud. Denzel Washington is John Q. Archibald, a factory worker struggling to make ends meet for his family on his downsized salary. When his son Michael (Daniel E. Smith) becomes ill, John discovers that his insurance won't cover the bills. John Q. packs some appealing messages about the country's health care system. Unfortunately, these messages are soon washed over by the film's unintentional comedy. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

KATE & LEOPOLD -- (Grade: B) Hugh Jackman's frothy performance as a 19th-century duke transported to 2001 Manhattan is the best thing about co-writer/director James Mangold's likable romantic-fantasy. Clad in period garb, Jackman makes the chivalrous Leopold into the romantic lead of your dreams. The reliably perky Meg Ryan makes a sarcastic target for Jackman's charms. Their on-screen chemistry more than compensates for a script that offers few surprises. By the time Kate & Leopold reaches its sugary climax, it is clear that Mangold has delivered one of the more enjoyable comedies of the year. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST -- (Grade: D) Moronic characters, stupid storytelling and truly adolescent gags are the genuinely good qualities of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Steve Oedekerk has decided to bring his unoriginal brand of humor to the kung fu genre. There's a certain level of imagination in Kung Pow, because there are laughs to be had. Oedekerk uses Kung Pow as a means to indulge in his case of arrested development, all while onscreen. As goofy as Kung Pow was, I found myself curious about its next installment, which is previewed as part of the closing credits. --- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

LANTANA -- (Grade: A) Anthony LaPaglia's engaging performance as an adulterous police detective is the emotional force behind director Ray Lawrence's rich thriller. LaPaglia plays Leon Zat, a middle-aged man who's turned cool towards the touch of his wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong). Zat's investigation into the whereabouts of Dr. Valerie Somers (Barbara Hershey), a well-known psychiatrist who's been missing for days, opens the wounds of his own troubled marriage. Nothing in the film is what it appears to be on the surface. LaPaglia's unhappy police detective is the soul of Lawrence's riveting movie. --SR (Rated R.)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING -- (Grade: A) Director Peter Jackson tackles J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy books set in Middle-earth with a creative force. The results are extraordinary. The film tells the story of hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and the powerful Ruling Ring he inherits from his Uncle Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm). There is plenty of showmanship in Fellowship, but there is also substantive storytelling. Fellowship of the Ring is so good that I imagine high-brow audiences who normally avoid these types of films will find themselves having a great time if they give the film a chance. ­ SR (Rated PG-13.)

MONSTER'S BALL -- (Grade: A) Halle Berry throws fashionable wardrobes out the window in the stark drama Monster's Ball. As Leticia Musgrove, a Southern widow who falls for the death-row prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) who executed her convicted-killer husband (Rapper Sean Combs), Berry looks intentionally drab. Monster's Ball is a love story, although it focuses on race, telling its story in a deliberately black-and-white manner. While a movie like Monster's Ball is considered low-budget, its performances outshine most of this year's large-scale movies. -SR (Rated R.)

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES -- (Grade: B) What if, throughout history, there has been a force, some otherworldly presence, that has tried to alert us to impending tragedy? So asks The Mothman Prophecies, a refreshingly smart spooker directed by Mark Pellington. John Klein (Richard Gere) is haunted by a vision his wife sees before an accident. In his quest to understand the "moth-like" image, he finds himself in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a sleepy burg whose inhabitants are also haunted. If the choice is between an intelligent thriller that doesn't take sides and 13 Ghosts, I'll take Mothman. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

ORANGE COUNTY -- (Grade: D) Orange County has a boatload of rising and established talent. Colin Hanks and Schuyler Fisk headline a cast including Jack Black, John Lithgow, Catherine O'Hara, Lily Tomlin and a host of surprise cameos. Shaun (Hanks) is a smart kid who desperately wants to attend Stanford where he can study to become a writer. His path is blocked by the unstable cast of characters in his life, Along the way to solving his issues, Shaun realizes Orange County may inspire him, much how Yoknapatawpha County, Miss., inspired William Faulkner. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED -- (Grade: D) Director Michael Rymer makes little use of the sex, blood and Rock & Roll found in Anne Rice's 1993 Vampire Chronicles novel. Overloaded with Matrix-inspired flying effects and MTV-like photography, Queen of the Damned is a lulling entry in the vampire movie genre. Queen of the Damned, a sequel to director Neil Jordan's creepy 1994 adaptation of Rice's Interview with the Vampire, pits vampire/Rock star Lestat (Stuart Townsend) in battle with the malevolent Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), the mother of all vampires. Akasha wants to destroy all vampires and Lestat stands in her way. Besides his porcelain complexion, Townsend brings little presence to his role as Lestat. In a posthumous performance. Aaliyah is believable looking as the bloodthirsty Akasha. Unfortunately, her dynamic presence is not enough to boost this forgettable film. --SR (Rated R.)

RETURN TO NEVERLAND -- (Grade: D) Disney animators create a dull Peter Pan adventure that's not half as fun as the 1953 original movie. Return to Neverland reunites Pan (voice of Blayne Weaver) with his fairy companion Tinkerbell and colorful nemesis Captain Hook (voice of Corey Burton). It's World War II and Pan's old friend Wendy is grown-up now, with children. Wendy's young daughter, Jane (voice of Harriet Owen), doesn't believe in Neverland's fantasies. So it's up to Pan to convince Jane to resume acting like a child. It's too bad Disney marred his return with a lackluster movie.-- SR (Rated G.)

ROLLERBALL -- (Grade: F) Director John McTiernan remakes the 1975 film Rollerball, a vacant actioner about a 21st-century form of roller derby, and manages to create a film 10 times worse than the disjointed original. Chris Klein plays star Rollerballer Jonathan Cross, but offers little more than a cheesy smile. After the team's money-hungry owner (Jean Reno) discovers that violence makes the TV ratings jump, he puts his players' lives in constant jeopardy. McTiernan edited the film's action to fit a "PG-13" rating, but I can't imagine how more violence could have saved this. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS -- (Grade: A) Everything comes together perfectly in filmmaker Wes Anderson's playful comedy, The Royal Tenenbaums. The film's story, co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson, is about a family of Upper East Side geniuses reunited after 20 years of betrayals. Gwyneth Paltrow is wonderfully pouty as Margot Tenenbaum, a somber playwright who hasn't written anything in seven years. Gene Hackman gives one of the best performances of his career as cranky Royal Tenenbaum. Tenenbaums is a comic celebration of dysfunctional behavior. They're eccentrics struggling through daily life, and nothing is richer than that. -- SR (Rated R.)

SHACKLETON'S ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE -- (Grade: C) One of the greatest tales of human courage and adventure is shrunk down to a 45-miniute, routine OMNIMAX film. Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, a documentary about Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914 journey to Antarctica, replaces interviews with descendents of Shackleton's crew with dramatizations of Shackleton's struggle to rescue his men. Compared to the archival film footage and still photography shot by Frank Hurley, a Shackleton crewmember, the dramatizations are amateurish and uninteresting. -- SR (Unrated.)

SLACKERS --(Grade: F) Director Dewey Nicks botches the Animal House formula with an unfunny story about three, smooth-talking, college roommates (Devon Sawa, Jason Segel and Michael C. Maronna) who try to persuade the campus beauty (James King) to hook up with the campus nerd (Jason Schwartzman). The friendship between the scheming buddies feels false and uninteresting. Jason Schwartzman is clumsily annoying as Slackers' geek boy. James King is pretty wallpaper, used as the film's target for some shameless gags. It's Slackers' inability to generate any laughs that make it such a comedy failure. -- SR (Rated R.)

SNOW DOGS -- (Grade: D) The closing credits of Snow Dogs reveal that the story was suggested by the book Winterdance by Gary Paulsen. Snow Dogs presents animals manipulated into exhibiting more human characteristics. I'm sure the kids might get something out of the good messages, but Snow Dogs offers far less than animated features like Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Monsters, Inc. I might have been far more inclined to go along with the "hokey black guy from Florida inherits a dog sled team in Alaska" story if the producers had gone the animated route.. -- ttc (Rated PG.)

STORYTELLING -- (Grade: A) Writer/director Todd Solondz'slatest film is a smart and sly look at the moral vacuum known as suburban America. Split into two parts, "Fiction" and "Nonfiction," it tackles issues of race, class and sexuality with a fearless spirit. In "Fiction," a white female college student named Vi (Selma Blair) has a humliating run-in with her black creative writing teacher, Mr. Scott (Robert Wisdom). In "Nonfiction," documentary filmmaker Toby Oxman (Paul Giamatti) convinces the Livingstons, a wealthy suburban family, to be the subject of his film. The theme that holds Solondz's twin tales of Americana together is the struggle for someone to tell a good story. With slick photography, a catchy soundtrack from Scottish Pop band Belle and Sebastian and solid performances from its ensemble cast -- Fitzpatrick, Wisdom, Julie Hagerty as the twitchy Mrs. Livingston, Franka Potente as Oxman's critical editor and John Goodman as the Livingstons' dad -- Storytelling juggles social drama and dark comedy flawlessly. -- SR (Rated R.)

SUPER TROOPERS -- (Grade: C) Watched at last year's Sundance Film Festival, director Jay Chandrasekhar's indie homage to Police Academy movies packs enough sly humor to stand alone on its own comic merits. Veteran actor Brian Cox is the mentor of a bunch of rag-tag Vermont State Troopers who fight to keep their station from closing. Cox's dramatic presence gives Super Troopers sufficient indie credibility. Super Troopers is the type of throw-away comedy that's not meant to be taken seriously, which explains the special appearance by Wonder Woman Lynda Carter. -- SR (Rated R.)

13 GHOSTS -- (Grade: D) When the original 13 Ghosts appeared in theaters in 1960, audiences were issued "ghost viewer" glasses that revealed the spirits on the screen. And that's what's lacking in this year's take on the story. Arthur (Tony Shalhoub) inherits a house from a strange uncle (F. Murray Abraham), only to find that it is no house, but a machine made to unleash the powers of hell. To operate it, 12 ghosts' souls are sacrificed. There are enough cheap tricks to entertain some, unless you ask a little more of your scary movie. -- RP (Rated R.)

VANILLA SKY -- (Grade: B) A complex and mature performance by the usually lackadaisical Tom Cruise is the highlight of director Cameron Crowe's erotic remake of Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 thriller Abre Los Ojos. Cruise plays David Aames, a wealthy heir to a Manhattan publishing company, Cameron Diaz plays Julie Gianni, a flirty actress and Aames' girlfriend. The dependable Jason Lee plays Aames' jealous best friend. Co-star Penélope Cruz makes a believable "dream" girl, reinventing the role she played in Amenábar's original film. Crowe brings dramatic tweaks and surrealist flourishes to Amenábar's film about a man who loses his chance at true happines. -- SR (Rated R)

A WALK TO REMEMBER --(Grade: B) Adapted from the novel by Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember feels familiar because it follows countless teen love stories. There is the hip high school court that's ruled by a James Dean-style prince named Landon Carter (Shane West). His main admirer is Jaime Sullivan (Mandy Moore), an ugly duckling on the verge of achieving swanlike grace. What makes director Adam Shankman's Walk different is that Moore doesn't quite transform Sullivan into a beautiful swan. Nice to see a teen movie willing to wear its heart on its sleeve. --ttc (Rated PG.)

WE WERE SOLDIERS -- (Grade: D) Mel Gibson plays heroic soldier and dutiful father in writer/director Randall Wallace's Vietnam War drama, the latest entry in Hollywood's post Sept. 11 wave of patriotism. We Were Soldiers is not the best of the current battle movies. That title still belongs to the gritty Black Hawk Down. It's also not the worst, easily besting the comic-book foolishness of Behind Enemy Lines and the morose storytelling found in the POW drama Hart's War. Gibson's noble presence, as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, a man led by honor and duty who leads 400 Army recruits into an ambush by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, is the saving grace behind Wallace's lumbering film. Wallace's storytelling is particularly heavy-handed when it comes to espousing its themes of duty and courage. The battle footage, while grisly, offers nothing that hasn't been done better by previous war movies. Gibson carries the weight of this bulky film on his shoulders, gritting his teeth with a steely resolve that would make John Wayne proud. Still, there is only so much even a hero as likable as Gibson's can do. -- SR (Rated R.)

personals | classifieds | cover | news | columns | music | movies | arts | dining | listings | classifieds | mediakit | home