Year: 2005

This Barbershop spinoff is like a wan, third-generation photocopy, only with chicks, and despite the fact that it’s an enormous mess, the terrific cast is undeniably ingratiating. Hair stylist Gina Norris (Queen Latifah: Taxi) has moved from Chicago (the character appeared in Barbershop 2: Back in Business) to Atlanta, where — after escaping from a … more…

It’s off to Vegas for FBI agent Gracie Hart. Or is it back to Vegas? Was *Miss Congeniality 1: Even Grown Women Can Be Juvenile Idiots* set in Vegas too? I’ve tried to hard to forget that film, and now it all comes rushing back, like the kind of nightmare you wake from with a scream, in a sweat, and vowing never to sleep again. All that girly squealing and female bonding over evening gowns — ack, make it stop!

Eve Ensler’s powerful one-woman — emphasis on “woman” — off-Broadway show The Vagina Monologues so stirred women around the world with its themes of self-empowerment and self-determination that it spawned a worldwide movement against rape, “female circumcision,” and other female-directed violence. This, Abby Epstein’s impassioned documentary, tells the story of that movement, from the celebrity-studded … more…

More amusing when taken by moments than as a whole, this superhero spoof is a worthy companion piece to the similarly themed Mystery Men or the animated cult TV series The Tick, but it fails to reach their heights of satiric brilliance. The Specials are the sixth or seventh greatest superhero team in the world, … more…

Leave it to the French to create a Moebius strip of a movie about the difficulties of shooting an effective, believable sex scene that holds multiple mirrors up to itself, creating a neverending series of reflections and self-referents. Director Jeanne (La Femme Nikita‘s Anne Parillaud) is getting ready to shoot the most important scene in … more…

Call it Little House on the Serengeti. Delightful and deeply affecting, in that way that genuine, heartfelt stories about growing up can often be, this is a treat for fans of British TV — a beloved 1981 production is at last on DVD — and childhood memoirs. Based on the book by Elspeth Huxley, this … more…

‘We only made one copy,’ Naomi Watts laments as people start dying again, six months after she made that only one copy. Obviously, Naomi Watts has never been on the New York City subway on any given Friday, when an army of little Chinese people roams the trains, offering for sale bootleg DVDs of every theatrical feature film that opened that very day.

It’s the most expensive animated film ever produced outside the United States, with a reported budget of $27 million… which will probably end up being mostly what it’s remembered for, since what those many millions bought is somewhat less notable. Oh, there’s some eye candy to be found in this Victorian-era science-fiction tale, from Akira … more…

Disney’s got the bland and calculatedly innocuous follow-your-dream sports movie down to a science now… just like Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg: Eurotrip), the high-school heroine of its latest installment in the genre, who applies physics to figure skating to determine the precise equation for a can’t-miss triple axel. But wait — what’s this? The formerly … more…