Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen in Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the SithSTAR WARS, EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH

I've spent a lot of time - both in print and in person - making fun of George Lucas' Star Wars prequels, and for a reason: It's pretty easy. The prosaic (and endless) exposition, the flat staging, the unspeakable dialogue, the ba-dum-ching! clunkiness of the comedy, the videogame-inspired mayhem, Jar Jar Binks ... there's practically no end of topics worth goofing on.

When the Putnam's IMAX theatre first opened its doors in 2002, the plan was to give audiences a big-screen educational experience they wouldn't forget. Yet in the past six months, you're nearly as likely to catch Beauty & the Beast or Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban at the Putnam as you are an educational opus along the lines of Everest.

Jet Li in UnleashedUNLEASHED

After its opening credits, Unleashed gets right down to business. Even if you haven't seen the trailers, the first five minutes of director Louis Leterrier's thriller will have you up to speed: Set in Glasgow, the film stars Jet Li as Danny, a young man raised by the malevolent crime boss Bart (Bob Hoskins) to be a human pit bull. If any of Bart's associates owe him money and refuse to pay, Bart introduces them to Danny, removes the Tiffany dog collar, and the welshers find themselves in a world of hurt.

When it was announced that the Brew & View's Devin Hansen, this spring, would open a similar theater, The Rocket, in the District of Rock Island's long-defunct Capri Cinema, the reaction of Brew & View regulars was generally twofold: an emphatic "Hooray!" followed by a quick "Huh?" After all, the Capri stands not four blocks from the Brew & View, and one such venue in the District was already more than film fans should have hoped for.

Jennifer Esposito, Don Cheadle, and Kathleen York in CrashCRASH

Crash, the magnificent drama by Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis, fits alongside such sprawling, ensemble-driven works as Grand Canyon, Short Cuts, and Magnolia, movies in which plotlines dovetail within one another and themes enmesh, and where bitter, dissatisfied characters might not wind up more content than before - some might not even wind up alive - but they will definitely have shared, for better or worse, An Experience. (These characters might not receive traditional happy endings, yet they almost invariably find degrees of solace and a measure of hope.) Moviegoers who crave a clearly delineated moral to their stories can be driven batty by films of this ilk; more than once I've heard someone ask, apropos of one of these works, "But what was its point?" Crash, like its predecessors, explores characters so hungry for contact and meaning and understanding in a chaotic universe that they're ready to explode, and oftentimes do. That hunger becomes the point.

Mos Def and Martin Freeman in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyTHE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is something unusual: a movie wherein everyone involved appears to be having a good time. Of course, you could say the same about Cannonball Run or Ocean's Twelve, but the difference here is that the audience is allowed to have a good time, too. Based on Douglas Adams' cheeky, beloved sci-fi novel, Hitchhiker's Guide, which has been in various stages of film development for the better part of two decades, is a goofy, oftentimes glorious mess of a movie. If George Lucas and the Monty Python troupe ever spawned, the results would look something like this; I started smiling during the film's opening credits and only stopped to occasionally laugh out loud.

Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman in The InterpreterTHE INTERPRETER

Why do Sydney Pollack's movies so rarely have the snap and directness of his acting? Pollack doesn't appear onscreen nearly enough, and when he does, it's usually only for a scene or two. (His intellectual lout in Husbands & Wives was a rare, marvelous exception.) But these extended cameos - in Tootsie (which he also directed), Death Becomes Her, and Changing Lanes, especially - show Pollack the Actor to be a quick-witted utility player with focus and drive; without the slightest apparent effort, he can steal scenes from Dustin Hoffman or Tom Cruise, and any movie he's in gains in intensity and sharpness when he's around. Pollack the Director is another matter entirely. In the years since 1982's Tootsie, he has churned out one logy, shapeless, middlebrow time-waster after another: Havana, The Firm, Sabrina, Random Hearts ... they all wear their "prestige" on their sleeves, mistake inertia for depth, and are painfully overlong. (It's the Out of Africa Syndrome.)

Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey in SaharaSAHARA

I was probably predisposed to dislike Saraha because of my natural aversion to Sand Movies - seeing that much beige and ochre onscreen generally puts me to sleep within five minutes - but the problems with this action-adventure don't stop with its lack of a distinctive color palette; nearly everything about the movie is beige.

Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon in Fever PitchFEVER PITCH

As long as there's a Hollywood, there will be a surfeit of romantic comedies, but when was the last time you saw one that was as charming and magical as it pretended to be? Granted, Hitch made oodles of money, but the platonic love between Will Smith and Kevin James was more engaging than either of their characters' eventual hook-ups, and The Wedding Date, in which Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney made flirtation look like an act of desperation, was just slightly less romantic than any given episode of Will & Grace.

Mickey Rourke in Sin CitySIN CITY

Sin City, which is based on three graphic novels by comic-book legend Frank Miller, might not be Pulp Fiction, but it is most definitely pulp fiction, and dazzlingly entertaining pulp fiction, to boot.

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