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.
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.
The corsets and high waists of the 19th century meet the lush colors and visual splendor of India in Vanity Fair, a classic novel translated into modern celluloid by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding). The very contemporary Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Election) at first seems to hit the wrong note as Becky Sharp, an orphaned girl who rises to the heights of society using her quick wits and feminine wiles. But as Vanity Fair unfolds, the movie's tone embraces both period decor and modern attitudes, searching for a bridge that will carry us more deeply into a different time.
Professional tennis makes an unlikely but surprisingly effective backdrop for a lively romantic comedy in Wimbledon. Peter Cort (Paul Bettany, Master and Commander), once ranked 11th in the world, has slipped to 119th and is heading into his last Wimbledon tournament when he runs into Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst, The Virgin Suicides, Spider-Man), a rising star. The two strike up a whirlwind romance that gives his game new life--but she insists it's going to be nothing but a passing fling.
This Western has become a modest cult favorite since its release in 1993, when the film was met with mixed reviews but the performances of Kurt Russell (as Wyatt Earp) and especially Val Kilmer, for his memorably eccentric performance as the dying gunslinger Doc Holliday, garnered high praise. The movie opens with Wyatt Earp trying to put his violent past behind him, living happily in Tombstone with his brothers and the woman (Dana Delany) who puts his soul at ease. But a murderous gang called the Cowboys has burst on the scene, and Earp can't keep his gun belt off any longer.
Will Farrell followed up his star-making vehicle Elf, which matched his fine-tuned comic obliviousness to a sweet sincerity, with a more arrogant variation on the same character: Ron Burgundy, a macho, narcissistic news anchor from the 1970s.
How's this for impressive trivia: Dodgeball faced off against The Terminal in opening-weekend competition, and 29-year-old writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber aced Steven Spielberg by a score of $30 to $18.7 in box-office millions.
Thanks to repeated showings on cable television and home video, this speculative thriller has built quite a loyal following since its release in 1978. The provocative "what if?" scenario still packs a punch, even if it is not always believable. James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and O.J. Simpson star as three astronauts who agree to spare the government embarrassment by faking their historic landing on Mars after their spacecraft is determined to be unsafe for blastoff.
Most thrillers can be judged on their plots, but with The Clearing the plot is only a frame for three excellent performances. The story is driven by the kidnapping of a retired businessman (Robert Redford) by a former disgruntled employee (Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire). But while half of the movie follows these two men as they wend their way towards a cabin in the woods, the other half observes the businessman's wife (Helen Mirren, the Prime Suspect series) as she copes with both the kidnapping and the secrets it accidentally reveals.
Jude Law's Alfie, much like Michael Caine's Alfie in the 1966 original, is what you'd call an unrepentant womanizer. He beds 'em but never weds 'em, and New York provides ample opportunity to continue the process--until reality slaps him in the face. Because Jude Law is, well, Jude Law, you can see why he gets away with it as long as he does, and the actor also pulls off the usually awkward trick of narrating directly to the camera. Neither his Alfie, however, nor director Charles Shyer's remake emerges completely without scratches.
