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Citizen Ruth is a modest film but it scores a bull’s-eye, without an ounce of preachiness or pretention. The casting is flawless, with supporting parts filled by Swoosie Kurtz, Kelly Preston, M. C. Gainey, Kenneth Mars, David Graf, Alicia Witt, Burt Reynolds, and Tippi Hedren, among others. But it’s Laura Dern’s unself-conscious, go-for-broke performance as Ruth—the unlikely poster girl for any issue—that seals the deal.

16. CONNIE AND CARLA

(2004)

Directed by Michael Lembeck

Screenplay by Nia Vardalos

Actors:

NIA VARDALOS

TONI COLLETTE

DAVID DUCHOVNY

STEPHEN SPINELLA

DASH MIHOK

ALEC MAPA

DEBBIE REYNOLDS

Every year or two a movie defies the odds and becomes a hit through the most timeworn form of advertising known to mankind: word of mouth. Every independent filmmaker dreams of a success to compare with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but not many have that movie’s wide-ranging appeal—or a distributor who’s willing to nurture it on a city-by-city, week-by-week basis. (It cost $5 million to make, and earned $200 million in its U.S. theatrical run, returning greater dividends to its investors than Spider-Man or any of 2002’s expensive blockbusters.)

So what do you do for an encore?

The writer and star of Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos, wisely offered her next screenplay to Tom Hanks, whose company had produced the first hit, and he and his wife, Rita Wilson, readily served as coexecutive producers of Connie and Carla. But this film was released by Universal, not a hungry independent firm, and the studio threw it into theaters to sink or swim. If it had enjoyed the tender loving care accorded Greek Wedding, I think it would have found a large and appreciative audience.

Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) are struggling lounge singers who work at a Chicago airport motel, belting out classic show tunes to a tiny, pathetic audience. When they accidentally witness a mob “hit,” they take it on the lam—just like Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot. In Los Angeles they stumble on to success through another, happier, accident—by pretending to be drag queens. Here they find their most devoted audience: gay men who love Broadway musicals. Their private life grows complicated when Connie falls in love with David Duchovny—who doesn’t know she’s really a woman.

Connie and Carla was savaged by many reviewers, although even Stephen Holden in the New York Times acknowledged, “She brings to the [movie] the same warmhearted ebullience and sense of people as one big, happy (if eccentric) family that lent My Big Fat Greek Wedding such mass appeal.”

This is clearly not a critic’s film, but it is a lot of fun to watch; if you love show tunes, you’ll certainly be happy. Vardalos and Collette throw themselves into their roles, holding nothing back. Director Michael Lembeck is a veteran of television comedy and films (and teaches a workshop founded by his father Harvey). The actresses couldn’t have placed themselves in better hands for a good-time farce that also has heart.

17. C.R.A.Z.Y.

(2005)

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée

Screenplay by François Boulay and Jean-Marc Vallée

Actors:

MICHEL CÔTÉ

MARC-ANDRÉ GRONDIN

DANIELLE PROULX

ÉMILE VALLÉE

PIERRE-LUC BRILLANT

MAXIME TREMBLAY

ALEX GRAVEL

JOHANNE LEBRUN

French-language films from Canada get little if any recognition here in the States, which seems to me a crime. A good film is a rare and precious thing and ought to be cherished—especially if it comes from a neighboring country.

C.R.A.Z.Y. is the saga of a dysfunctional family over twenty years’ time. It opens on a whimsically amusing note but grows more serious as the story progresses. Veteran French-Canadian actor Michel Côté stars as the blustery patriarch of a Catholic family that grows to have five sons…but when the fourth, Zac, is born on Christmas Day 1960, his wife is convinced that it’s a sign. Her eccentric ideas set Zac onto the road of life in oddball fashion, but it’s only later in life, when the boy realizes that he isn’t attracted to girls, that he begins to understand