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Alaska


A solid natural history documentary that explores the beauty and harsh realities of nature in an extreme environment, Alaska is deserving of its 1997 Oscar for best documentary short. At the IMAX. (Randy Matin)





Austin Powers in Goldmember


If you're ready to take a nice cool dip in some quality a/c while experiencing jokes about urine, feces, flatulence, breasts, man-breasts, bestiality, name brands and homosexual panic, jump right in. (RP) Rated: PG-13





Bad Company


Chris Rock plays a New York hustler who, unaware that he has a twin brother in the CIA, is called in by agent Anthony Hopkins to take his brother's place when he's killed in action. There are some funny scenes and some good action, but this is mostly cookie cutter, clich & Egrave;-ridden filmmaking that feels like it's never going to end. (ES) Rated: PG-13





Blood Work


Clint Eastwood plays an FBI profiler forced into early retirement by a massive heart attack. Two years later, a meeting with a stranger (Wanda de Jesus) causes him to look further into the circumstances surrounding his transplant and recovery. RATED: R





Blue Crush


Having moved to Hawaii to train and compete in the Rip Masters competition, Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth) is up at dawn every day riding the waves. When she's not, she's hanging out in her cool beach house with her three similarly surf-enthused roommates. Sparks fly when she meets cute football quarterback Matthew Davis. RATED: PG-13





The Bourne Identity


A thriller about an amnesiac who discovers his dark past at the same time as the audience. Director Doug Liman brings the virtues of his intimate, indie filmmaking style to what could have been another dated Cold War retread. (RP) RATED: PG-13





Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood


Based on Rebecca Wells' enormously popular 1996 novel, Divine Secrets tells the story of four irrepressible and close-knit friends growing up in 1950s Louisiana. Rated: PG-13





Fear Dot Com


This title might have had much more appeal before the "dot-com revolution" imploded all over itself. Stephen Dorff plays an ambitious cop who enlists the help of a beautiful researcher (Natascha McElhone) to investigate the deaths of four people, all murdered after visiting a Web site called Feardotcom. With Stephen Rea. Rated: R





The Good Girl


Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White reteam after Chuck & amp; Buck to tell the story of a beautiful dreamer (a sweetly confounded and affecting Jennifer Aniston) whose days at a dead-end mall shop seem numbered after she meets a spaniel-eyed, assertive young man who calls himself Holden (Jake Gyllenhall). Aniston's married to a stoner house painter played by John C. Reilly. Not surprisingly, she takes up with the intense kid. This is a movie that can't, beyond all the actors' great goodwill, quite contradict charges of condescension. (RP) Rated: R





The Importance of Being Earnest


The often riotous Oscar Wilde play makes a terrific move to the screen again, this time with Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Frances O'Connor and lone American Reese Witherspoon in the leads. It's a comic study of the British class system and young love, along with dashes of slapstick and witty repartee. (ES) RATED: PG





Lilo & amp; Stitch


Stitch is a dangerous creature from another world, being hunted by his own, who lands on Earth and manages to get adopted by orphaned sisters Nani and Lilo, who are having their own problems with each other. (ES) RATED: PG





The Master of Disguise


As high as Mike Myers climbs in choice sections of Goldmember, that's how low his Wayne's World partner Dana Carvey embarrassingly falls in this awful movie. He plays an idiot of an Italian waiter whose family has for generations practiced secrets of do-gooding disguisery. (ES) Rated: PG





Men in Black II


In the relentless 88 minutes of Men In Black II, Director Barry Sonnenfeld does justice to the now-familiar Laurel and Hardy-style teaming of secret agent/planetary guardians Jay (Will Smith) and Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) without deepening the earlier installment. (RP) Rated: PG-13





Minority Report


Steven Spielberg's latest finds Tom Cruise the head of the D.C. "Department of Pre-Crime," which has prevented homicides for six years through the exploitation of the "Pre-Cogs," a mysterious trio of seers who can predict the future. RATED: PG-13 (RP)





My Big Fat Greek Wedding


This Chicago-set, Second City-developed comedy is the slobbo American version of Four Weddings and a Funeral, getting no marks for subtlety but laughs from those of us who can laugh at the idea of an obnoxious ethnic family getting into the marital spirit -- funny Greeks in this case. (RP) RATED: PG





Road to Perdition


This 1930s, Chicago-set gangster piece is about father-son relationships and dishonor among murderers. Paul Newman plays the boss, Tom Hanks is his major hitman; newcomer Tyler Hoechlin is Hanks' son, who finds out what Dad does for a living. (ES) Rated: R





Possession


Neil LaBute, the writer and director best known for In The Company of Men, does sturdy work in the romantic intrigue Possession, from A.S. Byatt's intelligent, intricate bestseller. Possession intertwines two passions in two periods. In the modern day, icy Brit gender studies prof Maud (Gwyneth Paltrow) is forced to reevaluate her research when American grad student and poet Roland (Aaron Eckhart) finds letters between his subject, Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam), a Robert Browning-like Victorian poet and Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), a lesser-known poet of that fictionalized time. (RP) Rated: PG-13





Serving Sara


In this film featuring Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley, Hollywood finally sets its sights on the exotic world of... process servers? Rated PG-13





Signs


The newest outing from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable) focuses on what happens when crop signs -- the flattening of farm fields into huge, bizarre shapes -- start popping up all over the world. The focus is on a small, troubled family, headed by former reverend Mel Gibson. (ES) Rated: PG-13





SIMONE


Washed-up director Viktor Taransky (Al Pacino) gets his last chance, blows it, then gets a gift -- a computer code that allows him to replace a problematic real actor with Simone, a perfect woman and great thespian who doesn't really exist. But that doesn't keep the fans away. And Viktor spends most of the film hiding "her" from everyone. Most of this is very dark comedy (some is outright hilarious), and it works as one of the better contemporary skewerings of Hollywood and everything it stands for. (ES) Rated PG-13





The Singles Ward


A contemporary comedy about young Latter Day Saints college students, The Single Ward is about the wacky adventures of a newly divorced 27-year-old man (Will Swenson) who has trouble adjusting to the younger, never-married singles in his singles ward. Rated: PG





Space Station


The newest IMAX experience shoots its giant screen cameras up to the International Space Station to watch its assembly and visit with different crews during their long stays. It also generates amazing special effects, magnificently showing astronauts and cosmonauts out in the middle of spacewalks. (ES) Rated: G3





Spider-Man


As superhero origin stories go, Sam Raimi does a decent job of bringing zing and neurosis to the screen, and the web-swinging along the real and imagined streets of New York City is a thrill. Tobey Maguire's very good; Kirsten Dunst is sweet. (RP) Rated: PG-13





Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams


The gadgets are every bit as entertaining as the casting in this sequel, which this time pits Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara) against a pair of archrival spy kids (Emily Osment and Matt O'Leary). Steve Buscemi plays the mad scientist keeping them all on his island of genetic experiments. RATED: PG





Stuart Little 2


Sweetly calculated, building on the good humor and good will of the first, the 78 minutes of Stuart Little 2 don't have to stress lessons: a three-inch-high critter accepted by his family against the crushing outer world says it all. Geena Davis, Jonathan Lipnicki, Nathan Lane's grumpy-puss Snowbell and Michael J. Fox's Stuart repeat; the storybook Manhattan is a glistening treat. Directed by Rob Minkoff. (RP) RATED: PG





Ultimate X


The note under the Rated PG symbol says it all: "Daredevil sports action and mild language." ESPN's wildly popular Summer X Games 2001 in Philadelphia come to life on the five-story IMAX screen. RATED: PG





XXX


The testosterone level for this one is even higher than last year's car race actioner from director Rob Cohen and actor Vin Diesel. This time, the new hot-shot action team gives us a story of a trouble-making extreme sports athlete who's grabbed by our government to do some dirty work in Europe. (ES) RATED: PG-13





Capsule reviews are written by Ed Symkus (ES) and Ray Pride (RP), unless otherwise noted.