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Here is a rare thing — a romantic comedy that has something to say and says it well. Director Sanaa Hamri comes from the world of music video, which is no longer the realm of just skilled technicians but talented storytellers. Hamri, in her feature debut, shows visual flare in bringing to life the honest script of Kriss Turner, who is a writer/producer on the TV show, EVERYONE HATES CHRIS.

Kenya McQueen (Sanaa Lathan, LOVE & BASKETBALL) is an upwardly mobile African-American woman, who is up for partner at her accounting firm. On a lonely Valentine’s Day, her and her friends decide to become less picky in choosing men. Kenya even agrees to go on a blind date, but when Brian (Simon Baker, LAND OF THE DEAD) turns out to be white, she can’t handle it.

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This Oscar-nominated feature is truly one of the best films of the year. George Clooney helms his sophomore directing effort with emotion, sly wit and subtle daring.

The story follows journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn, EIGHT MEN OUT) as he decides to take on the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the politician’s hunt for Communists. Along with his producer Fred Friendly (Clooney), Murrow took on the facts even using the senator’s own words against him.

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Terrence Malick (DAYS OF HEAVEN, THE NEW WORLD) is a filmmaker not as interested in narrative as he is in poetry. If there were ever a filmmaker who has been able to bring the mood of transcendent poetry to the screen it is he.

This film is based on James Jones’ autobiographical novel about the battle for Guadalcanal during WWII. The central character is Private Witt (James Caviezel, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST), an AWOL soldier who has been living with a native tribe peacefully for some time. He has a Christ-like air about him (pun not intended). He is discovered by bitter and grizzled first sergeant Edward Welsh (Sean Penn, MYSTIC RIVER). Witt is given a second chance to fight at Guadalcanal for C Company whose mission is to take a key airfield.

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Oliver Stone made a huge splash in 1986. After cutting his teeth of the B-grade horror film, THE HAND in 1981, the release of SALVADOR came in early 1986. Later in the year, he’d be in the Oscar spotlight for the Best Picture winner, PLATOON. The hoopla over his Vietnam epic has overshadowed his work on SALVADOR, which is a more emotionally engaging experience.

Set in El Salvador right at the dawn of the Reagan era, the film looks at the complex political climate of the country through the eyes of a weaselly photojournalist named Richard Boyle (James Woods, VIDEODROME). The renegade reporter has lost everything in America — his job, his family and his apartment. With what little money he has left, he and his disc jockey friend, Doctor Rock (James Belushi, TV’s LIFE ACCORDING TO JIM) head to El Salvador, where Boyle hopes his connections will get him back on his feet.

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Director Jean-Jacques Annaud (ENEMY AT THE GATES) creates a thoroughly engaging film that contains no understandable dialogue, chronicling early man’s search for fire.

In the beginning, a tribe of Neanderthals is attacked by another tribe of hominids and in the process their fire is extinguished. The control of fire means life or death for these people. So the tribe’s elders send Naoh (Everett McGill, TV’s TWIN PEAKS), Amoukar (Ron Perlman, HELLBOY) and Gaw (Nicholas Kadi, CONGO) out to find fire.

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With this film, Hayao Miyazaki proves once again why he is one of the all time best animation directors. The film is a kind of spoof of the 1930s romantic adventures that would have starred Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable.

Porco Rosso (or the Crimson Pig) (Michael Keaton, BEETLEJUICE) is the best bush pilot in Europe. He is a daring flyer who takes on pirates single-handedly. But Porco really gets tested when cocky American cowboy Curtis (Cary Elwes, THE PRINCESS BRIDE) challenges him, resulting in Porco having to travel back to Milan where a warrant is out for his arrest so that he can have his cherished plane repaired by Grandpa Piccolo (David Ogden Stiers, THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST). But what Porco isn’t ready for is Grandpa’s new engineer — his 17-year-old granddaughter Fio (Kimberly Williams, 1991’s FATHER OF THE BRIDE).

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Director Siddiq Barmak’s only film to date is a powerful and gripping look at the treatment of women under the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan. A 12-year-old girl (Marina Golbahari) is forced by her mother (Zubaida Sahar) to cut her hair and pose as a boy, so the little girl can go to work and support her family.

Under Taliban law, women were not allowed to work even if they were widows with no other forms of income. The threat of exposure is very real every day for the young girl, who goes to work at the shop of a man who fought with her father during the Russian invasion. Things get worse for her when she is forced to go to Islamic school and face a sea of boys being trained to be warriors. Her only friend turns out to be a beggar boy named Espandi (Arif Herati), who in a moment of quick thought names the girl Osama to save her from harm.

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At times the film feels like its going to spin off the rails into a chaotic mess, but it surprisingly brings its epic scope into focus for an ending that delivers one of the best actions sequences ever filmed.

Set in late 19th Century China, Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li, HERO) is a martial arts master of the utmost skill. He is trying to keep his school and clinic alive in the traditional ways as his country moves toward the ways of the West. A gangster named Tiger (Steve Tartalia) extorts money from the local businesses, which leads to clashes with Wong’s students. Those battles enrage the magistrate (Chi Yeung Wong), who is trying to impress visiting American businessman Jackson (Jonathan Isgar, MR. NICE GUY), who shouldn’t be trusted at all.

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The plot for this Agatha Christie potboiler is preposterous. However, that’s what makes it so fun. The tale presents all the conventions of a typical mystery, but plays with them in the end. With the talents of the great director Sidney Lumet and his all-star cast, the film is fun, suspenseful and completely entertaining.

Famed detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney, TOM JONES) must get back to London and gets on the Orient Express last minute with the help of his friend Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam, 12 ANGRY MEN), who works for the railroad. On the train is Mr. Samuel Edward Ratchett (Richard Widmark, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG), a shady businessman who tries to enlist Poirot as a bodyguard after receiving two threatening letters. Poirot turns down the offer and by the next morning Ratchett turns up dead.

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In my reviews of A NIGHT AT THE OPERA and A DAY AT THE RACES, I discussed many of the same complaints that I have with this Marx Brothers’ film, only more so. The purpose of a Marx Brothers film is not to make a film, but to film their routines.

MONKEY BUSINESS has an even weaker narrative than OPERA and RACES, placing the brothers as stowaways on an ocean liner where they get mixed up with gangsters. Groucho ends up romancing the wife of gangster Alky Briggs (Harry Woods, RANCHO NOTORIOUS), who ends up recruiting him to knock off a racketeer named Big Joe Helton (Rockliffe Fellowes), whose daughter, Mary (Ruth Hall, 1933’s THREE MUSKETEERS), falls for Zeppo. In the meantime, Helton hires Harpo and Chico to be muscle for him.

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