Vincent Laresca

Pop icon Marc Anthony steps into the role of Salsa superstar Hector Lavoe in this biopic that follows the singer from his early career success as a Puerto Rican teen sensation to his later status as a New York City Latin idol while also documenting his ongoing struggle against drug and alcohol addiction. Actress and pop star Jennifer Lopez co-stars as Puchi; Lavoe's longtime muse and love interest. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A thesp-turned-crook gets a chance at career in movies as well as crime scene investigation in this offbeat action comedy with nods to Raymond Chandler. Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a struggling New York actor who high-tails it to Los Angeles. Once there, Lockhart winds up at the posh home of the aptly-named homosexual private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) amid a lavish Hollywood party, hoping to score a life-changing role in a Hollywood feature. Harry becomes reacquainted with Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), a girl he had a major crush on in his small-town Indiana high school, who may be a bit more interested in him now than she was years ago. He takes both her and her girlfriend home with him, but - in a moment of drunken stupor - accidentally sleeps with the wrong woman. Meanwhile, when a series of female bodies turns up across L.A., Harry slowly breaks into detective work, mentored by Perry. The biggest twist? Black riffs Adaptation and other films by having Harry (via satirical narration) write the movie while he is living it. Harry assures the audience that unlike Lord of the Rings, this one won't have seventeen endings. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang marks the first directorial credit for Shane Black, who created the Lethal Weapon franchise. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese directed this fast-moving, epic-scale biopic documenting the life and loves one of the most colorful Americans of the 20th century, Howard Hughes. The Aviator follows Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) as the twentysomething millionaire, having already made a fortune improving the design of oil-drilling bits, comes to Hollywood with an interest in getting into the picture business. It doesn't take long for Hughes, with his passion for airplanes, to jump from producer to director of his first major film project, a World War I air epic called Hell's Angels, which took three years to complete thanks to the shift from silent to sound filming and Hughes' relentless perfectionism. However, the film was a massive hit, and the eccentric inventor became a mogul in Hollywood, making Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani) a star and enjoying a romance with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). But Hollywood's old-boy network never fully accepted Hughes, and in time his passion for flying began to reclaim his attentions as he began designing new planes, setting air speed records, flying around the world, and risking his life testing aircraft. Hughes also found time to romance Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and founded his own airline, Trans-World Airlines, though as his ideas became bolder, his approach became more eccentric, and he gained many powerful enemies, including the head of Pan-American Airlines, Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), and Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), who attempted to prove that Hughes' radical design ideas were actually part of an effort to bilk taxpayers for millions of dollars through government contracts. The Aviator's star-studded cast also includes John C. Reilly, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Ian Holm, and Frances Conroy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald) finds Kevin Kelly (Jack Kehler), whose daughter was killed by Alan (Albert Hall) in a hit-and-run accident. Kelly witnessed the crime, but was pressured by the police and bribed by Alan to keep quiet. Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) isn't certain whether or not to use the information, but it all becomes moot when Kelly vanishes. Sherry understandably suspects foul play, and calls on Julia (Gina Torres) to help her prove that Alan was behind the disappearance. The sting operation is reaching its climax, but that doesn't stop Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) from going to Tony (Carlos Bernard) with her suspicion that Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is lying about the provenance of the baby she's brought to work. Tony essentially tells Kim to shut up and watch the baby, because they need to keep Chloe in place. Down in Mexico, Ramon (Joaquim de Almeida) finishes off his brother. Nina (Sarah Clarke) reiterates her belief that Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) is still working for CTU, but Ramon isn't listening. He warns her that his snipers will be trained on her as she completes the deal with Amador (Greg Ellis). Chase (James Badge Dale) is also watching, and waiting to signal the CTU team to move in. After Nina confirms the presence of the virus, and wires the money into Amador's account, Ramon decides to kill Jack, and Chase is forced to intercede. Ramon, Nina, and Amador scatter, with Ramon taking the vial. But it turns out that Amador has betrayed them all. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Further cementing 2003 as the year of Ron Shelton cop movies, the director continued his vacation from the sports genre with Hollywood Homicide, a police comedy that comes right on the heels of Shelton's Dark Blue, a decidedly grittier cop thriller. The film stars Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett as LAPD homicide detectives Joe Gavilan and K.C. Calden, two cops with bigger dreams. Gavilan moonlights as a real estate agent, while Calden teaches yoga and yearns for a career on the big screen. When an entire hip-hop group is murdered on-stage, Gavilan and Calden are called in to handle the case. As their investigation progresses, they begin to suspect that the rappers were offed for attempting to get out of their recording contract with label head Sartain (Isaiah Washington). Along with Bruce Greenwood and Keith David, the supporting cast boasts a plethora of real-life musicians, including Dr. Dre, Gladys Knight, Dwight Yoakam, Master P, and Ronald DeVoe of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

A man who has made good in an illegal business discovers going straight is a more complicated matter than he imagined in this urban drama. Victor Rosa (John Leguizamo) is a drug dealer who has made a small fortune selling a heroin-based drug cocktail he's concocted called "Empire." Victor doesn't see himself as a dope pusher; instead, he considers himself an entrepreneur and a businessman who is simply making the most of the economic opportunities presented to him in the ghetto. Through his girlfriend Carmen (Delilah Cotto), Victor makes the acquaintance of Jack Wimmer (Peter Sarsgaard), an upscale investment banker who admires Victor's business savvy and street smarts. Victor is interested in getting out of drug dealing and into a legitimate business, and when Jack offers Victor the chance to buy into a new business, Victor eagerly accepts and makes a good profit in the deal. After this, Victor is all the more enthusiastic when Jack gives him the opportunity to invest in a much bigger project; the price, however, is more than Victor can afford, and he has to borrow from another high-stakes drug dealer, La Columbiana (Isabella Rossellini) in order to make the nut. It isn't long before Victor learns La Columbiana is not a good person to be in debt to -- and that Jack may not be all he imagined him to be. Empire marked the directorial debut of dancer and choreographer Franc Reyes; the supporting cast includes Denise Richards, Sonia Braga, Ruben Blades, and rapper Fat Joe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Writer/director Paul Schrader explored his well-documented interest in film noir with this modern-day crime story. A horribly disfigured man named Manuel Esquema (Joseph Fiennes) is called upon to help out Mark Brice (Ray Liotta), a former city councilman in a wealthy New York community. Brice has been accused of some serious financial irregularities, and Esquema is the sort of "fixer" who might be able to make his problems go away. Mark, however, doesn't recognize Esquema as the former Alan Ripley, who was working as a towel boy at the Florida resort where Mark and his wife Ella (Gretchen Mol) were honeymooning shortly after their marriage. Alan became obsessed with Ella the moment he saw her, and before long the two were engaged in a torrid affair. Ripley urged Ella to leave Mark for him, but she refused; Ripley followed them to New York, and when Ella eventually confessed her infidelity to Mark, he responded by shooting off half of Alan's face. Alan survives and builds a new (and sinister) life for himself, but when Mark hires Esquema to help him, the former Alan's obsession with Ella blooms anew. Forever Mine was screened in competition at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

What do you do when you've loved someone literally all their life? As Music From Another Room opens, five-year-old Danny is with his father, a U.S. Army doctor, when Dad is faced with an emergency. It seems Grace Swan (Brenda Blethyn), an old friend of the family, is in the last stages of labor and there's no time to get her to the hospital. Danny ends up helping his father deliver the infant, and moments after birth, Danny is holding the baby in his arms, convinced this is the girl he will marry someday. 20 years later, Danny (played as an adult by Jude Law), now an artist educated in England after the death of his father, is back in the States to help restore a church, and he meets Anna Swan (Gretchen Mol), the girl he helped deliver now all grown up and very beautiful. However, she's also become cold and cynical, and has a fiance to boot, so while Danny's attraction to her hasn't dimmed in two decades, it's clear winning her heart will be an uphill battle. The increasingly eccentric Swan family isn't much help either, including sweet but dizzy Grace, eggheaded father Richard (Bruce Jarchow), angry feminist Karen (Martha Plimpton), shy and blind Nina (Jennifer Tilly) and self-centered lout of a doctor Billy (Jeremy Piven). Screenwriter Charlie Peters steps up to the directors chair for this romantic comedy with a superb supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The classic Shakespearean romantic tragedy is updated by director Baz Luhrmann to a post-modern Verona Beach where swords are merely a brand of gun and bored youths are easily spurred toward violence. Longtime rivals in religion and business, the Montagues and the Capulets share a page from the Jets and Sharks of West Side Story when they form rival gangs. Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) is aloof toward the goings-on of his Montague cousins, but after he realizes that Juliet (Claire Danes) is a Capulet at the end of one very wild party, the enmity between the two clans becomes the root of his angst. He relies heavily -- and with serious consequences -- on his rebel gender-bender of a friend, Mercutio (Harold Perrineau Jr.), and Father (not Friar) Lawrence (Pete Postlethwaite) for protection and support. Romeo is, of course, exiled, and it looks like Juliet will be forced into an arranged marriage with the bland Paris (Paul Rudd). It ends, as Romeo and Juliet must, when Romeo hears a tragic piece of misinformation and brings his suicide wish to what was meant to be Juliet 's temporary tomb. This time, though, the turf and the weapon of choice have taken a turn toward the surreal. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Andy Warhol was a phenomenon who warrants a lot of explaining: a completely colorless mega-star celebrity, and a kind of LaBrea Tarpit for a vivid and talented collection of oddballs in the New York scene. He fostered their continued degeneration into weird lifestyles and heavy drug use; and at the same time acted as their mentor, agent, and sponsor. One artist who came to be part of Warhol's "scene" was Jean Michel Basquiat, an antisocial street-bum who went from writing graffiti on alley walls to being the toast of New York City's art world. This film biography chronicles the progression of Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) and his progression from living in cardboard boxes to penthouses, his romances, his drug use, and his death in 1988 at age 27. Along the way, he never stopped detesting the rich, including art agent Bruno Bischofberger (Dennis Hopper), and he never lost his naivete. Warhol (David Bowie) picks up some of the pieces as Basquiat lurches through the art scene. Cameo appearances by Tatum O'Neal and Courtney Love add spice to this interesting film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A pair of New York City cops collaborate on a plan to rob a cash-packed subway train in this action-comedy. Charlie (Woody Harrelson) and John (Wesley Snipes) are not just co-workers and close friends but also foster brothers. Because of this family connection, the reluctant John becomes involved in the more capricious Charlie's far-fetched scheme to rob the "money train" that collects the subway's daily grosses. Charlie needs the money for gambling debts, and robbing the train would have the added benefit of angering Charlie's and John's harsh, corrupt boss Captain Patterson (Robert Blake). Romantic interest is provided by a fellow police officer (Jennifer Lopez) who sparks rivalry between the brothers, but the film's main interest is in the violent events that surround the attempted heist, which naturally proves more complicated than planned. The film attempts to capitalize on the chemistry between Snipes and Harrelson, who had previously had a hit comedy with White Men Can't Jump (1992), but Joseph Ruben's unexceptional direction and a bland screenplay by Doug Richardson and David Loughery make the film less distinctive than its predecessor. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Long before co-starring on The Practice, Kelli Williams appeared in this Law & Order episode as a young drug addict living in a teen shelter. When the girl accuses Sister Bettina (Kate Burton), the nun in charge of the shelter, of molesting her, detectives Logan (Chris Noth) and Cerreta (Paul Sorvino) investigate. As it happens, the solution to the case may hinge upon a secret being withheld by the center's male supervisor (William H. Macy). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide