If you spliced Charles Addams, Dr. Seuss, Charles Dickens, Edward Gorey, and Roald Dahl into a Tim Burtonesque landscape, you'd surely come up with something like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Many critics (in mostly mixed reviews) wondered why Burton didn't direct this comically morbid adaptation of the first three books in the popular series by Daniel Handler (a.k.a.
Meet the Parents found such tremendous success in the chemistry produced by the contrasting personalities of stars Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller that the film's creators went for broke with the same formula again in Meet the Fockers. This time around, Jack and Dina Byrnes (De Niro and Blythe Danner) climb into Jack's new kevlar-lined RV with daughter Pam (Teri Polo), soon-to-be son-in-law Gaylord (Stiller), and Jack's infant grandson from his other daughter for the trip to Florida to meet Gaylord's parents, Bernie and Roz Focker (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand in a casting coup).
The Manchurian Candidate, a classic of paranoid cinema from the 1960s, gets a cunning update, rife with hot-topic references to corporate war profiteering and electronic voting machines. Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington, Training Day) has been haunted by nightmares ever since a firefight during the first Gulf War--a battle in which he believes he was saved by the heroism of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, Kate & Leopold). But Marco's nightmares suggest otherwise and drive him to investigate what happened, which may threaten Shaw's candidacy for vice-president.
Anyone who's ever been passionate about golf will find something to admire in Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, a staidly reverent biopic about one of the game's greatest champions.
If you've never enjoyed Alec Guinness in the classic 1955 British comedy that inspired it, the Coen brothers' remake of The Ladykillers may well prove hilarious. For starters, it's got Tom Hanks in a variation of the Guinness role, eccentrically channeling Colonel Sanders, Tennessee Williams, and Edgar Allan Poe in his southern-fried performance as Prof. Goldthwait Higgins Dorr, Ph.D.
Sweetness that doesn't turn saccharine is hard to find these days; Finding Neverland hits the mark. Much credit is due to the actors: Johnny Depp applies his genius for sly whimsy in his portrayal of playwright J. M. Barrie, who finds inspiration for his greatest creation from four lively boys, the sons of widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet, who miraculously fuses romantic yearning with common sense).
Mel Brooks' monstrously crazy tribute to Mary Shelley's classic pokes hilarious fun at just about every Frankenstein movie ever made. Summoned by a will to his late grandfather's castle in Transylvania, young Dr. Frankenstein (Wilder) soon discovers the scientist's step-by-step manual explaining how to bring a corpse to life. Assisted by the hunchback Igor (Feldman), he creates a monster (Boyle) who only wants to be loved.
When it was released during Hollywood's golden year of 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't start out as the perennial classic it has since become. The film did respectable business, but it wasn't until its debut on television that this family favorite saw its popularity soar. And while Oz's TV broadcasts are now controlled by media mogul Ted Turner (who owns the rights), the advent of home video has made this lively musical a mainstay in the staple diet of great American films.
After creating the last great traditionally animated film of the 20th century, The Iron Giant, filmmaker Brad Bird joined top-drawer studio Pixar to create this exciting, completely entertaining computer-animated film - The Incredibles. Bird gives us a family of "supers," a brood of five with special powers desperately trying to fit in with the 9-to-5 suburban lifestyle. Of course, in a more innocent world, Bob and Helen Parr were superheroes, Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl.
After the Sunset may not be the greatest jewel-heist caper comedy ever made, but it sure is easy on the eyes. Shifting back into his crowd-pleasing Rush Hour mode, director Brett Ratner kicks off the action with a rousing chase scene that pretty much describes the entire film: utter nonsense, but adequately enjoyable. Things get very sunny thereafter, when FBI agent Woody Harrelson lands in the Bahamas to track down ace diamond thief Pierce Brosnan and his lovely accomplice Salma Hayek, whom he suspects of planning their next big heist on a cruise ship.
