In 1968 it was a movie. In 2001 it became a musical. Now it’s a movie again? Yep, and there’s actually a pretty good reason to return The Producers to the screen. The original film, though intermittently inspired, was slow and often boring, and its homophobic, misogynistic humor no longer…

Yes, the title’s a problem. Three of Hearts was a 1993 romantic comedy starring Kelly Lynch, Sherilyn Fenn and William Baldwin, a distasteful clunker that traded on male titillation with lesbians and bisexual women. Worse, the poster for the new Three of Hearts is achingly similar to that of its…

Sometimes a movie just works, despite its many mistakes: It might not be particularly original or smart, it might wobble on shaky legs and feel familiar in all the wrong ways — and yet it reaches us. Witness Dorian Blues, a coming-of-age coming-out story featuring nearly every convention of its…

Ever since its Broadway debut in 1996, Rent has generated a loyal, almost cult-like following. Showered with praise, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical touched a nerve among the young, artistic, gay, urban and alternatively dressed people who identified as outsiders and wondered how they would make their way in the world…

Richard Gere? That’s the first thought that came to mind upon learning that Mr. Salt-and-Pepper-Sexy-Buddhist-Wasp had been cast as Saul Naumann in Bee Season, the film version of Myla Goldberg’s best-selling novel. In the book, Saul is an oppressive and learned Jewish patriarch, a cantor and student of mysticism whose…

Does Steve Martin have multiple personality disorder — or is he just brilliantly in tune with some things and wildly out of touch with others? Shopgirl, the movie based on Martin’s novella of the same name, is one of the most schizoid films in recent memory. It opens with crystalline…

When watching Where the Truth Lies, a film noir about a young celebrity journalist’s obsession with a comedy duo from the 1950s, a single question arises again and again: Why? Why have the immense talents of Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth, both of whom are excellent in this movie, been…

In 2001, Jonathan Safran Foer made an astounding literary debut. “A Very Rigid Search,” published by The New Yorker, was his hilarious, heartbreaking account of an attempt by a young American man (named, cheekily, Jonathan Safran Foer) to find a Ukrainian woman who had saved his grandfather from the Nazis…

Ah, Wallace and Gromit. Who doesn’t get a little lift at the sound of those names? Who doesn’t feel the edges of her mouth begin to tickle toward a smile, her heart grow warmer with images of the love between a (plasticine) man and his (plasticine) dog? Perhaps you’re not…

About once a year — twice, if we’re lucky — a first-time director shows up with something original, electrifying and humane, a film that shows us a new way to see, that presents complex and memorable people in whom we recognize ourselves. Last year it was Joshua Marston and Maria…

In 2001, Jonathan Safran Foer made an astounding literary debut. “A Very Rigid Search,” published by the New Yorker, was his hilarious, heartbreaking account of an attempt by a young American man (named, cheekily, Jonathan Safran Foer) to find a Ukrainian woman who had saved his grandfather from the Nazis…

In the tradition of A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting comes Proof, a psychological drama about a math genius and the people who worship, care for and endure him. Based on the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play by David Auburn, Proof is a strong film with intense focus. Its characters…

At the opening of The Constant Gardener, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’s adaptation of the novel by John le Carré, we hear a conversation before we see it. The screen remains black, still running credits, as a man and a woman negotiate a departure. Slowly, the scene dawns, revealing the couple…

The problem with making black-lacquered high school satire is this: Heathers came out in 1989, and it pretty much did the trick. There’s always room for an excellent addition to the genre, and in 1999, it appeared in the form of Alexander Payne’s Election, a film blessed both with a…

Toward the end of Saraband, the uneven new film from legendary director Ingmar Bergman, a character sits down with his daughter, a taut girl who is obviously undergoing emotional distress. “I have the feeling that some sort of discussion is coming on,” he says. Indeed it is — as it…

If you’re short on reasons to be grateful these days, look no further than March of the Penguins, the astonishing, if imperfect, nature documentary from first-time director Luc Jacquet. Hard times may have befallen you, but at least you are not a penguin, an animal destined to repeat a devastating…

Eros is not a single film but three, each roughly a half hour, joined in a common goal. The first segment was made by Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love) and the second by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich). The final piece, by any measure the climax, was…

You’re a talented young resident at a New York hospital, first-generation Chinese, and you happen to be gay. In fact, you’re dating a new and exciting woman, a dancer with the city ballet, and she wants you to share the relationship with the world — and your family. But can…

Not many people saw Lost and Delirious, the 2001 boarding-school drama about two girls in obsessive love, and that was probably for the best. Yes, Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) made a stunning androgynous rebel, but she couldn’t rescue the film from its unctuous self-importance. My Summer of Love, a bewitching…

Before there was School of Rock, the 2003 movie in which Jack Black awakened a class of subdued elementary-school kids with lessons in America’s loudest subject, there was rock school. Students of the Paul Green School of Rock Music in Philadelphia have been worshiping at rock’s altar — and learning…

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a flawed movie born of a flawed novel, but let this be clear: Girls will eat it up with a spoon. It features three young stars, indulges in rampant romantic fantasy, drips with teary-eyed sentimentality, and pays a heap-load of lip service to…

Ten is a magical age, when kids are old enough to make articulate statements about their experience and young enough to express their feelings without shame. In a couple of years, excitement will go the way of the sack lunch and become uncool, and acceptable poses will shrink to a…