Strange Days (1995)

Strange Days (1995)

[8] Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett star in this tech-noir thriller from director Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, The Hurt Locker) and writer James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar). It's late in the year 1999 (four years into the future for when the…
The Chumscrubber (2005)

The Chumscrubber (2005)

[8] Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott) leads an all-star ensemble in this surreal, satiric look at the breakdown of suburban existence. The Chumscrubber is an ambitious conceptual piece, not unlike American Beauty in tone and style. But where American Beauty centered…
Contact (1997)

Contact (1997)

[8] Contact is a message-driven movie that may be too esoteric for a lot of mainstream moviegoers. It's a character-driven drama with only a few moments of your typical blockbuster spectacle -- but I applaud the movie for daring to…
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

[4] The first Independence Day is one of those films that strikes just the right tone, something between earnest and goofy-as-hell, genuinely terrifying and gloriously indulgent. It was like the best possible kind of Irwin Allen disaster movie, where the…
Go (1999)

Go (1999)

[7] Of all the edgy, non-linear pretenders to the throne that came in the wake of Pulp Fiction, Doug Liman's Go may be among the best. The story weaves in and around a handful of disparate characters that interact at…
The Lone Ranger (2013)

The Lone Ranger (2013)

[5]

Armie Hammer (The Social Network) stars as the legendary masked man while Johnny Depp picks up the mantle of Tonto in this big-budget version of The Lone Ranger from director Gore Verbinski (The Ring) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. It’s painfully obvious that the creative team is working very hard to rekindle the flame they ignited with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, complete with improbable action set-pieces that rise up out of nowhere and characterizations as broad as the old-fashioned melodramas the film is based on.