Nicolas Cage

MasterMinds: Matthew Posey, Joel Hester and Karen Blessen Are Winners in Our Inaugural Creativity Awards

Kick-Ass Is Just Half-Assed

Old Dog Bow Wow Learns New Tricks

A rap veteran at age 20, Bow Wow dispenses advice to the next generation

Down to Size

Boy turns bug in redemptive kiddie-lit adaptation

Raunch Dressing

Debbie does naughty things at Kitchen Dog Theater; Danny goes deeper at WingSpan

This Week's Day-By-Day Picks

Debbie does naughty things at Kitchen Dog Theater; Danny goes deeper at WingSpan

Greetings to the New Brunette

Shirley Henderson juggles a love triangle in the Midlands

Gale Farce

Kevin isn't the only thing Spacey in this overlong death-penalty drama

For Our Homies

Plus: Kaboom, Edited for Content

Devil's Advocate

Audiences love Jerry Bruckheimer. Critics don't. Like he cares.

Vein Glory

Shadow of the Vampire expertly taps into cinema's dark, rich heart

100 Bullets

MTV and Rolling Stone pick the 100 greatest pop songs ever, "from The Beatles to the Backstreet Boys." We demand a recount.

The Bagmen Cometh

Go The Way of the Gun, and you shall be rewarded

Big words vs. big guns

Support (taped) theater

Schreck it out

Nosferatu "live"

Cyber bore

The DotComGuy gets loads of publicity just like this for being a zero

Mission implausible

De Palma went to Mars, and all he brought us was this messy movie

Good time Charlie

The don of Dallas criminal lawyers, Charles Tessmer reshaped justice through decades of hard-fought cases and hard drink

No guts, no glory

David O. Russell gets to the heart of the matter, down to the last detail

Of sex and socks

New Theatre Company's hilarious production of Psychopathia Sexualis saves its talky script...almost

On the fringes

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

Top guns

The Jackal offers the funof watching big-ticket actors trying to spin their images

Going down

Air Force One nosedives into an ocean of ennui

Muscle bound

Disney's Hercules is all brawn, no brain

Oh, Mother

The Daytrippers loosens the family ties that bind

Contact high

Trainspotting delivers a riotous, disturbing portrait of heroin addiction

11th Street one-acts

Mamet script carries cast; actors can't do the same for Shanley's dreamer

Contact high

As a teenage junkie in The Basketball Diaries, Leonardo DiCaprio joins an elite corps of true screen actors