Film fans might someday recognise 1997 and 1998 as the years Hong Kong came to Hollywood. Stars Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li and Michelle Yeogh all appeared in major Hollywood projects and directors John Woo, Ronny Yu and Tsui Hark directed Face/Off, Bride of Chucky and Knock Off, respectively. Another entry into this new era of entertainment is The Big Hit, directed by Che-Kirk Wong (who also directed Jackie Chan in Crime Story), executive produced by John Woo, and produced by Wesley Snipes. Mark Wahlberg leads this all-American cast in a played-for-laughs macho blowout. Rounding out the testosterone brigade are Lou Diamond Phillips (sprouting a gold-capped tooth and a dirty mouth), Bokeem Woodbine (who, according to this DVD's director audio track, wore extra socks where it counts), Antonio Sabàto Jr. and Avery Brooks. Wahlberg plays Melvin Smiley, a nice-guy hit man with an ulcer and a severe insecurity problem. He's short on cash due to the spending habits of his unsuspecting fiancée Pam (Christina Applegate) and his girlfriend-on-the-sly Chantel (Lela Rochon). He and his crew decide to do a little freelancing and cook up their own heist to make a little mo' money--specifically by kidnapping Keiko (China Chow), the daughter of a Japanese businessman whom they target for ransom. Little do they know her dad is broke and she's the goddaughter of their boss. The Big Hit has action scenes aplenty (one of the stunt co-ordinators worked on Woo's The Killer and Bullet in the Head) and the same cornball sense of humour as other films in the Hong Kong action genre. Slick pacing and over-the-top humour made this movie a miss with the critics but a fun ride for fans of Hong Kong-styled action. --Shannon Gee

The Big Lebowski, a casually amusing follow-up from the prolifically inventive Coen brothers (Ethan and Joel), seems like a bit of a lark and the result was a box-office disappointment. It's lazy plot is part of its laidback charm. After all, how many movies can claim as their hero a pot-bellied, pot-smoking loser named Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) who spends most of his time bowling and getting stoned? And where else could you find a hair-netted Latino bowler named Jesus (John Turturro) who sports dazzling purple footgear, or an erotic artist (Julianne Moore) whose creativity consists of covering her naked body in paint, flying through the air in a leather harness, and splatting herself against a giant canvas? Who else but the Coens would think of showing you a camera view from inside the holes of a bowling ball, or an elaborate Busby Berkely-styled musical dream sequence involving a Viking goddess and giant bowling pins?

The plot--which finds Lebowski involved in a kidnapping scheme after he's mistaken for a rich guy with the same name--is almost beside the point. What counts here is a steady cascade of hilarious dialogue, great work from Coen regulars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, and the kind of cinematic ingenuity that puts the Coens in a class all their own. --Jeff Shannon

A brazen mixture of stand-up comedy, political commentary, CEO confrontations, and shenanigans with Random House tour escorts, Michael Moore's The Big One follows his Midwest book tour to promote Downsize This. One of his Milwaukee tour escorts explains that medium-sized cities in the Midwest tend not to attract tours by the self-important celebrities of the coasts; instead, they attract "more thoughtful authors like Michael". His kind of thoughtfulness evokes both laughter at, and disgust with, corporate America.

To be sure, there is a certain naiveté in Moore's pro-worker take on corporate and political America--his half-serious plan for a Nike shoe factory in Flint, Michigan, makes as much business sense as coal mining on Maui--but he gives voice to well-reasoned arguments that would otherwise have been lost amid Clinton-era corporate downsizing and reliance on "temporary" employees.

In cities such as Des Moines, Minneapolis, St Louis and Portland, The Big One juxtaposes both Moore's lighthearted-sounding but deeply biting humour when speaking before bookstore patrons, and painful-to-watch confrontations with security personnel at companies such as Procter & Gamble and PayDay. (Future targets of Moore's style of journalism could take note of Nike CEO Phil Knight's fairly effective approach as Moore calls him to task on Nike's Indonesian labour.) Moore speaks clandestinely with Borders employees organising a union; a woman laid off from Ford attends Moore's Rockford, Illinois bookstore visit the same day. Though slow in spots and frustrating, if not depressing, in others, this follow up to Roger and Me is intensely funny most of the time. --Erik Macki

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made screen history together more than once, but they were never more popular than in this 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, directed by Howard Hawks (To Have and Have Not). Bogart plays private eye Philip Marlowe, who is hired by a wealthy socialite (Bacall) to look into troubles stirred up by her wild, young sister (Martha Vickers). Legendarily complicated (so much so that even Chandler had trouble following the plot), the film is nonetheless hugely entertaining and atmospheric, an electrifying plunge into the exotica of detective fiction. William Faulkner wrote the screenplay. --Tom Keogh

Actor-director Kevin Allen's (TWIN TOWN) hilarious mockumentary stars Craig Ferguson (who co-wrote the film) as Scottish hairdressing "artiste" Crawford Mackenzie.