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.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck in DaredevilDAREDEVIL

Though he tries mighty hard, Ben Affleck isn't quite able to ruin Daredevil, Mark Steven Johnson's screen adaptation of the Marvel comic. Among comic-book fans, the news that Affleck would be portraying the tortured hero - an angry, despressed, and, oh yeah, blind lawyer who, when not losing cases in court, dons leather and kicks bad-guy ass - was met with a collective rolling of the eyes; a friend of mine, upon hearing about the casting, put it succinctly: "Oh great. It's gonna suck."

Jim Broadbent and Judi Dench in IrisIRIS

Allow me a moment, if you will, to thank the folks at Moline's Nova 6 Cinemas for their continued efforts at occasionally booking more offbeat cinematic fare than the multiplex standard.

Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor in Moulin RougeMOULIN ROUGE

I loved Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge, but what I adore even more than the film itself are works like it - artistically divisive movies that give you no choice but to love or hate them.