Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale RiderWHALE RIDER

Among its many, many virtues, what I loved most about Niki Caro's Whale Rider is its toughness. In the past year, we've seen so many variants on the ethnic-female-overcoming-her-family's-prejudices theme - My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Real Women Have Curves, Bend It Like Beckham - that the idea of sitting through another one, even one set on a staggeringly gorgeous New Zealand seaside, filled me with more ennui than expectation.

Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall in Open RangeOPEN RANGE

What will it take for Kevin Costner to give a performance again? His new movie, the western Open Range, which he also directed, has a lot going for it - beautiful camerawork, impressive editing, a strong, simple storyline, a marvelously cantankerous Robert Duvall - yet smack at the center is sweet, dear, painfully inadequate Kevin Costner, looking and sounding so uninvolved with his surroundings and his fellow actors that he weakens his entire film. (It took great restraint to laugh at him only once, at his hysterically unmotivated reading of the cowpoke classic "Let's rustle up some grub.") Some will argue that Costner is actually deeply in character, playing an uncivilized man for whom conversation and companionship offer little comfort, but look at him onscreen: His Zen blankness is indistinguishable from a coma, and his "concentration" resembles nothing so much as a somnambulist struggling to stay awake. As usual, Costner is fine with rare moments of fringe comedy - reminding us why we once liked him in movies like Bull Durham and Field of Dreams and Tin Cup - but he's positively deadly in Open Range, and not because of his character's prowess with a gun.

Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in Freaky FridayFREAKY FRIDAY

Everyone I know has enormous fondness for the 1976 Disney comedy Freaky Friday, wherein mother Barbara Harris and daughter Jodie Foster switched bodies and discovered, on one very strange day, how the other half lived.

Winged MigrationWINGED M IGRATION

At the beginning of Jacques Perrin's documentary Winged Migration, even before the title has appeared, we are informed that the film took more than four years to complete, that it required near-global group participation, and that "no special-effects shots were employed in the making of this film." It seems like an overly grandiose introduction until you actually see the movie. For Winged Migration, currently playing at the Brew & View, is an absolutely astounding experience, a visually breathtaking work that is also more pure fun than just about anything in current release.

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in Bad Boys IIBAD BOYS II

Near the climax of Bad Boys II, Detective Mike Lowrey (Will Smith), leading a high-speed chase involving dope-runners and the Cuban military, turns to his car's passengers and barks, "Everybody start shooting somebody!" One can imagine the same command being issued from the mouths of director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Josh Hartnett and Harrison Ford in Hollywood HomicideHOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE

During Hollywood's Summer Blockbuster season, we critical types generally spend three months bemoaning the tired, formulaic scripts that inevitably lead to tired, formulaic summer movies, and when we do find something worth sitting through - The Matrix Reloaded, say, or X2: X-Men United - it's almost always despite the banality of their screenplays. (Which makes the release of a Finding Nemo, in which the brilliant execution is matched by an inspired script, even more miraculous.) Who cares about inventive plotting or smart dialogue or even basic coherence if, instead, you get to watch Keanu Reeves tussle with a hundred Hugo Weavings? Undemanding, turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy entertainment certainly has its place, and even those of us with a particular aversion to Hollywood Blockbusters might be inclined to be a bit more generous than usual in our appraisal of empty-headed summertime escapism.

Paul Walker and Tyrese Gibson in 2 Fast 2 Furious2 FAST 2 FURIOUS

How did this happen? How, in a summer chockablock with megahit wannabes of all sorts, did the major studios agree to get out of Universal's way and allow 2 Fast 2 Furious to be the only new release of the June 6 weekend? Are the powers-that-be at Universal holding compromising photos involving the rival studio heads? Are they holding their pets hostage? Why, for the love of God, are Universal's competitors letting this terrible movie become a hit? Granted, the opening five minutes are fun, and there's a squirmy torture scene involving a rat attempting to burrow through a man's stomach.

Jim Carrey in Bruce AlmightyBRUCE ALMIGHTY

It's been almost 18 months since Jim Carrey last graced the cineplex, but that was in the schmaltzy piece of doggerel The Majestic, so it barely counts. For full-out, Carrey-sized insanity, you have to go back to 2000's Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but that barely counts either, as he was buried beneath pounds of latex and inevitably forced to water down his act for kiddie consumption.

Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and Christopher Guest in A Mighty WindA MIGHTY WIND

This might sound like an overstatement, but with A Mighty Wind, writer-director Christopher Guest, aided immeasurably by regular co-scenarist Eugene Levy and his cast of brilliant improv artists, has secured his place as the most distinctive voice in American film comedy since the '70s heyday of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. (And judging by the applause that greeted the film's finale at the screening I attended, I'm not alone in thinking this.)

Hugh Jackman in X2: X-Men UnitedX2: X-MEN UNITED

Most reviewers disliked the original X-Men, Bryan Singer's Marvel Comics adaptation that earned money but little critical respect in the summer of 2000. I, on the other hand, loved the original, so much so that, three years later, it still merits regular rotation in my DVD player.

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