BASIC CABLE "X2: X-MEN UNITED" *** 7 p.m., FX Sometimes sequels really do improve on the originals. "X2: X-Men United" (or "X2") is a much better movie than its 2000... August 21, 2021 at 9:16 p.m.

`Our Brand is Crisis' (star)(star)1/2 Politics and mass communication are the volatile subjects of Rachel Boynton's information-packed documentary "Our Brand is Crisis," having its Chicago premiere.

"ANATOMY OF A MURDER"(star)(star)(star)(star) 5:15 p.m., TCM Director Otto Preminger excelled at intellectual thrillers and he's at his peak here in a story of a wily old defense attorney who ...

Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing"--a taut little thriller made in 1956, when he was 27--was the "Reservoir Dogs" of its day, scoring a huge critical hit and making ...

Few films are more unsettling than Roman Polanski's "Repulsion." A spine-chilling 1965 shocker about an emotionally fragile young woman's descent into madness, it shows London's "Swinging '60s" in a ...

Since 1993, in every year but one, I've published two "10 Best Movies" lists. The first--which this year had "The Aviator," "Sideways," "House of Flying Daggers" and several others--ran in ...

Be forewarned: "Be Cool" ain't. Even if you enjoyed the mean, funny 1995 John Travolta-Elmore Leonard crime comedy "Get Shorty"--and many of us did--this forced sequel isn't likely to help... August ...

`Hoop Dreams' ((star)(star)(star)(star)) A richly detailed, completely absorbing look at William Gates and Arthur Agee, two local inner-city high school boys, and what happens to them, their families, ...

In the movies, stardom can be ephemeral. So, of course, can superstardom--especially as the term applies to that flashy, trashy, sometimes doom-ridden constellation of Manhattan sex symbols and ...