Dir. Alexander Payne; writ. Louis Begley (novel), Payne; feat. Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates (R)
Schmidt is a road movie set on the other end of life's cycle from Nicholson's Easy Rider, as full of metaphoric ambition and as devoid of solid meaning. The actor is utterly convincing as a generic citizen forced to confront the pointlessness of his life, and the film wrings some startlingly funny moments out of this situation - but Payne wants to make something more than a comedy, and his attempt to weave pathos into farce leaves both aspects of the tale feeling slightly insincere. JD
ADAPTATION
Dir. Spike Jonze; writ. Susan Orlean (novel), Charlie Kaufman; feat. Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton, Brian Cox, Cara Seymour, Maggie Gyllenhaal (R)
Yes, it's a meta-meta-movie in-joke, drooled over by film-buff brainiacs. It's also a frigging funny movie, with Cage the most entertaining he's been since he started showing us his biceps, and Streep in the funniest scene she's shot since, um, ever. Go in expecting a big shift in tone around 30 minutes from the end. If you wanna figure that out, good; if you don't, the first hour should be enough fun to make up for it. JD
ANTWONE FISHER
Dir. Denzel Washington; writ. Antwone Fisher; feat. Derek Luke, Joy Bryant, Denzel Washington, Salli Richardson, Earl Billings, Kevin Connolly, Viola Davis (PG-13)
The real-life Fisher wrote this screenplay, which tells the story of his own progress from sullen misanthropy to reconciliation. That voyage is aided by a Dr. Davenport, played by Washington - who also directs this film, with all the earnestness he's known for in front of the camera. Fisher is a winsome Freudian fairy tale suggesting that all it takes to become a loving, alert adult is acknowledgment of childhood traumas. SGK
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Dir. Steven Spielberg; writ. Jeff Nathanson; feat. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen (PG-13)
It's not as light and breezy as the ads would have it, but Catch Me is a tale so fun you might not believe it's true. It helps that Spielberg isn't shooting for too much gravitas, and that his cast relishes playing against type - except for DiCaprio, who's finally returning to a type that suits him beautifully. JD
CHICAGO
Dir. Rob Marshall; writ. Bill Condon; feat. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, Richard Gere, John C. Reilly, Queen Latifah, Christine Baranski (PG-13)
Never mind that the story's moral is stale and the musical's Bob Fosse roots are dyed beyond recognition. Chicago has the kind of infectious flash and flair that could make people take musicals seriously again. Marshall could have let some of his song-and-dances play out with fewer edits, but other sequences are perfect. And who'd have guessed? - Zeta-Jones was born for this stuff, and proves it in every scene. JD
DIE ANOTHER DAY
Dir. Lee Tamahori; writ. Neal Purvis & Robert Wade; feat. Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike, Rick Yune (PG-13)
This is a Bond flick willing to tweak our expectations just enough to matter. Among the joys: one of the craziest go-for-broke swordfights ever, a palace made of ice, and a beautifully disfigured baddie. Too bad the filmmakers didn't trim the boringly bombastic final sequence in half. JD
DRUMLINE
Dir. Charles Stone III; writ. Shawn Schepps, Tina Gordon Chism; feat. Nick Cannon, Zoe Saldana, Orlando Jones. (PG-13)
Though its characters are stereotypes and its story predictable, the film - which focuses on the marching musicians who are routinely ignored by football fans - is a work of lively ethnography, immersing us in a subculture of portable tubas and volatile passions. SGK
EMPIRE
Writ. & dir. Franc Reyes; feat. John Leguizamo, Sonia Braga, Delilah Cotto, Fat Joe, Vincent Laresca, Denise Richards (R)
This kind of story, in which the protagonist consistently fails to do or say things we know he should, only works if the surrounding acts and words provide some contrasting cleverness - Empire never gets close. JM
FRIDA
Dir. Julie Taymor; writ. Hayden Herrera (book), Clancy Sigal, et al; feat. Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Geoffrey Rush (R)
Frida's screenplay is too conventional to bring its unorthodox characters to life. Depicting a woman whose physical pain was legendary, Salma Hayek is as lithe as a dancer, with only occasional gestures thrown in to remind us she is supposed to be crippled. And despite the movie's name, the filmmakers don't seem very interested in Frida's life except as it relates to Diego. JD
GANGS OF NEW YORK
Dir. Martin Scorsese; writ. Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, Kenneth Lonergan; feat. Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Brendan Gleeson (R)
Scorsese at his worst is still an event, and although this compromised film hardly shows the director at his best, it is at least enormously personal: Catholic immigrants, viciousness, and the Big Apple make for a heady Scorsese stew. There are wonders here, such as two extended street fights and an over-the-top Daniel Day-Lewis, but the characters will mean little to most viewers, and the story seems to have been lost somewhere in the gritty grandeur. JD
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
Dir. Chris Columbus; writ. J.K. Rowling (novel), Steven Kloves; feat. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Kenneth Branagh (PG)
For a film set at an academy of witchcraft, the latest entry in the Harry Potter fanbase-milking campaign is remarkably devoid of magic. Even the charm of its adult cast is squandered here, a mistake the first film didn't make. Chamber of Secrets is a big, bloated bore, full of tedious exposition and lifeless computer graphics. JD
THE HOT CHICK
Dir. Tom Brady; writ. Rob Schneider, Brady; feat. Schneider, Rachel Adams (PG-13)
You've seen one body-swapping movie, you've seen them all - The Hot Chick is only remarkable for its utter lack of effort in retelling a trite tale, and for the number of pot shots it takes at ethnic stereotypes. WK
THE HOURS
Dir: Stephen Daldry; writ. David Hare, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham; feat. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Jeff Daniels, Claire Danes, Miranda Richardson, John C. Reilly (PG-13)
An extraordinary act of homage (nay, femage) to the woman who wrote Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, The Hours is a lushly layered fulfillment of Woolf's aspiration "to look life in the face and to know it." The film does not attempt to explain despair, merely to confront it in all its intricacies, through a single day in the lives of three women living in different cities and eras - women portrayed by an ensemble that provides a workshop in the intricacies of the acting art. SGK
JUST MARRIED
Dir. Shawn Levy; writ. Sam Harper; feat. Ashton Kutcher, Brittany Murphy, Christian Kane, David Moscow. (PG-13)
Touted as the first comedy of the new year, Just Married joins an already crowded field of similar movies pairing together opposites from the social spectrum. Unlike the honeymooning couple trying to build on the bonds they shared, there's no reason to hope things will get better in this flick. AP
KANGAROO JACK
Dir. David McNally; writ. Scott Rosenberg, Steve Bing, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel; feat. Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson, Estella Warren, Christopher Walken (PG)
Don't make the mistake of believing that this film will actually feature its title character. Instead, Kangaroo Jack centers on two guys running from mobsters - a plot with little appeal for most youngsters. The computer-generated 'roo has no personality - although he does breakdance and speaks briefly during a copout dream sequence. WK
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Dir. Peter Jackson; writ. J.R.R. Tolkien (novel), Fran Walsh; feat. Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom (PG-13)
The second installment in what is shaping up to be the greatest fantasy film of our age jumps right in, skipping the exposition that bothered some in the first film, and emphasizing the slow-motion icons it has created. JD
MAID IN MANHATTAN
Dir. Wayne Wang; writ. Kevin Wade; feat. Jennifer Lopez, Falph Fiennes, Tyler Posey, Marissa Matrone, Bob Hoskins (PG-13)
A contemporary fairy tale devoid of surprise or substance, Maid would have us admire a heroine who aspires to better herself through a career but instead sleeps her way out of the Bronx. The characters surrounding Lopez' Cinderella are entirely too cute, with the exception of Hoskins, whose dignified approach to serving pampered guests is far superior to the pandering attitudes of these filmmakers. SGK
MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
Dir. Joel Zwick; writ. Nia Vardalos; feat. Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Joey Fatone (PG)
Wedding is the story of how a 30-year-old spinster both defied and confirmed her tribal expectations. But it is not this ordinary story as much as the details that keep a viewer chuckling. SGK
NARC
Dir. and writ. Joe Carnahan; feat. Jason Patric, Ray Liotta, Chi McBride, Busta Rhymes, Krista Bridges, Anne Openshaw (R)
A grimy, gruelling, and morally grey throwback to the raw crime cinema of the '70s, Narc gives Patric and Liotta two of the best roles they've had. Director Carnahan's story may not be the freshest, but his skill with the cast and his engrossing visual style makes for one of the most captivating cop movies in a long time. JD
THE PIANIST
Dir. Roman Polanski; writ. Wladyslaw Szpilman (book), Ronald Harwood; feat. Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Ed Stoppard (R)
A beautiful and delicately calibrated film that moves gracefully from small indignities to epic devastation, this true chronicle of a Jewish pianist trying to survive Nazi-occupied Warsaw is not a Holocaust film you've seen before. Centering on one man - hauntingly portrayed by Adrien Brody - it makes genocide personal, and survival less a matter of will than of simple animal instinct. SGK
STAR TREK: NEMESIS
Dir. Stuart Baird; writ. John Logan; feat. Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Tom Hardy (PG-13)
In this dull installment, Romulans have cloned Picard and set him on the path of galactic evil; who knew you needed to spend millions on CGI to continue the "nature vs. nurture" debate? Only rarely has the Trek franchise turned so much philosophy into so little entertainment. Somewhere out there, Gene Roddenberry is snoring in his grave. JD
25TH HOUR
Dir. Spike Lee; writ. David Benioff; feat. Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Brian Cox (R)
It was inevitable (desirable, even) that 9-11 grief would figure into the very NYC films of Spike Lee. But tying a city's grief to the general bummed-outedness of a drug dealer facing his last day as a free man is laughable. This film is still remarkably dull - visually unexciting, even, which is not a common complaint against Lee's movies. JD
TWO WEEKS NOTICE
Dir. & writ. Marc Lawrence; feat. Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant, Mark Feuerstein, Dorian Missick, Robert Klein, Dana Ivey (PG-13)
It's a good thing that Grant and Bullock are such well-established screen personalities; we have been programmed to want to see them hook up in the end, despite the fact that the script gives them no reason to be together. The film provides plenty of nit-picking opportunity, but more or less succeeds thanks to the personal magnetism of its stars. JD
Films reviewed by:
JD: John DeFore
JM: Jonathan Marcus
SGK: Steven G. Kellman
WK: Wendi Kimura
AP: Alejandro Pérez
