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Capsule reviews by Andy Klein (AK), Paul Birchall (PB), Annlee Ellingson (AE), Mark Keizer (MK), Wade Major (WM), Amy Nicholson (AN), Brent Simon (BS), Joshua Sindell (JS), and others as noted.

Across the Universe. A quasi-musical constructed around more than 30 Beatles songs, the film is a love story set against the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s, from England and heartland America to the creative psychedelia of Greenwich Village and killing fields of Vietnam. Liverpool dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) comes to the States, where, surrounded by various artistic types, he falls in fast with ebullient college dropout Max (Joe Anderson), and then falls for Max’s younger sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). As directed by Julie Taymor (Frida, and Broadway’s smash hit adaptation of The Lion King), Across the Universe is powered by a very powerful aesthetic sensibility. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie) knows a thing or two about whimsicality, and pulls out all the stops here, resulting in a beguiling visual experience. But if the movie has some fun cameos (Bono as a mutton-chopped, Neal Cassady-type preacher, outdone in camp theatricality only by Eddie Izzard’s Mad Hatter-esque Mr. Kite) and conjures a few sporadic moments of depth-charged feeling (“Revolution” is recast as a roiling, clench-jawed lovers’ spat), it also never gels into anything more than the sum of its art-project parts. (BS)

Alvin and the Chipmunks. See Latest Reviews.

The Amateurs. Michael Traeger’s precious comedy about a town with a population in the triple digits that decides to shoot a triple-X flick is more contrived than a horny housewife, with characters less developed than Jenna Jameson (and her saline doesn’t count). Mastermind and irritatingly loquacious narrator Andy (Jeff Bridges) wrangles a bar full of oddballs to write, cast, and film their can’t-fail moneymaker: There’s dopey Barney (Tim Blake Nelson), dopier Some Idiot (Joe Pantoliano), cocky Otis (William Fichtner), closeted Moose (Ted Danson in full-Travolta camp mode), and film-student/video store clerk Emmett (Patrick Fugit). Traeger relies on cheeky charm over plot and conflict; the only burst of creativity is the number of euphemisms Traeger has for pussy (“fruit cup” was my favorite). (AN)

American Gangster. In the early 1970s, no New York organized crime figure was more powerful – or more anonymous – than Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), and no lawman was more determined to bring him down than New Jersey detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe). It’s these dueling trajectories that form the backbone of Ridley Scott’s very impressive new crime epic, scripted by Steve Zaillian from a New York magazine article by Mark Jacobson. Though hardly original – the film often feels like a piecemeal fusion of elements from Scarface, Goodfellas, and Serpico – it hits its mark more often than not, largely riding on the strength of its two exceptional stars. It takes almost two hours for Crowe and Washington to actually meet, but this never detracts from the tension – both are so engaging, that the alternating stories work like pistons, firing independently while giving accelerating energy to each other, pumping the story toward its compelling conclusion. (WM)

Atonement. In the days leading up to World War II, a precocious, upper-class 13-year-old; (Saoirse Ronan), jealous and confused, tells a horrific lie that puts the secret lover (James McAvoy) of her sister (Keira Knightley) into prison. Five years later, the girl (now played by Romola Garai) has realized the enormity of her act and hopes somehow to compensate for the misery she has caused. Director Joe Wright’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel employs shifting p.o.v.s and time disjunctures that at first are a little confusing. But halfway through, it turns into a more conventional tearjerker … with every stock war-romance cliché and a syrupy romantic score. If you’re looking for a weepy romance – albeit one with an aggressively bittersweet ending – Wright delivers adequately. The whole affair is handsomely mounted, and McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland, Starter for 10, Becoming Jane) gives another fine performance. Fans of long takes should be on the lookout for the five-minute tracking shot about halfway in: It’s unquestionably impressive, though it’s not clear just what narrative purpose the sequence serves. (AK)

August Rush. A less-than-daring escape from an upstate New York orphanage segues into a less-than-enthralling odyssey in the big city for an eccentric young boy (Freddie Highmore), who believes he can locate the parents he never knew by simply following the musical sounds of nature. But when a postmodern Fagin known as Wizard (Robin Williams) adopts the boy into his clan of urchins, an extraordinary musical prodigy is revealed. Intercut this irritating twaddle with the past and present story of the boy’s parents – a classical cellist (Keri Russell) and an Irish rock ’n’ roller (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who conceive the boy during a magical one-night-stand 11 years earlier – and the stage is set for a modern-day fairy tale so mawkish that it makes Oliver! feel like The Grapes of Wrath. It’s easy to see the key ideas that probably made this film look promising in the concept stage. Unfortunately, a flat, cliché-riddled screenplay and Kirsten Sheridan’s visually ham-fisted direction make the whole dismal affair more exhausting than exhilarating. (WM)

Awake. Joby Harold wrote and directed this thriller built around the real phenomenon of “anesthetic awareness,” in which a patient is fully conscious but physically paralyzed during surgery. The cast includes Jessica Alba, Hayden Christensen, Terrence Howard, Lena Olin, and Fisher Stevens. (AK)

Badland. Since his dishonorable discharge three months ago, Iraq War vet Jerry (Jamie Draven), his wife (Vinessa Shaw), and their three children have been so poor they’re living in a junkyard and rationing toilet paper. Writer-director Francesco Lucente’s 160-minute melodrama spends a lot of time establishing their domestic misery, because what the laconic Jerry does next is so ripped-from-the-headlines heinous that the already broken soldier has to flee town with his tremulous daughter (Grace Fulton). An American tragedy conceived of by a French-Canadian and starring a Brit whose accent wavers from Brooklyn tough to Georgia peach, Badland struggles for credible emotional traction, miring itself in tears, expletives, and flutes. When Jerry’s anxious, he paces for a full minute, just to make sure we understand that (as a newsman says) “some returning vets find themselves unable to cope.” Naturally, Jerry’s second chance at a white-picket-fence life goes awry, after which he and he new best buddy Max (Joe Morton), an ex-soldier on the right side of the law, trade nihilistic, wet-eyed speeches on why they ever even went to Iraq and who’s really to blame for their tears. (AN)

Bee Movie. A young bee (Jerry Seinfeld), fresh out of honey-making school, breaks away from the hive, meets a human florist (Renée Zellweger), and then decides to sue the entire human race – particularly corporations like “Honiburton” and “Hunron” – for centuries of honey-stealing Dreamworks’ usual M.O. of subverting kids’ flicks with adult cynicism is pushed to the limit here, risking confusion for the matinee crowd, with jocular deaths and even a stretch of courtroom drama that includes John Goodman as a slick prosecutor and Oprah Winfrey presiding as judge. But, excepting a forgettable emergency plane-landing climax that could have starred anyone from Shrek to Jim Carrey, what distinguishes this better-than-half-decent comedy is its detailed insight into the bee brain, where tennis balls get mistaken for flowers and mankind is a bully, but stinging back is suicide. (AN)

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Businessman Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), strapped for cash, entices reasonably honest, but equally strapped, little brother Hank (Ethan Hawke), into pulling off a surefire heist. It goes without saying that the robbery proves a disaster, people get killed, and the tensions between the brothers begin to boil over. In the manner of both traditional heist films and Greek tragedies, every attempt Hank and Andy make to extricate themselves only makes things worse. Sidney Lumet’s 50-year career has been wildly uneven, with titles like The Pawnbroker and Dog Day Afternoon intermingled with such mediocrities as Lovin’ Molly and the laughable A Stranger Among Us. His new film is his best in at least two decades with some first-rate surprises and a bundle of good performances. Two caveats: One of the best surprises is revealed in the trailers, so try to avoid them (or overly gabby reviewers). Secondly, the film opens with an utterly gratuitous shot of Hoffman’s naked butt, as he does MarisaTomei doggie-style. So you might want to arrive about a minute late. (AK)

Bella. Having killed a small girl in a hit-and-run accident, soccer star Jose (Eduardo Verastegui) loses his $2.2 million career and ends up working as a cook at the restaurant of his brother (Manny Perez). But then he finds his true calling: playing Jesus – complete with a bearish beard – to whiny pregnant waitress Nina (Tammy Blanchard). Nina wants to abort; Jose wants to distract her with a trip to the beach. Pardon the upcoming spoiler, but director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde’s pro-life heart-warmer wants us to swallow the idea that the best solution for Jose’s guilt and Nina’s maternal apathy is for her to give him her child, even though he’s a near-stranger. In an epilogue, he dresses the child in the same pigtails as the girl he killed, as though he’s garnishing his blue-plate baby special. Corn smothered in queso, this preposterous, sentimental hokum sticks in your throat. (AN)

Beowulf. In sixth-century Denmark, a hideous mutant hybrid – part man, part monster – attacks the mead hall of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins). A Geat named Beowulf (Ray Winstone) arrives to slay the beast, but doesn’t count on the wizardly wiles of its mother (Angelina Jolie). Robert Zemeckis’s 3-D version of the great medieval epic is shot entirely through performance capture: That is, we don’t actually see the actors – who also include Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, and John Malkovich – on the screen, but, rather, animated computer reconstructions. In the case of the somewhat plump, out-of-shape Winstone, this is necessary for him to portray a muscular young warrior. The 3-D effects are relatively tasteful, and the visuals often stunning. The cast is uniformly good, with Winstone the standout. Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have, not surprisingly, beefed up the story, which, despite its action qualities, doesn’t translate to the big screen without some tinkering. There is some problem with the hero’s motivations halfway through, but the action tends to finesse us past it. (AK)

Dan in Real Life. Advice columnist Dan (Steve Carell) is a widower doing his best to raise three girls. While visiting his parents (John Mahoney, Dianne Wiest) for an annual family get-together, he falls for Marie (Juliette Binoche), who unfortunately turns out to be the new girlfriend of his shallow brother (Dane Cook). Farce complications ensue, most of which involve Dan acting like a complete asshole. Director-cowriter Peter Hedges (Pieces of April) manages the near-impossible here: He makes both Carell and Binoche seem charmless. The latter really seems at sea with her poorly written part, falling back on her natural luminosity and not much else. Dan’s profession may have had some importance in an earlier cut, but here it’s almost an afterthought. Hedges sometimes puts songs on the soundtrack that are embarrassingly on the nose; and the laughs are too few and too mild to justify the whole enterprise. A complete waste of some wonderful talent. (AK)

Dirty Laundry. Maurice Jamal (Ski Trip) wrote, costars in, and directed this prodigal-son comedy about a New York writer (Rockmond Dunbar) returning to his rural Southern home and having to deal with his mother (Loretta Devine), aunt (Jenifer Lewis), sister (Terri J. Vaughn), and brother (Jamal). (AK)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. When Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), only 43, suffers a stroke that leaves him entirely paralyzed, save for his left eyelid, he learns to blink a kind of binary shorthand, with the help of two superhumanly patient therapists (Marie-Josée Croze and Olatz Lopez Garmendia), managing, one excruciating letter at a time, to painstakingly dictate the memoir that forms the basis for this latest film from artist-turned-director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls). Despite the unevenness of Schnabel’s previous film work, Bauby presents him an ideal subject – one whose vivid imagination and traumatic disconnect with reality more easily justify a less rigid approach to subject matter. Only occasionally does this French-language film deviate from Bauby’s distorted point of view – primarily for flashbacks and imaginary interludes – forcing the audience into a perspective that manages to be both claustrophobic and invigorating. It’s an undeniably bold experiment, but it’s also an imperfect experiment, too often undone by its own ambitions. The same loose narrative that liberates Schnabel the visionary elsewhere becomes a license for self-indulgence, as he veers into counterproductive excesses, underlining too many themes which ought to have been subtly implied and overusing the point-of-view technique by at least a third. (WM)

Enchanted. After falling in love with the handsome prince (James Marsden), an animated girl (Amy Adams) in a fairytale cartoon is banished into live-action New York by the wicked queen (Susan Sarandon), whose power is threatened by the potential nuptials. In the real world, the understandably disoriented young woman meets a single father (Patrick Dempsey) and his six-year-old daughter. While the story is essentially a familiar one, and Bill Kelly’s screenplay misses some opportunities for madcap whimsy and imaginative shading in favor of easy tweaks on fairytale conventions, the script is just good enough to give director Kevin Lima’s film a parallel adult grounding and a winking extra dimension. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz’s songs, meanwhile, have the ring of familiar classics on first listen. The real story here, however, is the utterly charming Adams, who stakes a convincing claim to being the next big Girl-Next-Door thing. (BS)

Fred Claus. For most of his disgruntled life, repo man Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) has been seethingly resentful of his brother – overachieving do-gooder and worldwide icon of joy Santa Claus (a cleverly cast Paul Giamatti). After the woeful, fast-talking Fred is arrested for stealing Christmas donations, Santa agrees to post bail if Fred will visit his estranged brother’s North Pole headquarters. But an efficiency expert (poor Kevin Spacey) wants to outsource gift manufacturing to the South Pole and, with Fred’s arrival reigniting their sibling rivalry, Santa may not be able to meet his quota, ruining Christmas for everyone. Finding an undemanding middle ground between the disarmingly sweet Elf and the refreshingly profane Bad Santa, David Dobkin’s film is nice enough for kids, yet just naughty enough to keep parents awake. The latter is attributable to Vaughn’s never-tiresome man-child shtick, with some hilarious ad-libbing that gives the movie desperately needed wildcard energy. The rest is obligatory genre convention and manufactured sincerity, although there are funny bits, like Santa’s Secret Service ninjas and … well, that’s about it. (MK)

The Golden Compass. In a faraway, mystical land, a child (Dakota Blue Richards) ventures on a quest that will ultimately liberate the world from evil and restore freedom to all. No, it’s not Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia, but rather Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Although Pullman (unlike Tolkien and Lewis) is famously an atheist, .the world herein isn’t any less fantastical at first glance—a Jules Verne-inspired alternate universe, where humans escort their animal spirits around like talking pets, polar bears wear armor, and a strange golden compass acts as a kind of oracle. What has some religious folk, particularly Catholics, in a tizzy is the story’s demonization of the Magisterium, a priestly ruling class determined to maintain dogma and obedience. Richards is the real revelation here: Exhibiting the confidence and presence of a young Cate Blanchett, she steals the movie from both Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Because the film ends on a cliffhanger, it’s unfair to offer a full evaluation of the story – what’s here works well enough and is different enough from the Rings/Narnia/Potter axis to avoid fatally unflattering comparisons. That’s good news for writer-director Chris Weitz (About a Boy), whose ability to handle a film of this scale many initially questioned. (WM)

Gone Baby Gone. In the working class Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, a little girl has gone missing. The girl’s aunt (Amy Madigan) bullies her husband (Titus Welliver) into contacting Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), private investigators, displeasing the police detectives assigned to the case (John Ashton, Ed Harris) and their boss (Morgan Freeman). For his directorial debut, Ben Affleck has adapted a detective novel by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote Mystic River); the resulting thriller has too much plot for its own good, but the underlying moral issues are handled delicately enough to keep things afloat. The biggest problem is the casting of the director’s younger brother in the lead. Whatever his virtues as an actor, Casey A. is simply not a credible action hero (or however you want to define this sort of role). His slight frame, boyish looks, and thin voice make him utterly unconvincing when trying to act formidable. Behind the camera, the work of the elder Affleck is a mixed bag. He captures the feel of the neighborhood with an eye that’s more jaundiced than nostalgic. But the exposition goes from the confusing to the overly obvious. (AK)

Grace Is Gone. The directing debut of screenwriter James C. Strouse (Lonesome Jim) is one of the better Iraq War movies thus far, because it doesn’t directly confront the war. Instead, Strouse is concerned with grief and how one stateside man deals, or fails to deal, with the death of his spouse in combat. John Cusack plays a sullen, slouchy husband and father, who learns that his soldier wife Grace has been killed in Iraq. But he can’t bring himself to break the news to their two daughters, so he buys time by piling them into the family car and driving them to a Florida amusement park. Although the movie is sometimes so subtle it disappears, it avoids speechifying and, except for an on-the-nose encounter with Stanley’s liberal brother, skirts politicizing the war. Strouse is no visual stylist, and there’s a one-note feel to the material and no strong dramatic arc, as if the movie itself is in the same state of shock as Stanley. (MK)

Hitman. Timothy Olyphant (who played the villain in Live Free or Die Hard) takes on the role of genetically engineered assassin Agent 47, from the Hitman series of games. Xavier Gens directed; Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, and Ulrich Thomsen costar. (AK)

I Am Legend. See Film feature.

I’m Not There. In his phantasmagorical meditation on the life/myth/work of Bob Dylan, Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven) employs six different actors to play different aspects of the singer-songwriter. Three of them play characters named after Dylan influences: Ben Whishaw (in far and away the smallest of these roles) plays “Arthur Rimbaud” in name only; Richard Gere is Billy the Kid, living on a fantasy Western town; and, in the most amusing stretch, Marcus Carl Franklin plays the early scuffling Dylan, as an 11-year-old black runaway named “Woody Guthrie.” Christian Bale is the acoustic Dylan; Heath Ledger plays an actor who seems to be an emblem of Dylan’s personal family life. But far and away the dominant performer here is Cate Blanchett, who is (roughly) the 1965-’66 just-going-electric, Dont Look Back-era Dylan.

Is all this tricky stuff worthwhile or simply narrative razzle-dazzle? Outside of Blanchett, we never really believe we’re seeing someone close to the “real” Dylan; but, until the final 20 minutes, the style keeps us involved. (AK)

Into the Wild. Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) is a promising Emory University grad who rebels against the “things, things, things” that represent modern existence by burning his social security card, donating his life savings to charity, and disappearing to Alaska. During his northbound odyssey, he encounters a hippie couple (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker), a guitar-playing 16-year-old (Kristen Stewart), and an elderly widower (Hal Holbrook, always a pleasure), who collectively constitute a more lifestyle-appropriate family. McCandless eventually settles in the Alaskan wilderness, where he subsists for months on berries and moose meat, but director Sean Penn never decides whether Chris’s motivation is rotten parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) or anti-consumerism, so he comes across as merely a dropout who’s read too much Kerouac. Indeed, Penn’s adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction bestseller contains too much ruminative twaddle and not enough takeaway insight. But there’s no denying Penn’s talent and integrity, and there are moments of real intimacy between the audience and Hirsch, who even mugs for the camera. Still, when McCandless, nearing the end, decides that “happiness is only real when shared,” it’s just not something the self-aggrandizing loner can claim from experience. (MK)

Juno. The year of the unplanned pregnancy (Waitress, Knocked Up) continues with this explosion at the sarcasm factory, made whole by the sure hand of director Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking) and its subversive championing of moral values. Juno (Ellen Page) is a quippy 16-year old, who becomes pregnant by best friend (Michael Cera). After briefly considering abortion, she decides to give the baby away to a rich yuppie couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman). They fear the precocious hipster will change her mind; the real problem comes when Juno and yuppie hubby begin bonding over horror directors and pop music, which throws into question the fate of the baby and of the couple’s marriage. First-time screenwriter Diablo Cody’s über-glib, often hilarious, teen-targeted dialogue takes up the torch of Heathers and Napoleon Dynamite, while treating its adults like real people (unlike the former) and eventually favoring thematic substance over empty attitude (unlike the latter). Both leads are stars ascending: The Canadian-born Page (Hard Candy) lobs Cody’s phrase-coining witticisms like grenades, but shows sweet vulnerability when her plans go to pot. (MK)

The Kite Runner. See Latest Reviews.

Lagerfeld Confidential. See Latest Reviews.

Lars and the Real Girl. When Lars (Ryan Gosling), a shy cubicle jockey in a small Midwestern town, brings home his new “girlfriend” – a life-size, anatomically correct latex doll named Bianca – the local GP (Patricia Clarkson) advises Lars’s brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) to humor his delusion. Soon the whole town pitches in, even the coworker Margo (Kelli Garner) who has a crush on him. Director Craig Gillespie and writer Nancy Oliver have eliminated the built-in ick factor by desexualizing the setup; Bianca may be anatomically correct, but she and Lars have a chaste relationship. For better or worse, Lars and the Real Girl hints at the sources of Lars’s delusion/illness without ever indulging in a big, dramatic “breakthrough” scene. And Gosling does a remarkable job of keeping the character sympathetic, even when we’re clearly being shut out of his inner life. There is one serious obstacle to buying into the world of Lars: You have to accept the existence of a small town filled with nothing but benevolent souls. (AK)

Look. See Latest Reviews.

Man in the Chair. See Latest Reviews.

Margot at the Wedding. Hotshot short-story writer Margot (Nicole Kidman) returns to her childhood home for the upcoming wedding of her less successful, New-Age-y sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh, director Noah Baumbach’s real-life wife). Margot condescendingly disapproves of the groom, an out-of-work musician-artist wannabe (Jack Black), even though her own marriage to another writer (John Turturro) is on the verge of breakup and she has shown up partly to be near a former – and potentially future – beau (Ciaran Hinds). In Baumbach’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale, the characters range from really nasty (most of them) to the essentially decent (very few). Margot’s son (Zane Pais), a smart, awkward kid in the first flush of puberty, comes closest to being the audience’s surrogate; he’s wholly sympathetic, but at one point, put on the spot, even he acts badly, defending himself the only way he’s learned from his elders – by wielding words and knowledge as weapons. I’m not a big fan of films that force us to spend an hour and a half with awful and/or hopelessly fucked-up people, but Margot at the Wedding is written with enough wit and performed with enough skill that I found it impossible to turn away from the Zellers and their collective emotional train wreck. (AK)

Michael Clayton. At a prestigious Manhattan law firm, Michael Clayton (George Clooney) discreetly extricates high-powered clients from troublesome legal tangles. In Tony Gilroy’s successful upgrade from screenwriter (the Bourne trilogy) to director, Clayton is charged with damage control after a bipolar litigator (Tom Wilkinson) suffers an epic meltdown while defending agrochemical giant U/North in a $3 billion lawsuit. But cleaning up the mess means destroying proof of U/North’s guilt, which awakens Clayton’s buried conscience. Painting his film in clean, sophisticated strokes of concrete, glass, and moral bankruptcy, writer-director Gilroy creates an insular world of dour, three-button Machiavellis whose ideals were long discarded as career impediments. As Clayton, who carries the burden of a failed marriage, a gambling addiction, and a belly-up business venture, the excellent Clooney is the GQ archetype in reverse – haunted, weary, and wondering how it all came to this. His journey down the corridors of power corrupted recalls the conflicted heroes of ’70s cinema, an era further evoked by director Sydney Pollack’s stellar supporting turn. (MK)

The Mist. The monsters in Stephen King’s latest shiverer are ridiculous – a swarm of swollen and venomous flies, spiders, and octopi that can kill with a bite. Toxic moths are just an excuse to lock several dozen people in a small space – a simple grocery store – and see how long it takes until the religious nutcase (Marcia Gay Harden) preaches human sacrifice. (Answer: Two days.) Frank Darabont’s adaptation is flatter and darker than King’s story; the actors, Harden excepted, are as bland as wax figurines, and the CGI nasties are snortingly fake. But while his straight-to-video-seeming flick is devoid of suspense, Darabont adds on a pitch-black new ending that feels like an evil God torturing his worthless creations – and still we like to watch. (AN)

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. When 250-year-old Mr. Magorium (Dustin Hoffman) decides that the time has come for him to die, he chooses to turn his magical toy store over to current manager Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), a classical pianist-composer wannabe, who has far less faith in herself than Magorium does. At the same time, he brings in Henry (Jason Bateman), a stiff accountant, to get the books in order for the transition. Together with geeky kid Eric (Zach Mills), everybody has to convince Molly that she’s up to the job … or the magical store will wither and die. Zach Helm, who wrote Stranger than Fiction, makes his directorial debut with this kids’ fantasy film that is never quite as magical as it wants to be. Hoffman affects a strange lispy-slurpy speech pattern that gets old pretty quickly; Portman is generally good, but, in the climactic breakthrough scene, her movements are awkward and ridiculous (Helm’s fault, not hers). Bateman is the pleasant surprise here; Henry is a square but never less than human. (AK)

No Country for Old Men. When a trailer park loser (Josh Brolin) absconds with $2 million from the bloody scene of a drug deal gone awry, he finds himself on the lam, chased by a ruthless psychopath (Javier Bardem); not far behind are a bounty hunter (Woody Harrelson) and an aging Texas sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel will woo critics back; in some ways, it’s a return to the grim tone of their breakthrough feature, Blood Simple (1985), and their most universally praised work, Fargo (1994), but with far fewer comic elements. The Coens have fashioned a film that remains edge-of-the-seat suspenseful, even if you know from the start that things aren’t going to end at all well … though one might not predict just how devoid of cosmic justice its fictional universe is. Jones was born to play this kind of character, but Brolin, who has done a lot of competent, unmemorable work, makes a great leap forward. In a 180 from his usual romantic leads and beleaguered normal guys, Bardem is brilliantly menacing. (AK)

The Perfect Holiday. See Latest Revies .

Protagonist. See Latest Reviews.

Revolver. After seven years in solitary, a mobster (Jason Statham) gets out of prison and immediately goes after the crooked casino owner (Ray Liotta) who apparently had something to do with landing him in jail. When he finds out he has been poisoned and has three days to live, he inexplicably teams up with two mysterious loan sharks (Vincent Pastore, Andre/Benjamin) and lets them push him around. “Huh?” you ask. Well, your guess is as good as mine: Writer-director Guy Ritchie has revisited the style and milieu of his snazzy, hyperkinetic Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000), and then imposed insanely pretentious allegorical baggage on it. The result is a phantasmagoria in the manner of, say, Inland Empire or Slipstream or The Nines. Could it be a dream? Could we be in a videogame? Or has the hero gone crazy in solitary and only imagined he’s been released? Ritchie seems to think he’s created something really profound. If I understand the ending properly, what that amounts to is an infomercial for one or another school of New Age-y psychology/philosophy. (AK)

The Savages. Fortyish siblings Wendy (Laura Linney) and Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are forced to act their age after their somewhat estranged father Lenny (Philip Bosco) loses his mind to dementia and his girlfriend to old age. Their callowness collides with their guilt when both realize their only option for dear old dad is a cheap nursing home in Buffalo. Writer-director Tamara Jenkins’s needling details ring true – the way Wendy channels her anxiety into making sure Lenny has the best pillow in the hospital, or the way the sibs listen in on each other’s conversations at night. But there’s something about this exercise in capturing human frailty that feels both slack and cold, like we’ve spent two hours lying on the bathroom tile staring in a mirror. In her concern to reflect reality, Jenkins sacrifices the license to bring out a deeper truth, and her forcedly optimistic ending strikes the film’s only false note. (AN)

Sex and Breakfast. Ellis (Kuno Becker) likes Denver omelettes. Beyond this morning diner order, writer-director Miles Brandman’s angst drama tells us nothing about him other than that he and his longtime girlfriend Renee (Eliza Dushku, in ultra-vamp mode) need to spice things up. Ditto the other paper-doll couple, James (Macaulay Culkin) and Heather (Alexis Dziena), who have been convinced by Heather’s Summer of Love parents (Vincent Jerosa, Margaret Travolta) that the cure for their daughter’s inability to climax is a mind-expanding afternoon of group sex. In the weeklong buildup to their orgy, the four restless young bedfellows talk lots and communicate little in trite and stagy digressions about voyeurism and bi-curiosity. The lads sitting through a film with only prurient concerns will be disappointed to see not even a bare bottom. But like placing nickel bets at the track, we’re curious – though not invested – in seeing if these couples will survive the encounter. When they finally shut up and kiss, the moment has a bruising intimacy: Brandman has made us know what each lover is thinking even when they’re not saying a word. (AN)

Starting Out in the Evening. Once promising novelist Leonard (Frank Langella), whose career has fizzled, finds his long-buried desire for artistic recognition reawakened by the arrival of a grad student (Lauren Ambrose), who wants this almost forgotten literary lion to be the subject of her thesis. Hoping her efforts will result in a career rediscovery, he agrees. But her companionship also stirs him from the emotional malaise he’s suffered since the death of his wife. This delicately observed, character-rich sophomore effort from director Andrew Wagner (The Talent Given Us) represents Langella’s finest hour (and 51 minutes). He plays a man encased in sorrow and regret, who ever-so-subtly lowers his defenses. His chaste, mostly off-screen couplings with the young woman are the product of his emotional defrosting and her desire to become physically close to someone whose artistry inspired her during difficult times. There is initial resistance from Leonard’s 40ish daughter (Lili Taylor), once neglected by her workaholic father, now desperate to have a baby. Both women help him realize that his life and his art are separate, but inseparable—and that each is capable of destroying, or inspiring, the other. (MK)

Strength and Honor. After accidentally killing someone in the ring, an Irish-American boxer (Michael Madsen) promises his wife he’ll never fight again. But does it make sense to honor the vow when boxing is his only way to earn the money that might save his son from the same hereditary condition that Mom died of? Mark Mahon wrote, produced, and directed; the cast also includes Vinnie Jones, Patrick Bergin, and Richard Chamberlain. (AK)

This Christmas. Guess who’s coming to Christmas dinner? The whole Whitfield mespocheh, that’s who, including Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, Chris Brown, Columbus Short, Regina King, and Keith Robinson. Preston A. Whitmore II directed and cowrote. (AK)

3:10 to Yuma. Notorious gang leader Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) – captured immediately after holding up a stagecoach, killing the driver in the process – needs to be escorted to the town of Contention, where the 3:10 train will take him straight to Yuma prison. Unfortunately, his ruthless gang will stop at nothing to free him. Volunteering is Dan Evans (Bale), a one-legged Civil War vet who needs the money to save his ranch from creditors … and to earn back the respect of his teenage son (Logan Lerman). Delmer Daves’s original 1957 3:10 to Yuma – one of the earliest screen adaptations of Elmore Leonard – is often compared to High Noon, but the similarities are shallow. The center of 3:10 to Yuma (in both the original and director James Mangold’s new version) is the relationship between Wade and Evans, with the outlaw toying with the rancher in a cat-and-mouse game, sometimes trying to make him angry enough to make a slip, other times trying to corrupt him with bribes. Crowe and Bale step into the roles first assayed by Glenn Ford and Van Heflin; the result is one of the very few remakes superior to its model in all respects. (AK)

Yiddish Theater: A Love Story. The Folksbiene Theater was founded on New York’s Lower East Side in 1915, as one of many Yiddish troupes entertaining the legions of Jewish immigrants recently arrived from Europe. Fortysome years later, after surviving the Holocaust and Stalinist Russia, Zypora Spaisman came to America and reinvented herself as an actress in Yiddish theater. Another fortysome years later, toward the end of 2000, Israeli filmmaker Dan Katzir was visiting New York and met the 84-year-old actress Spaisman, just as Folksbiene Theater – now the city’s last Yiddish theater – was facing eviction. Charmed by the old woman’s enthusiasm, he set about to chronicle the desperate eight days during which Spaisman and her coworkers attempt to find a way to keep the theater alive. Katzir talks to some of the very few survivors of the form’s heyday, most of whom still display an offhanded wit. The result is uneven but ultimately charming – and sad – look at the disappearance of a centuries-old cultural tradition whose impact on our own culture has been inestimable. (AK)

Youth Without Youth. See second Film feature.