One thing few may mention about Mean Girls is that it could have been unrelentingly terrible. It isn’t — it’s actually pretty fabulous on its own terms — but consider: a rush-job comedy (hastily lensed a few months ago) constructed around a high-concept title with built-in ka-ching and endless potential…

It is so very nice when a movie completely outstrips the expectations conjured by its trailer, as is the case with The Dreamers. At first blush, this tale of three passionate youths caught up in Paris’s late-’60s countercultural revolution looked downright trite. Never mind that esteemed veteran director Bernardo Bertolucci…

Behold a tale of true love (between a boy and a bicycle), of tireless courage (from a bitty grandmother with a clubfoot) and of a very shocking new definition of “sexy” (three wizened matriarchs who ravenously slurp down frogs). This is The Triplets of Belleville, an animated extravaganza of Gallic…

There is a recent generation of American men who came of age too late for free love and wanton property grabbing, and too early for post-grunge emotional wankery and info-age immediacy. Stuck on their iceberg, isolated by oceans from anything real, like the original punk or goth movements or Australia’s…

You know how it’s often the ones we love whose flaws are most apparent? Well, when it comes to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I am smitten. This film is a miracle, an extravaganza equal to its predecessors and in some ways more stunning. It…

If you’re hankering for a movie about an awkward yet lovable “outsider” type who wanders into a pastel mock-up of Middle America and cajoles the straights to get saucy, you’re in luck. It’s called Edward Scissorhands, and it’s been available on video for years. Renting it will absolve you of…

Russell Crowe to his agent: “More Oscar bait. Now.” Agent, considering his cut of Crowe’s $20 million payday: “Yes, sir.” A possible scenario, anyway. Thus, Crowe is back in another iconic, self-serious performance, and his beefy mug will stare down upon us from this season’s heroic movie posters until Tom…

Remember that silly little-girl version of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally… snuffling “I’m difficult!” through a charming tantrum? Well, make it a point to enthusiastically greet Ryan’s new incarnation in the psychosexual thriller In the Cut. Post-Crystal, post-Hanks and even post-husband Dennis Quaid (toward whom this performance almost…

Sometimes something so wonderful appears on the big screen that I want to leap up like a shameless non-professional and hug it. Such is the case early on in the film Sylvia, a superb drama based on the brief life of writer Sylvia Plath. While boating in Cambridge, England, with…

Before you crack your wallet for Veronica Guerin, you’d be well off to rent a video of the 2000 release When the Sky Falls (working titles: When Heaven Falls and, natch, Veronica Guerin), of which this new Veronica Guerin is basically a tarted-up remake. Same story, same scenarios, same basic…

It seems like everybody’s raving up Mexican cinema these days — either as a merit badge of self-conscious hipness or because the stuff is impressive, and sometimes both — but the excitement is definitely merited with Herod’s Law (La Ley de Herodes). This movie kicks the feisty Y Tu Mam´…

Recently, ornithologists in Antarctica made a startling discovery: Female emperor penguins, being forced against their wills to endure stern patriarchal societal norms, tend to practice iffy mating habits. Close scrutiny revealed that most adult females go bonkers struggling to choose between an exciting-but-destructive “bad-boy” penguin and a dependable-but-boring “good-boy” penguin,…

Deck. Wheels. Attitude. This is the stuff of Grind, a new comedy about skateboarding and its effects on the human psyche. Neither young dawgs nor old poops will be surprised that the movie is about friendship, competition, product placement and, like, chasing one’s dreams. Yet Grind craftily sidesteps the obvious;…

Ah, Paris: City of Light, of Love, of Liver Damage and Lung Cancer. C’est formidable, non? Who in need of a posh vacation would turn down the opportunity to luxuriate in its finest hotels, stuff themselves with sumptuous snails and work on a terribly flat romantic drama called Le Divorce?…

To prepare for reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I did the obvious research: I watched Yellowbeard again. Yes, yes, indeed — can’t do without Fairbanks as the Black Pirate and Flynn as Captain Blood. But when appraising a new comedic pirate adventure, it’s important…

Much like “hilarious Islamic comedy” or “sublime Affleck picture,” the term “terrific second sequel” isn’t bandied about very much. Name one. Took you a minute, didn’t it? Don’t be ashamed — there are probably support groups for fans of Smokey and the Bandit III. Generally, creative juices are drained by…

Once in a while, a film comes along that is as sound, smart, sweet and significant as can be, and Whale Rider is such a film. Fault the project on various counts if you like (I’ll try), but ultimately the tale is beyond reproach, a bane to cynics and a…

There is a new movie out. It is called Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. It is a prequel to the 1994 movie by Peter and Bobby Farrelly called Dumb and Dumber. In that movie, Harry was played by Jeff Daniels. Lloyd was played by Jim Carrey. Parts of…

At some fast-approaching point in pop-culture evolution, we’re due to hit Total Outsider Saturation, wherein everybody is an outsider and therefore there is no longer an outside. In the fleeting meantime, we have scintillating reminders of the struggle, like X-2: X-Men United, the latest bid from comic-book land to increase…

I’ll just admit this up front: My ideal concept of musical comedy involves Bryan Adams and Dave Matthews garroting each other on stage with their own damnable guitar strings. Nonetheless, even viewers with a more centrist appreciation of the genre may feel disappointed by this friendly new folk-music curiosity called…

Imagine a large, dead Saint Bernard with its bones removed. Then visualize a hefty bellows inserted into it from behind with a gorilla hopping up and down on it, causing the huge dog’s bag-like corpse to twitch spasmodically, wheeze and croak. Voilà — this is today’s Nick Nolte. What’s amazing…

Being of the minority who did not worship Schindler’s List (vital message, tedious movie), it’s easy to feel skeptical of the preachy delivery of Ararat, which concerns not the Jewish Holocaust but the Armenian one, its genocidal forebear of 1915-1918. Armenian-Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan (The Adjuster, The Sweet Hereafter) has…