Political cinema had a boom year in 2005, but while plenty of editorial ink was spilled on the likes of Syriana, Munich, and Brokeback Mountain, response was curiously muted for Lord Of War (Lions Gate), a provocative, damning treatment of the gun trade. Nicolas Cage's intense performance as an arms dealer is defined by the sorts of moral equivocations that allow First World nations to support Third World genocides while keeping their hands clean…
Financial chicanery isn't the most cinematic of crimes, but it's hard to tell by watching Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (Magnolia), a surprisingly dynamic documentary that lays out the case against the company with clarity and pizzazz. As agitprop, it reaches a little far in connecting Enron's involvement in the California energy crisis with the recall election that led Ahnold to the governorship, but the film captures the executive arrogance and greed with damning precision…
When an Al Pacino performance opens with the lines, "Hello, Ringling Brothers? Is this Barnum or Bailey?", get ready for the unhinged "Hoo-ah!" Pacino of Scent Of A Woman, Scarface, and The Devil's Advocate. As head of a sports-betting empire in Two For The Money (Universal), Pacino inflates a lackluster script with all the hot gas he can muster, but it isn't enough to save the patient…
The eternally undiscriminating Samuel L. Jackson and the perpetually slumming Eugene Levy have each prostituted their formidable gifts in so many awful movies that it seemed inevitable that they'd team up for an abysmal dual vehicle. Accordingly, last year's woeful misfire The Man (Sony) finds both actors locked in joyless self-parody as they sleepwalk through the lamest attempt at resurrecting the wacky mismatched-buddy-cop comedy since 2004's Queen Latifah/Jimmy Fallon match-up Taxi…
An unapologetically modest (but deceptively sharp) drama, Junebug (Sony) contrasts backwater and big-city ways by following a Chicago art dealer as she meets her husband's North Carolina family for the first time while trying to secure a deal with a reclusive local artist. But it'll probably best be remembered as the film that made people say, "Dang, that Amy Adams is a terrific actress. She should be in more stuff." Rock 'n' roll fans: Look for Will Oldham in a cameo, and enjoy the music of Yo La Tengo.