Curtis Hanson

Good News for Jackie Earle Haley

Club X Marks the Spot

City of angles

How Curtis Hanson turned James Ellroy's epic crime novel L.A. Confidential into one of the year's best films

Police brutality

The terrific L.A. Confidential captures our worst suspicions of how the world works

On the fringes

Most of the year's best films were from the outside looking in

Hype and holler

The best of 1997 was OK, but sometimes the worst was better

Comfortably numb

The best films of '97 either provoked or entertained

Sucker punch

In Palmetto, everything is as it seems to be--transparent and dull

Retouching Evil

Using Detailed instructions left by Orson Welles, top film editor Walter Murch has remade "The Best b-Movie ever" -- Welles' Touch of Evil

Through the past starkly

Brian Helgeland gamely reimagines a pulp legend in Payback

High time

John Cusack's romantic comedy about a man... and his record collection

Juices Flowing

John Cusack's romantic comedy about a man... and his record collection

Goy Gevalt

In Her Shoes is pretty but useless, a Prada with a broken heel

A Gift to Grief

Jeff Bridges is at his swaggering best in a film about a couple wrecked by loss

Cop Out

Ellroy + Ayer = a familiar bad-cop movie in which L.A. burns

Run, Rabbit, Run

Pickins are Slim Shady, but Eminem busts out of a bad movie

Just Good Enough

A great 1999 made it just a decent 2000 in theaters

Wonder bread

Curtis Hanson builds us a cheese sandwich out of Chabon's novel

Camp confidential

These Wild Things make nothing groovy