Back for a second session, Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal return as a troubled mobster and his equally neurotic therapist, in a rote sequel that's sporadically funny but woefully disorganized and often plain tedious. The two are thrown together after De Niro feigns psychosis to get out of prison and is released into Crystal's custody, thus connecting them at the hip for the rest of the movie. There are moments of inspiration -- De Niro and Crystal warbling selections from West Side Story, Anthony LaPaglia as the star of a Sopranos-esque TV show, anything involving Lisa Kudrow -- but the whole mess seems shockingly underdeveloped, or would if we weren't used to seeing barely fleshed-out premises get greenlit on a regular basis. If comedy is all about timing, then comic films are all about structure, and Analyze That is a half-built bungalow.--Sam Adams (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; Bryn Mawr; Cinemagic; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

Michael Moore specializes in political theater, but his record on follow-up isn't great, to say nothing of his willingness to trim the truth to fit an easy argument. That's what makes Bowling for Columbine such a surprise: it's not afraid to ask questions it doesn't know the answers to. Calling it disorganized or inconclusive misses the point; Moore has deliberately taken on a subject -- the American propensity for violence -- that can't be explained, just to see how close to the impossible he can get. Ranging all over the place, both physically and thematically, Bowling begins, of course, with our fondness for guns, but Moore, an NRA member and former child marksman, pushes past that answer, pointing fingers at retailers who offer cut-rate ammunition, at racial and economic disparities, and at a media that makes it seem like we're more violent than we actually are..--S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse)

James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is being tortured almost to death. Captured by North Koreans, following a chase scene that ends in the apparent death of young and vociferous Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee), Bond spends 14 months being half-drowned, stung by scorpions, electrocuted and kicked. When M (Judi Dench) sees him back at HQ, she tells him she thinks he divulged info while drugged and that he's ³no longer useful.² Well, that's enough for Bond: Within seconds, he's escaped, trying to find out who betrayed him in North Korea and redeem himself. Brosnan carries all this well, but here enters Halle Berry, as Jinx, who brings into Bond's white-guy heroic world a black woman who can not only keep up and save him, but also whoop him. The downside is that the climactic sequences are spread over the two heroes' clashes with villains, inevitably leading to dilution, while Jinx looks cooler -- more threatening and slinkier -- in the formfitting camouflage than Bond does.--C.F. (Bridge; Ritz 16; Roxy; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

Devon (Nick Cannon), high-school band drummer, expects a good reaction when he gets to Atlanta A&T, the university that recruited him for his skills. The school's show-style marching band is legendary, even if it has fallen on hard times over the past few years. The stakes are high: In this world, the football game provides a useful context for halftime, when the show really starts. Initially thrilled to be where he always dreamed of being, Devon soon learns that, once again, he's slightly out of place -- a raw if brilliant talent whose resistance to rules makes his hardworking teammates anxious. His mother is supportive, but his father, a onetime drummer now working for NYC transit, has been absent. And so he clashes immediately with would-be father figures, including senior/drumline leader Sean (Leonard Roberts) and the band director, Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones). While Devon's gift has allowed him to get over for most of his life, at A&T he has to submit to the ³tree-shaking² that ranks musicians and determines who is on the line for any given weekend. Scripted by Shawn Schepps and Tina Gordon Chism, Drumline follows a basic boy-learns-life-lessons plot, complete with familiar secondary characters: the wise and supportive dancer-girlfriend, Laila (Zoë Saldana); Jayson (GQ), the Caucasian bass player who learns to ³appreciate² his instrument after rhythmic instruction from Devon; and the tough girl, Diedre (Candace Carey), who puts the boys to shame with her one-armed push-ups. These foils serve their purpose; they make Devon look relatively complicated. Most importantly, he is the focus of the film's fierce, fun energy and -- no small thing -- first-rate drumming. Its enthusiasm is hard to resist.--C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

Despite the presence of Y Tu Mamá Tambin hottie Gael García Bernal in the lead, this tale of inflamed passions and covert sin is pulp-novel stuff. It doesn't help that by recent standards, Bernal's Padre Amaro is practically a piker when it comes to church corruption -- sure, he breaks his vow of chastity and sells out a fellow priest who's gone to help campesinos in the mountains against his bishop's will, but if that makes him a bad priest, it doesn't make him a horrible person. Really, the Catholic Church has worse things to worry about.--S.A.(Ritz Five)

The Emperor's Club is set at a prestigious boarding school and focuses on the conflict between beloved teacher Kevin Kline and problem child Emile Hirsch. Hirsch, the spoiled child of a U.S. senator, has intelligence but no character -- ³character² is a word that gets used a lot here -- which we find when the class reunites in the movie's ungainly closing third, when we come out of what's apparently been only a long flashback. Replacing actors we've been watching for more than an hour is a risky move and the restaging of the school's ³Mr. Julius Caesar² says less about character than it does about daffy prep-school traditions.--S.A. (Ritz 16)

Isabella Rossellini plays drug queenpin La Colombiana, peeved but intrigued when her best dealer Vic (John Leguizamo) says he wants out, to pursue ³legit² opportunities. These come his way through Peter Sarsgaard, an upscale investment banker who promises lavish returns on Leguizamo's $4 million. But greed is bad now, and slick-yapping white boys in Armani suits are as cutthroat and dim-witted as Vic's fellow dealers and homies.--C.F. (UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview)

Todd Haynes' magnificently obsessed version of a Douglas Sirk melodrama introduces Cathy (a blond, peppy Julianne Moore), the perfect suburban wife and hostess, with two children, a black maid (Viola Davis) and a hard-working husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid) who slips out of work one night, to a dimly lit underground bar. Frank's plight is portrayed as it would have been at the time, but we're understanding, not clucking our tongues. The resurgence of the passion Frank thought he'd quelled is hardest on Cathy, who turns to her black gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) for help. Far from Heaven is a stylistic marvel: though it's still a little more impressive than impassioned, the sophistication with which Haynes has intermingled the modern and postmodern is awe-inspiring.--S.A. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

The innovative melding of art and biography grants Taymor's film -- written by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas, and based on a biography by Hayden Herrera -- an uncanny and welcome grace. It's well known that Frida (played by Salma Hayek) suffered mightily and throughout her life, emotionally, spiritually and physically: a 1925 trolley wreck breaks her back and leaves her in a body cast for years. This pain became the primary source of her art (her many self-portraits are her most famous legacy) as well as a dreadful, inevitable focus. Throughout Frida's recovery, her photographer father (Roger Rees) dotes on her, while her mother (Patricia Reyes Spíndola) frets that her chance for proper marriage is over. This standard parental divide more or less sets up Frida's lifelong investment in genderfuck: She rejects expectations that girls should stay home and cook, throwing herself into her painting and politics (she and her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) were dedicated Communists) with bracing enthusiasm..--C.F. (Bala; Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

Just in time for ³Christmas in the hood² (and the ³ho, ho, ho² joke is too obvious and unfunny), first-time director Marcus Raboy has Craig and Day-Day (IceCube and Mike Epps) start new jobs as rent-a-cops down at the mall. And on this Friday, they do what they always do: complain about their money situation, run from thugs, smoke weed and tangle with church ladies. In other words, nothing's changed, except maybe that you've seen this before, twice, and Chris Tucker has moved on to more lucrative jokes.--C.F. (Cinemagic)

Chris Columbus' literal-minded faithfulness to the Harry Potter books may produce insufferably lengthy films (the new one clocks in at 2 hours, 41 minutes), but they also allow you to pass leisurely through J.K. Rowling's magnificent plots. This time around, Kenneth Branagh joins the cast as the pompous, vain Gilderoy Lockhart and The Patriot's Jason Isaacs steps in as Lucius Malfoy, father of the bratty Draco. What Chamber makes you impatient for is the day when Y Tu Mamá Tambin's Alfonso Cuarón takes the helm with movie no. 3. Now that should be something to see. --S.A. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; Bala; Bridge; Narberth; Roxy; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

Written by Kevin Wade (Working Girl, Meet Joe Black) and directed by Wayne Wang, this ³ethnic² revision of Pretty Woman uses the ³iconic² Jennifer Lopez strategically. She plays Marisa Ventura, dedicated single mom, proud Bronx native. Every morning she rides the bus to school with her son Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey), then takes the subway to the Upper East Side, where she works as a maid at the upscale Beresford Hotel. Stunning in her form-fitting uniform, Marisa ³strives to be invisible² and treats guests with utmost care and attention to detail. This sets up the film's basic Cultural Insight: rich, ³upstairs² people are vain and selfish, and ³downstairs² people -- including Marisa's maid-buddy Stephanie (Marissa Matrone) and butler/father-figure Lionel (Bob Hoskins) -- are earthy and compassionate. Boosted by them, Marisa looks fabulous: diligent, reliable, smart and energetic. Though she wants to apply for a management position, she also knows that maids are rarely moved up that particular ladder. Whatever Marisa's ambitions, this distinction between classes remains in place until she meets the man of her dreams, a classically beautiful scion of a wealthy political family and U.S. Senate candidate-to-be, Chris Marshall (Ralph Fiennes). The crossing-over is helped by the fact that he walks in on Marisa while she's trying on a Dolce & Gabbana white wool suit, and mistakes her for someone ³like him.² Chris is the cardboardiest of Prince Charmings, hanging on every word that Marisa utters concerning life in the projects (because, she admits vaguely, she grew up around there, and besides, he's plainly clueless and happy being so), resiliently unaware that Marisa is lying to him for days and, once they share a blissful night together, willing to marry her even when he learns of her elaborate deception. More tiresomely, Marisa's service-industry friends all aid in her deception: Ah, yes. In the world of ³Jenny from the Block,² this is an earnest fantasy.--C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bala; UA 69th St; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St; UA Riverview; Ritz 16)

Toula (Nia Vardalos) falls in love with Ian (John Corbett) and everything's just wonderful with her Greek family -- except he isn't Greek. What follows is essentially Meet the Greek Parents: The large, gregarious family is suspicious of Ian the Protestant and -- gasp -- vegetarian.--R.G. (Ritz at the Bourse;

Delia's (Kyra Sedgwick) tale is the first of ³Three Portraits² in Miller's Personal Velocity, adapted from her collection of seven short stories, and winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance last year. Much like that first glance at Delia, the film gives good surface, courtesy of Miller's spare, observational prose and Ellen Kuras' incisively agile digital video work. At the same time, it raises good questions about that surface, about what you're looking at, and, more importantly, how you're looking. Delia's tale quickly descends from that moment of self-confidence to a dreadful scene at dinner. As her three kids look on, her husband, Kurt (David Warshovsky), launches into a horrific, unprovoked and apparently routine rage, slamming her head into the table. Hiding in the closet, Delia comes to a realization: It's time to leave. She sneaks out while Kurt's asleep. As she begins to see herself again, reflected in eyes that are not Kurt's, Delia also sees the distinction and connections between her self-image and her responsibilities to her kids. The film helpfully flashes back to her childhood, when she learned how to use sex to her advantage, despite and because of her own sense of distance. Where Delia's self-awareness feels intuitive, the second section, ³Greta,² features a painfully articulate Manhattan cookbook editor (Parker Posey). She long ago gave up law school to resist her big-deal attorney father (Ron Leibman) and now she's feeling increasingly frustrated with her alternative career and worse, with terminally sweet grad-student husband, Lee (Tim Guinee). She suddenly lands a choice job editing a young superstar's second novel, and begins to test herself, cheating on Lee. She's changed, Greta tells herself, she has ambition. And now, she's ³going to dump her beautiful husband like a redundant paragraph.² The last portrait concerns Paula (Fairuza Balk), a kohl-eyed punk also desperate for change, following a freak car accident that kills her companion, whom she's only just met at a bar. (The film's ³gimmick² comes in here -- all the stories touch on the story of this accident, underlining that they all take place at the same time.) Paula's story, like the others in Personal Velocity, allows sympathy without resorting to heavy-handed redemption, insight without instruction. Imperfect and shifty, the film never stops moving.--C.F. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

Ana (excellent America Ferrera) is graduating from Beverly Hills High School. But unlike her privileged classmates, Ana must go to work: her mother Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros) and sister (Ingrid Oliu) need her to work at the sister's sweatshop. Equally stubborn and impassioned, Carmen and Ana argue vigorously -- about Ana's curvy body, Carmen's unlikely pregnancy, Ana's white boyfriend, and ³real women's² expectations and desires. Written by George LaVoo and Josefina López, Patricia Cardoso's first feature is alternately soapy and rousing, predictable and resourceful.--C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse)

The Ring's premise is simple, creepy, and inescapable: a videotape which kills everyone who watches it after exactly seven days. Skeptical reporter Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) watches the tape after her niece dies mysterious, and then the clock starts ticking. Though Watts' investigation takes her all over gloomy Seattle, you hardly ever see more than two or three people in the frame -- the film thrives on isolation, the product of a society centered around the TV. Though The Ring abuses the loud-noise scare, it rachets up the tension and never goes slack, meaning you keep having to find new edges on your seat.--S.A. (AMC Orleans; UA Cheltenham)

Clearly cast in the mold of Buena Vista Social Club, Paul Justman's documentary concerns The Funk Brothers, the unofficial conglomeration of musicians who backed virtually every hit from Motown's Detroit era. Based on Allan Slutsky's biography of legendary bassist James Jamerson, Shadows mixes interviews with the surviving Funk Brothers with new performance footage. Based on an orchestral style that kept individual musicians from standing out, these performers have languished in obscurity despite being part of some of pop music's best-known songs. You don't feel educated so much as elated -- by the music, and the sense of a lingering wrong finally redressed. --S.A.(Ritz at the Bourse)

Oh, the crimes that are committed in the name of literature. No doubt the folks who made this outer-space travesty of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island did so in the name of introducing kids to the original story, but such patronizing attempts grossly overestimate the audience's ability to be manipulated. Leaving the story intact means making Long John Silver a robot with an electric eye patch (que?) and having the young Jim scrape space barnacles off the ship's hull. To pull younger viewers in takes real imagination, which has unfortunately been forced to walk the space plank. --S.A.(UA Grant)