By Armond White, NY Press

Fun Makes a Comeback
B-movies in the Xbox era.

Anybody who cares about movies should love this January. Contrary to perennial cliché, the past week premiered films more surprising and stimulating than December's bloated and unpalatable prestige flicks. Torque and Teacher's Pet slipped in under the fence, offering imagination and pleasure with relatively little hype and absolutely no pretense. Even the somber Iranian social critique Crimson Gold exemplifies filmmaking of unusual seriousness, complementing the real-life commitment in the re-released The Battle of Algiers.

P.J. Hogan's marvelous Peter Pan also figures in my January count, having missed it during the holiday rush. (Too bad critics who saw it neglected to bring the news; they'd shot their wads at The Return of the King and were too bleary-eyed to appreciate Hogan's superior uses of enchantment.) Torque and Teacher's Pet almost feel like palate-cleansers.