Movie Reviews

Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Romance» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/26/2008
Running Time: 165 mins
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown
Producer: Baz Luhrmann
Writer: 
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Genre:  Comedy»
Release Date: 11/26/2008
Running Time: 82 mins
Director: Seth Gordon
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Jon Favreau, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, Tim McGraw, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Voight and Sissy Spacek
Producer: Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman
Writer: Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas, Matt Allen and Scott Moore
Distributor: New Line Cinema

Genre:  Program»
Release Date: 11/22/2008
Running Time: 165 mins
Director: 
Cast: 
Producer: 
Writer: 
Distributor: 

Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 12/12/2008
Running Time: 128 mins
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, Kelvin Yu, Lucas Grabeel, Alison Pill, Victor Garber and Denis O'Hare
Producer: Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks and Michael London
Writer: Dustin Lance Black
Distributor: Focus Features

Genre:  Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/26/2008
Running Time: 100 mins
Director: Olivier Megaton
Cast: Jason Statham, Francois BerlĂ©and, Natalya Rudakova, Robert Knepper, Jeroen Krabbe, Alex Kobold, David Atrakchi, Yann Sundberg, Eriq Ebouaney and David Kammenos
Producer: Luc Besson and Steve Chasman
Writer: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Distributor: Lionsgate Films

Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity, Aleksandr Sokurov’s Alexandra is founded on contradiction. A meditation on war in general and the Russian occupation of Chechnya in particular, this is a movie in which combat is... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 3/26/2008
Running Time: 90 mins
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Cast: Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov, Raisa Gichaeva, Andrei Bogdanov, Alexander Kladko, Aleksei Nejmyshev, Rustam Shahgireev and Evgeni Tkachuk
Producer: Laurent Danielou
Writer: Aleksandr Sokurov
Distributor: The Cinema Guild

The scattershot America the Beautiful recapitulates vintage Beauty Myth trumpery: Beauty standards make us average frumps miserable and are the conspiratorial invention of a cabal of Madison Avenue execs working in concert with Patriarchal... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Documentary»
Release Date: 8/22/2008
Running Time: 105 mins
Director: Darryl Roberts
Cast: Ted Casablanca, Eve Ensler, Paris Hilton, Chris Keefe, Anthony Kiedis, Darryl Roberts, Jessica Simpson and Gerren Taylor
Producer: Dr. Henry Anderson
Writer: Darryl Roberts
Distributor: First Independent Pictures

Nanette Burstein, who made the entertaining Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture , spent a year hanging out with a handful of carefully chosen adolescents from the only high school in the small town of Warsaw, Indiana, orthopedic... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Documentary»
Release Date: 7/25/2008
Running Time: 101 mins
Director: Nanette Burstein
Cast: Hannah Bailey, Colin Clemens, Megan Krizmanich, Mitch Reinholt, Jake Tusing and Ali Wikalinska
Producer: Nanette Burstein, Jordan Roberts, Eli Gonda and Chris Huddleston
Writer: Nanette Burstein
Distributor: Paramount Vantage

Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and his sidekick Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) are the new marshal and deputy facing down a posse of bad guys in Appaloosa, New Mexico, circa 1882, in Harris's latest directorial effort. Appaloosa has the shifting... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Western» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 10/3/2008
Running Time: 108 mins
Director: Ed Harris
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, RenĂ©e Zellweger, Ed Harris, Jeremy Irons, Timothy Spall, Lance Henriksen, Luce Rains, Tom Bower, Girard Swan and Ariadna Gil
Producer: Ed Harris, Robert Knott and Ginger Sledge
Writer: Ed Harris and Robert Knott
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Undersized lapdogs make me grumpy even when they don’t talk, wear pink booties, and shop Rodeo Drive, so I came to Beverly Hills Chihuahua with poison pen at the ready—only to be won over by the exuberant charms of Raja Gosnell’s comedy, about a... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy»
Release Date: 10/3/2008
Running Time: 85 mins
Director: Raja Gosnell
Cast: Piper Perabo, Manolo Cardona, Eugenio Derbez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Andy Garcia, Plácido Domingo, George Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Paul Rodriguez and Cheech Marin
Producer: David Hoberman, John Jacobs and Todd Lieberman
Writer: Analisa Labianco and Jeff Bushell
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

A new kind of war movie for a new kind of war, Body of Lies is about the War on Terror as it is being waged on the ground, in the air, but most of all in cyberspace. Directed with terrific verve by Ridley Scott from a smart screenplay by William... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Drama»
Release Date: 10/10/2008
Running Time: 128 mins
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani, Oscar Isaac and Simon McBurney
Producer: Donald De Line and Ridley Scott
Writer: David Ignatius and William Monahan
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Like every other kids’ movie coming off the studio line these days, the charming and well-crafted animated feature Bolt , about a celebrity pooch (voice of John Travolta) from a TV action series who must learn how to be regular dog, carries two... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy» Animation» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/21/2008
Running Time: 96 mins
Director: Chris Williams and Byron Howard
Cast: John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, Diedrich Bader, Nick Swardson, Chloe Moretz, Greg Germann and Ronn Moss
Producer: Clark Spencer
Writer: Chris Sanders
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

Genre:  Comedy» Animation» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/15/2008
Running Time: 96 mins
Director: Chris Williams and Byron Howard
Cast: John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, Diedrich Bader, Nick Swardson, Chloe Moretz, Greg Germann and Ronn Moss
Producer: Clark Spencer
Writer: Chris Sanders
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

It's a great concept populated by great actors that works hard to make its audience feel great ! Only, sadly, Bottle Shock is far from a great movie—a little too sweet to the taste, almost sickly so. Both ham-fisted and half-assed, this... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy»
Release Date: 8/22/2008
Running Time: 110 mins
Director: Randall Miller
Cast: Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Rachael Taylor, Eliza Dushku, Freddy RodrĂ­guez, Bill Pullman, Bradley Whitford, Dennis Farina, Miguel Sandoval and Mark Famiglietti
Producer: J. Todd Harris
Writer: Randall Miller
Distributor: Freestyle Releasing

During World War II, a Nazi officer (David Thewlis) receives a promotion and moves his wife (Vera Farmiga), teenage daughter (Amber Beattie), and eight-year-old son, Bruno (Asa Butterfield), to a remote country house. Almost immediately, Bruno... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 11/21/2008
Running Time: 93 mins
Director: Mark Herman
Cast: Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Rupert Friend, Richard Johnson, Sheila Hancock, Jim Norton, David Heyman, Asa Butterfield, Cara Horgan and Amber Beattie
Producer: 
Writer: John Boyne and Mark Herman
Distributor: Miramax

A movie adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's tale of England collapsing under the pressure of social change—even one that has passed through the pop filter of co-writer Andrew Davies, British TV's designated gatekeeper of all properties literary to... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 8/8/2008
Running Time: 120 mins
Director: Julian Jarrold
Cast: Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Greta Scacchi, Hayley Atwell, Felicity Jones, Patrick Malahide, Joseph Beattie and Stephane Cornicard
Producer: Kevin Loader
Writer: Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock
Distributor: Miramax Films

Taking aim at the CIA as well as Washington-paranoia flicks in general, Joel and Ethan Coen's latest is as svelte as it is snarky. For openers, the camera descends from an Olympian altitude to the corridors of CIA headquarters in Langley,... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama» Comedy»
Release Date: 9/12/2008
Running Time: 97 mins
Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Cast: George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins and Lenny Venito
Producer: Tim Bevan, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen and Eric Fellner
Writer: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Distributor: Focus Features

Somebody’s got to pick up where Bono left off, right? A Bay Area musician and Live Aid baby, Justin Dillon recently discovered human trafficking, then decided to make a movie about it. Performance excerpts from the “Concert to End Slavery” (sure... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Documentary»
Release Date: 8/22/2008
Running Time: 0 mins
Director: Justin Dillon
Cast: Julia Ormond, Cornel West, Ashley Judd, Darryl Hannah and Natasha Bedingfield
Producer: Justin Dillon
Writer: 
Distributor: Fair Trade Pictures

Rescued from a City Hall junk heap by journalist-turned-screenwriter J. Michael Straczinski, this 1928 true tale of a missing child’s mother who became a pawn and then a target of the most corrupt police department in Los Angeles history mines... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller»
Release Date: 10/31/2008
Running Time: 140 mins
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore, Amy Ryan and Michael Kelly
Producer: Clint Eastwood, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Distributor: Universal Pictures

If Andrew Adamson’s battle-heavy sequel to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe falls to Indy 4 at the box office, it won’t be for want of trying to out-he-man the competition. Adamson has retooled the old-fashioned,... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  SciFi/Fantasy» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 5/16/2008
Running Time: 140 mins
Director: Andrew Adamson
Cast: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Ben Barnes, Peter Dinklage, Pierfrancesco Favino, Sergio Castellitto, Liam Neeson and Eddie Izzard
Producer: Mark Johnson, Andrew Adamson and Philip Steuer
Writer: Andrew Adamson, C.S. Lewis, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

The struggle at the center of City of Ember , another treat from the maker of Monster House , is one for the good of all mankind. But what were the denizens of this world running from when they first trekked underground? Two hundred years after... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  SciFi/Fantasy» Family» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 10/10/2008
Running Time: 95 mins
Director: Gil Kenan
Cast: Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Saoirse Ronan, Martin Landau, Mackenzie Crook, Toby Jones, Mary Kay Place, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Harry Treadaway and Liz Smith
Producer: Tom Hanks
Writer: Caroline Thompson and Jeanne Duprau
Distributor: Fox Walden

What a brooding pleasure it is to return to Christopher Nolan's Gotham City—if "pleasure" is the right word for a movie that gazes so deeply and sometimes despairingly into the souls of restless men. In The Dark Knight , the continuation of... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 7/18/2008
Running Time: 150 mins
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Nestor Carbonell, Nathan Gamble and Anthony Michael Hall
Producer: Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven and Emma Thomas
Writer: Bob Kane, Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre:  Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 7/18/2008
Running Time: 150 mins
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Nestor Carbonell, Nathan Gamble and Anthony Michael Hall
Producer: Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven and Emma Thomas
Writer: Bob Kane and Christopher Nolan
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

It's not that 1975's Roger Corman–produced Death Race 2000 was so precious a grindhouse treasure that a remake seems offensive—but by running over the blunt social commentary on audience bloodlust in dire economic times, the newly... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» SciFi/Fantasy» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 8/22/2008
Running Time: 89 mins
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast: Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Natalie Martinez, Ian McShane, Joan Allen, Robin Shou, Jacob Vargas, Robert LaSardo, Max Ryan and Frederick Koehler
Producer: Jeremy Bolt, Paul W.S. Anderson, Paula Wagner, Roger Corman and Tom Cruise
Writer: Charles Griffith, Ib Melchior, Paul W.S. Anderson and Robert Thom
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre:  Documentary»
Release Date: 3/1/2007
Running Time: 40 mins
Director: Marc Fafard
Cast: Rodolfo Coria and Donald Sutherland
Producer: Carl Samson
Writer: Marc Fafard
Distributor: Sky High Entertainment

Genre:  Action/Adventure» Documentary»
Release Date: 3/30/2007
Running Time: 40 mins
Director: David Clark and Bayley Silleck
Cast: Michael Douglas, Roy Chapman Andrews, Mike Novacek and Mark Norell
Producer: David Clark
Writer: Bayley Silleck and David Clark
Distributor: Giant Screen Films

Carefully established as womanizing wolves trolling Miami, male nurse Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) and photographer Kunal (John Abraham) soon find themselves playing gay in order to snag sub-lets in the beachfront condo owned by Neha (Priyanka... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Romance» Comedy»
Release Date: 11/14/2008
Running Time: 141 mins
Director: Tarun Mansukhani
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra, Shilpa Shetty, Bobby Deol, Chris aka Trash Bright, Kiron Kher, Victoria Roman, Everlayn Borges and Monika Gaba
Producer: Hiroo Yash Johar and Karan Johar
Writer: Tarun Mansukhani
Distributor: Yash Raj Films

Based on Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, Saul Dibb's costume drama tells how Princess Diana's 18th-century ancestor (played here by Keira Knightley)—a naive ingénue married off in her teens... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 10/10/2008
Running Time: 105 mins
Director: Saul Dibb
Cast: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling, Dominic Cooper, Hayley Atwell, Simon McBurney, Aidan McArdle, Angus McEwan, Richard McCabe and Mercy Fiennes Tiffin
Producer: Michael Kuhn and Gabrielle Tana
Writer: Jeffery Hatcher
Distributor: Paramount Vantage

Director D.J. Caruso fancies himself a hipster Hitchcock, with Shia LaBeouf as his snarky Jimmy Stewart. Last year, the duo remade Rear Window and called it Disturbia ; this week, they return with their North by Northwest/The Man Who Knew Too... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 9/26/2008
Running Time: 118 mins
Director: D.J. Caruso
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis, Anthony Mackie and Billy Bob Thornton
Producer: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Patrick Crowley
Writer: Dan McDermott, Hillary Seitz, John Glenn and Travis Wright
Distributor: Paramount Studios

While some may snicker at “graphic novel” as a term for comic books that take themselves too seriously, the French analogue—bande dessinée (or “drawn strip”)—denotes a medium sophisticated enough to be hailed the ninth art. Embracing the cult... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Animation»
Release Date: 10/22/2008
Running Time: 82 mins
Director: Blutch, Marie Calliou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Jerry Kramski, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire
Cast: Aure Atika, Guillaume Depardieu and Nicole Garcia
Producer: Christophe Jankovic and ValĂ©rie Schermann
Writer: Blutch and Charles Burns
Distributor: IFC

When Capt. Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron) decides to divorce his Sarah Palin–type wife, his bros at the firehouse come to his rescue with words of wisdom swiped from the Hallmark section at Rite Aid: "You never leave your partner—especially during a... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 9/26/2008
Running Time: 122 mins
Director: Alex Kendrick
Cast: Kirk Cameron, Erin Bethea, Ken Bevel, Harris Malcom, Phyllis Malcom, Stephen Dervan, Eric Young, Jason McLeod, Renata Williams and Dwan Williams
Producer: Stephen Kendrick, Alex Kendrick and David Nixon
Writer: Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick
Distributor: Sherwood Pictures

The 3D adventure Fly Me to the Moon imagines an alternate history in which three adolescent houseflies stow away aboard Apollo 11 , unintentionally thwarting the underdramatized space ambitions of a thuggish conglomerate of Russian flies.... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Family» Animation»
Release Date: 8/15/2008
Running Time: 90 mins
Director: Ben Stassen
Cast: Kelly Ripa, Christopher Lloyd, Nicollette Sheridan, Tim Curry, Ed Begley Jr., Adrienne Barbeau, Robert Patrick, Trevor Gagnon, Philip Daniel Bolden and David Gore
Producer: Caroline Van Iseghem, Gina Gallo, Mimi Maynard and Charlotte Clay Huggins
Writer: Domonic Paris
Distributor: Summit Entertainment

As old Broadway shows are revived, new Broadway shows get spun from old movies so that new movies may be fashioned from ancient TV series. It's an iron law of the culture industry that turns out to be a pleasant surprise in the case of Get Smart... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 6/20/2008
Running Time: 110 mins
Director: Peter Segal
Cast: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Terry Crews, David Koechner, James Caan, Masi Oka and Nate Torrence
Producer: Andrew Lazar, Chuck Roven and Alex Gartner
Writer: Matt Ember and Tom J. Astle
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre:  Suspense/Thriller»
Release Date: 8/15/2008
Running Time: 114 mins
Director: Claude Chabrol
Cast: Ludivine Sagnier, BenoĂ®t Magimel, François BerlĂ©and, Mathilda May, Caroline Sihol, Marie Bunel, Valeria Cavalli, Etienne Chicot, Thomas Chabrol and Jean-Marie Winling
Producer: Patrick Godeau
Writer: CĂ©cile Maistre and Claude Chabrol
Distributor: IFC First Take

Genre:  Documentary»
Release Date: 3/14/2008
Running Time: 44 mins
Director: Greg MacGillivray
Cast: Shana Watahomigie, Wade Davis, Nikki Kelly and Robert Redford
Producer: Mark Krenzien, Greg MacGillivray and Shaun Macgillivray
Writer: Jack Stephens and Stephen Judson
Distributor: MacGillivray Freeman Films

As the indestructible title character, Will Smith is a Man of Steel who'd rather melt into a puddle of cheap booze. He's cruel to children, criminal toward criminals, and a menace to Los Angeles. Smith, clad in tatters and covered in grime, plays... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 7/2/2008
Running Time: 92 mins
Director: Peter Berg
Cast: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Adam Del Rio and Jameson Dixon Jr.
Producer: Louis D'Esposito
Writer: Vince Gilligan and Vincent Ngo
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

What a bunch of nonsense—effective nonsense, chilling nonsense, occasionally wrenching nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. This is what happens when M. Night Shyamalan tries to play both John Carpenter (bloody) and Stanley Kubrick (cold-blooded)... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  SciFi/Fantasy» Drama»
Release Date: 6/13/2008
Running Time: 91 mins
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Bailey Jr., Spencer Breslin, Betty Buckley, Lyman Chen, Rich Chew, Victoria Clark, Frank Collison and StĂ©phane Debac
Producer: Barry Mendel, Sam Mercer and M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

After extended cameos in two previous Mike Leigh films (as a resourceful pop tart in All or Nothing and the date-raped rich girl in Vera Drake), fine-boned Sally Hawkins shoulders the burden of every scene as the most relentlessly upbeat... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 10/24/2008
Running Time: 118 mins
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough, Sinead Matthews, Kate O'Flynn, Sarah Niles, Eddie Marsan, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Elliot Cowan and Nonso Anozie
Producer: Simon Channing-Williams
Writer: Mike Leigh
Distributor: Miramax Films

From Freestyle Releasing, the self-service distributor that brought you D-War and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale , comes a movie even worse than those two combined. It really makes things tough on those of us who try our... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Drama»
Release Date: 10/31/2008
Running Time: 86 mins
Director: Mickey Liddell
Cast: Chace Crawford, Haley Bennett, Shannon Marie Woodward, Shanna Collins, AnnaLynne McCord, Marin Hinkle, Nina Siemaszko, Josh Stewart, Randy Wayne and John Newton
Producer: Jennifer Hilton and Jerry P. Jacobs
Writer: John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine
Distributor: Freestyle Releasing

In the post– Pulp Fiction '90s, one could throw a rock at random and hit a two-bit Quentin Tarantino knock-off—all chatty gangsters with showy monikers doing the slo-mo "let's go to work" swagger. Now, with this hyper-sexualized,... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Drama» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 8/8/2008
Running Time: 83 mins
Director: Larry Bishop
Cast: Larry Bishop, Dennis Hopper, Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, Eric Balfour, Kanin J. Howell, Michael Beach, Cassandra Hepburn, Leonor Varela and Laura Cayouette
Producer: Larry Bishop, Michael Steinberg and Shana Stein
Writer: Larry Bishop
Distributor: Dimension Films

Hollywood's Endless Superhero Summer rolls on with the arrival of Hellboy II: The Golden Army , from Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro. For the uninitiated: Hellboy (Ron Perlman), or "Red," as his friends call him, is a demon from... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 7/11/2008
Running Time: 110 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Jeffrey Tambor, David Hyde Pierce, Ladislav Beran, John Alexander and John Hurt
Producer: Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin and Mike Richardson
Writer: Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Henry Poole is dying. Diagnosed with an unspecified fatal disease, Poole (Luke Wilson) retreats into the numbing sunniness of suburban Los Angeles, buying a cruddy house and waiting until his daily diet of doughnuts and liquor eventually does him... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama» Comedy»
Release Date: 8/29/2008
Running Time: 100 mins
Director: Mark Pellington
Cast: Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza, George Lopez, Cheryl Hines, Rachel Seiferth, Morgan Lily and Stephanie Mace
Producer: Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg, Richard S. Wright, Gary Gilbert and Tom Lassally
Writer: Albert Torres
Distributor: Overture Fillms

My child made me promise I wouldn’t come on all ’60s-righteous about this one, and Lord knows how I’ve tried to focus on the potential of Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, and all the other vanilla muffins making their leap from small to big screen. But... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Musical»
Release Date: 10/24/2008
Running Time: 100 mins
Director: Kenny Ortega
Cast: Zac Efron, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Olesya Rulin, Chris Warren Jr., Ryne Sanborn, Kaycee Stroh and Bart Johnson
Producer: Bill Borden
Writer: Peter Barsocchini
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

Genre:  Musical»
Release Date: 11/7/2008
Running Time: 112 mins
Director: Kenny Ortega
Cast: Zac Efron, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleul, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Olesya Rulin, Chris Warren Jr., Ryne Sanborn and KayCee Stroh
Producer: Bill Borden
Writer: Peter Barsocchini
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

A few months ago, Lionsgate issued a trailer for Saw V that tried to fake out viewers into thinking they were watching an ad for a Christian film. (Sample ad copy: "His gift is life.") House is sorta like that, but in reverse; neither a reboot... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Horror» Drama»
Release Date: 11/7/2008
Running Time: 101 mins
Director: Robby Henson
Cast: Michael Madsen, Allana Bale, J.P. Davis, Reynaldo Rosales, Bill Moseley, Leslie Easterbrook, Julie Ann Emery, Heidi Dippold, Pawel Delag and Weronika Rosati
Producer: Joe Goodman, Bobby Neutz, Michael Webber and Ralph Winter
Writer: Rob Green and Ted Dekker
Distributor: Roadside Attractions

Anyone who saw her light up the edges of Lost in Translation and Just Friends , or steal the entire show in Gregg Araki's Smiley Face , knows by now that Anna Faris has been shaping up as the most inventive screen comedienne of her generation.... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy»
Release Date: 8/22/2008
Running Time: 98 mins
Director: Fred Wolf
Cast: Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Colin Hanks, Beverly D'Angelo, Rumer Willis, Rachel Specter, Monet Mazur, Katie Lohmann and Katharine McPhee
Producer: Allen Covert and Heather Parry
Writer: Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith
Distributor: Sony Pictures/Columbia

As Juliette, a Frenchwoman newly released from prison, Kristin Scott Thomas is so relentless unbending, so full of necessary enigma that she almost had me believing Philippe Claudel’s domestic drama had something brave to say about mothers who... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 10/24/2008
Running Time: 115 mins
Director: Philippe Claudel
Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent GrĂ©vill, FrĂ©dĂ©ric Pierrot, Claire Johnston, Catherine Hosmalin, Jean-Claude Arnaud, Olivier Cruveiller and Lise SĂ©gur
Producer: Yves Marmion
Writer: Philippe Claudel
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Turns out Ang Lee and James Schamus, who tamed the Hulk into submission with a dreary, hulking take on Dr. Bruce Banner's rather unjolly green giant in 2003, couldn't keep a good monster down. Say this much for lowered expectations, then: The... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  SciFi/Fantasy» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 6/13/2008
Running Time: 114 mins
Director: Louis Leterrier
Cast: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell and William Hurt
Producer: Avi Arad, Gale Anne Hurd and Kevin Feige
Writer: Edward Norton, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Zak Penn
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Nothing if not a product of his moment, Tony Stark, the billionaire weapons-designer-cum-rocket-powered-superhero better known as Iron Man, first appeared in March 1963, just in time to fight the encroaching Red Menace in Southeast Asia. In the... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  SciFi/Fantasy» Drama» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 5/2/2008
Running Time: 126 mins
Director: Jon Favreau
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, Hilary Swank, Leslie Bibb, Stan Lee, Shaun Toub and Bill Smitrovich
Producer: Avi Arad
Writer: Arthur Marcum, Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Matthew Hollaway and Stan Lee
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

JCVD wastes little time working itself into a pretzel. The action begins under the credits with Jean-Claude Van Damme working his way through a crazy urban battlefield accompanied by a Curtis Mayfield blaxploitation ballad. As funny as anything... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/7/2008
Running Time: 92 mins
Director: Mabrouk El Mechri
Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, François Damiens, Zinedine Soualem, Karim Belkhadra, Jean-François Wolff, Anne Paulicevich, François Beukelaers, John Flanders, Saskia Flanders and Dean Gregory
Producer: Sidonie Dumas
Writer: Christophe Turpin and FrĂ©dĂ©ric BĂ©nudis
Distributor: Peach Arch Entertainment

Let’s be clear about one thing: Journey to the Center of the Earth is more a demo reel than a narrative feature. It’s a decent, if overly familiar and yawningly obvious compendium of look-at- me moments intended to show off the latest and... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  SciFi/Fantasy» Family» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 7/11/2008
Running Time: 92 mins
Director: Eric Brevig
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem
Producer: Charlotte Huggins and Beau Flynn
Writer: D.V. DeVincentis and Paul Chart
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Unimpeachably proto-feminist and racially inclusive, this tween drama, based on several American Girl books about a cub reporter in Depression-era Cincinnati, is a trial balloon sent up to test the ether for extending the lucrative doll franchise... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama» Comedy»
Release Date: 7/2/2008
Running Time: 91 mins
Director: Patricia Rozema
Cast: Abigail Breslin, Joan Cusack, Glenne Headly, Jane Krakowski, Chris O'Donnell, Julia Ormond, Wallace Shawn and Stanley Tucci
Producer: Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Ellen L. Brothers and Lisa Gillan
Writer: Ann Peacock and Valerie Tripp
Distributor: Picturehouse

By all means, gather up the little ones and take them to this perfectly pleasant, very good-looking, modestly funny, dispiritingly unoriginal variant on the nerd-with-a-dream recipe that's been clobbered to death in animated films for at least a... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Family» Animation» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 6/6/2008
Running Time: 91 mins
Director: Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
Cast: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim and James Hong
Producer: Melissa Cobb
Writer: Cyrus Voris, Dan Harmon, Ethan Reiff and Rob Schrab
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Set in the titular suburb of Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley (where Rodney King was assaulted by police in 1991), this potboiler about an African-American cop (Samuel L. Jackson) wreaking havoc on the lives of the newlywed interracial couple... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Drama»
Release Date: 9/19/2008
Running Time: 110 mins
Director: Neil LaBute
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, Kerry Washington, Regine Nehy, Jaishon Fisher, Jay Hernandez, Keith Loneker, Robert Dahey, Ho-Jung and Mel Rodriguez
Producer: John Cameron
Writer: David Loughery and Howard Korder
Distributor: Sony Pictures/Screen Gems

Catherine Breillat hitches her wagon to the hottest of European stars, Asia Argento, in a highly entertaining adaptation of Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's mid-19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse —once notorious... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 6/27/2008
Running Time: 109 mins
Director: Catherine Breillat
Cast: Asia Argento, Fu'ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute, Yolande Moreau, Michael Lonsdale, Anne Parillaud, Jean-Philippe Tesse, Sarah Pratt and Amira Casar
Producer: Jean-François Lepetit
Writer: Jules-AmĂ©dĂ©e Barbey d'Aurevilly
Distributor: IFC Films

Mike Myers likes ice hockey. He also likes Deepak Chopra—a little bit too much. So he pulled together a bit of hockey and a whole lot of Chopra and called it a plot. Building a movie around the efforts of an also-ran celebrity guru to sort out the... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Comedy»
Release Date: 6/20/2008
Running Time: 88 mins
Director: Marco Schnabel
Cast: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Omid Djalili and Ben Kingsley
Producer: Mike Myers and Michael De Luca
Writer: Graham Gordy and Mike Myers
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

The five-year-old didn’t laugh as much as his 40-year-old father, which, granted, isn’t the basis upon which to conclude too much. Then again, most of the adults at a Saturday-morning sneak preview of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa were clearly... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Family» Animation» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/7/2008
Running Time: 89 mins
Director: Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath
Cast: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric The Entertainer, Andy Richter, Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin and Will.i.am
Producer: Mireille Soria and Mark Swift
Writer: 
Distributor: Paramount Studios

Genre:  Family» Animation» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/7/2008
Running Time: 89 mins
Director: Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath
Cast: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric The Entertainer, Andy Richter, Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin and Will.i.am
Producer: Mireille Soria and Mark Swift
Writer: 
Distributor: Paramount Studios

Sure, it's nice that the actors sing their own numbers—Meryl Streep has a fab set of pipes, and the fact that Pierce Brosnan sings like a bullfrog in heat is used to adorable effect. But without the originals' multiply dubbed wall of sound,... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Romance» Musical» Comedy»
Release Date: 7/18/2008
Running Time: 108 mins
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan SkarsgĂĄrd, Julie Walters, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried and Christine Baranski
Producer: Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman
Writer: Catherine Johnson
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Part caper movie, part real-life superhero saga, and entirely engrossing, James Marsh's documentary recounts in Rififi -like detail how a Parisian street performer and wire walker named Philippe Petit dodged cops, fought the elements, and defied... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Documentary»
Release Date: 8/15/2008
Running Time: 90 mins
Director: James Marsh
Cast: Ardis Campbell, David Demato, David Roland Frank, Aaron Haskell, Paul McGill, Jim Moore, Philippe Petit, Alan Welner, Jean François Heckel and Barry Greenhouse
Producer: Simon Chinn
Writer: 
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures

If Oscars were handed out for fake snow, director John Moore’s bleary, dreary, sub– Sin City big-screen video game would clean up like Ben-Hur : by the 50th exterior shot strewn with fistfuls of art-directed dandruff, a viewer stuck in this... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Drama» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 10/17/2008
Running Time: 100 mins
Director: John Moore
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Chris O'Donnell, Donal Logue, Amaury Nolasco, Kate Burton, Olga Kurylenko and Rothaford Gray
Producer: Scott Faye
Writer: Sam Lake and Thomas H. Fenton
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Often kidded for the many times he bellows "Dammit!" at eleventh-hour moments on 24 , Kiefer Sutherland finally gets to show his range—and he proves equally skilled at "Goddammit!" and "Shit!" Even so, it's a mystery why Sutherland attached... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Horror»
Release Date: 8/15/2008
Running Time: 110 mins
Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Ezra Buzzington, Erica Gluck, Amy Smart, Cameron Boyce, Mary Beth Peil, Tim Ahern, Julian Glover and Ioana Abur
Producer: Alexandre Aja, GrĂ©gory Levasseur, Alexandra Milchan, Marc Sternberg and Moritz von der Groebe
Writer: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Jim Uhls, Joe Gangemi, Kieran Mulroney and Michele Mulroney
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

You want a history lesson? Take a class. You want clanging swords, sneering villains, storybook romance, and bloody vengeance? Here's a brawny old-school epic to make the CGI tumult of 300 , Alexander , and Troy look like sissy-boy slap... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 6/20/2008
Running Time: 120 mins
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Channing Tatum, Khulan Chuluun, Amadu Mamadakov, Odnyam Odsuren and Amarbold Tuvshinbayar
Producer: Sergei Bodrov, Bulat Galimgereyev, Philip Lee, Anton Melnik and Sergei Selyanov
Writer: Arif Aliyev and Sergei Bodrov
Distributor: Picturehouse

If Stephen Sommers's 1999 remake of The Mummy didn't achieve its obvious goal of topping Raiders of the Lost Ark , it was close enough for this then-13-year-old boy. Endless chases, funny quips, breathless pacing—good movie. One sequel... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama» Comedy» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 8/1/2008
Running Time: 114 mins
Director: Rob Cohen
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham, Luke Ford, Isabella Leong and Michelle Yeoh
Producer: Bob Ducsay, Sean Daniel and Stephen Sommers
Writer: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Befitting a Dane Cook vehicle, My Best Friend's Girl is relentlessly crass, which shouldn't bother anyone under 30 familiar with Cook's punch lines: He uses "cunt" as often as Henny Youngman punned. Tank (Cook) turns a profit meeting cute with... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 9/19/2008
Running Time: 101 mins
Director: Howard Deutch
Cast: Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Alec Baldwin, Jason Biggs and Lizzy Caplan
Producer: Greg Lessans, Adam Herz, Josh Shader, Guymon Casady, Doug Johnson and Barry Katz
Writer: Jordan Cahan
Distributor: Lionsgate

Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 1/1/1988
Running Time: 87 mins
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: 
Producer: 
Writer: 
Distributor: 

Genre:  Comedy»
Release Date: 10/3/2008
Running Time: 90 mins
Director: Peter Sollett
Cast: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Alexis Dziena, Ari Graynor, Aaron Yoo and Jay Baruchel
Producer: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz, Andrew Miano and Andrew Miano
Writer: David Levithan, Lorene Scafaria and Rachel Cohn
Distributor: Sony Pictures/Screen Gems

Modeled heavily on Sex and the City (problem #1) and set in West Hollywood (problem #2), the canceled Noah’s Arc cable series followed the same-gender-loving Negro lives and loves of twentysomething struggling screenwriter Noah and his three... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 10/24/2008
Running Time: 101 mins
Director: Patrik-Ian Polk
Cast: Darryl Stephens, Gary LeRoi Gray, Tonya Pinkins, Christian Vincent, Douglas Spearman, Gregory Kieth, Jason Steed, Jonathan Julian, Rodney Chester and Jennia Fredrique
Producer: Suzanne L. Berger
Writer: John R. Gordon and Patrik-Ian Polk
Distributor: Logo Features

It offers precisely what it advertises: a roll-'em-up, smoke-'em-up, blow-'em-up bromantic comedy from the freaks and geeks who have made Judd Apatow's brand of stunted-man yuks a global franchise. Process server Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) scores... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Drama»
Release Date: 8/6/2008
Running Time: 105 mins
Director: David Gordon Green
Cast: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Danny R. McBride, Amber Heard, Bill Hader and James Remar
Producer: Seth Rogan
Writer: Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen
Distributor: Sony/Columbia

Ed Norton is Ray Tierney, a good cop whose scar on his left cheek suggests deeper damage caused by a shooting two years ago that’s left him working the missing persons' beat. The chief of Manhattan detectives, who happens to be Ray’s pop, Francis... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Family» Drama»
Release Date: 10/24/2008
Running Time: 125 mins
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Cast: Ed Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich, Jennifer Ehle, Lake Bell, Frank Grillo, Shea Whigham, John Ortiz and Manny Perez
Producer: Gregory O'Connor
Writer: Gavin O'Connor, Gregory O'Connor, Joe Carnahan and Robert A. Hopes
Distributor: New Line Cinema

Daniel Craig’s second outing as James Bond is as frustrating, sloppy and brusque as its predecessor was engaging, sleek and unhurried. At 106 minutes, it’s the shortest of the Bond films, but it feels like one of the longest as it bounces hither... Read the Mini-Review
Genre:  Suspense/Thriller» Drama» Action/Adventure»
Release Date: 11/14/2008
Running Time: 106 mins
Director: Marc Forster
Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Jesper Christensen and Anatole Taubman
Producer: Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
Writer: Ian Fleming, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Tom Stoppard
Distributor: Sony/MGM