Luther is an account of the start of the Protestant Reformation starring Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther. It's a muddled history lesson which does fairly well explaining Luther's objections to indulgences and holy relics but gets problematic with all the complicated politics between the Catholic Church, the German emperor, and a bunch of others I ( Read more... )

The Perfect Score is about a group of high school students who, for various reasons, need to score higher on the SAT than they are able to and who concoct a scheme to steal the answers. Predictably, the ragtag bunch of teenagers bond together, have some adventures, and learn some valuable lessons. The heist portions of the movie aren't convincing ( Read more... )

The plot goes thusly: the eponymous Hamilton is a bad-boy movie star who runs a contest to repair his image and subsequently goes on a dream date with a grocery store clerk from Frazier's Bottom, West Virginia. Frazier's Bottom, ha ha. The odd-couple setup is rendered pointless by the fact that the small-town girl is every bit as beautiful, ( Read more... )

Teacher's Pet is a 74-minute cartoon adapted from a show on the Disney Channel. Nathan Lane voices the part of a freakishly intelligent dog who routinely disguises himself as a boy and attends school along with his master. The movie covers an eventful summer break during which the dog tracks down a mad scientist (played by Kelsey Grammer) who ( Read more... )

Chasing Liberty is a fluffy and implausible story about Mandy Moore being the president's daughter and how she's really sick of all the Secret Service crowding her so she ditches them while on a visit to Europe. She picks up a cute guy who is actually another Secret Service agent and makes him uncomfortable by sexually harassing him and involving ( Read more... )

House of Sand and Fog is the sad story of a dispute over the ownership of a house with a view of the ocean. Jennifer Connelly plays a depressed, irresponsible house cleaner who ignored her mail until it was too late, and Ben Kingsley plays an Iranian immigrant who snaps up her house in the county auction. Connelly relapses into alcoholism and lives ( Read more... )

Paycheck is a thriller directed by John Woo and based on a story by Philip K. Dick. Ben Affleck plays a guy who does reverse engineering for a technology firm on such a confidential basis that he always has his memory wiped afterwards. Following one three-year job, he finds himself with no memory, no money, and an envelope of clues he sent to ( Read more... )

Something's Gotta Give is a romantic comedy written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who also did What Women Want. Jack Nicholson plays a man who has dated young women all his life and doesn't know what to make of Diane Keaton, whom he meets while spending the weekend with her daughter. Before Keaton knows it, she's having to choose between Nicholson ( Read more... )

The Last Samurai is an historical epic directed by Edward Zwick about the conflict in nineteenth century Japan between the traditional samurai culture and the business interests importing heavy artillery from the west. Tom Cruise plays a bitter, traumatized, alcoholic Civil War veteran who is hired to go train Japanese conscripts to use their new ( Read more... )

Honey features Dark Angel's Jessica Alba as a girl from the Bronx who works several jobs and aspires to dance in music videos. She is discovered and makes good in an amazingly short period of time but is soon crushed when she discovers that her mentor is, in fact, a slimeball. Honey is a good role model for kids as she's kind, hardworking, and ( Read more... )