Seven Pounds

Will Smith can do almost anything, except make the ending of Seven Pounds easy to swallow. It is mawkish, emotionally manipulative and ridiculous.

Harsh? Yes, but how else would you react after sitting through two hours of a film that begins with the main character calling 911 to report his own suicide?

Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent down in the dumps over a tragic mistake he made. He has embarked on a plan to help seven strangers.

Smith, to his credit, masks all the qualities that he usually has at his disposal, mainly his considerable charm and sense of humor. We see only glimpses. The rest of the time, Smith is sullen, using bits of his charm to intrude into the lives of strangers to determine if they are in fact good people. It is an intense performance that keeps you engaged throughout much of the film.

You are pulled into the mystery of who Ben Thomas is and what he is doing. At times, he is rude; other times, kind. You, as the viewer, are continually thrown off.

But the director, Gabriele Muccino, shows his hands way too early, and by the first half, the audience has figured out Thomas' secret and what he plans to do. And so the film drags for another hour, as Thomas falls in love with Emily Posa, a vibrant woman with congenital heart failure. He wants to help her, but his plan hits a bump when he develops feelings for her.

Rosario Dawson plays Emily not as a victim but a woman who is trying to face her grim situation with a bit of hope. Her relationship with Thomas brings new life, however brief, to a man run down with grief.

Then the twist comes, not much of a shock, but one that is polarizing. Some in the audience will be touched. Others, like me, will just feel ripped off. The movie never earns the emotional payoff it is seeking. In many ways, the film is a cop out and you don't have once ounce of sympathy for the decision Thomas makes at the end, however altruistic it might seem.

What is this film trying to say? I don't know. The message of redemption is muddled by a main character who somehow sees himself as some flawed Christ-figure who can make amends through masochistic suffering.

I applaud Smith for taking chances with his acting and trying dark roles. But this just doesn't work.

Twilight

Twilight, the first in a four-book series by Stephanie Meyer, is the Romeo and Juliet for the tween generation.

Except, Romeo hates sunlight and must tame his desire to suck the blood of his Juliet. Talk about a compelling reason to stay abstinent.

On the movie screen, the love affair of Bella and Edward plays out, much like it did in the book. But those who aren't fans of the series won't become fans because of this movie.

The film, as directed by Catherine Hardwicke, gets the angst of teenage life, especially in Bella (played brilliantly by Kristen Stewart). As the movie begins, Bella moves from Arizona to a small town called Forks to be with her father, who also happens to be the sheriff.

She has no friends, she is awkward and given to fits of clumsiness. And worst of all, she gets a beat-up red pick-up truck to ride around in.

On her first day of class, she meets Edward Cullen, a pale-faced heartthrob who almost becomes sick at the sight of her. Not a good impression, but Bella finds herself both disgusted and drawn to the mystery man.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Edward saves her life in a way that physics just can't explain. By the time she discovers Edward's secret -- he's a vampire who prefers animal blood -- she is "unconditionally and irrevocably" in love with him.

This is where things get tricky. Maybe in the 600-plus page book the movie is based on, we can believe that real love exists between Edward and Bella. But not in a two hour movie do you fully believe it.

The tension comes in the desires of both being unfulfilled because Edward cannot risk hurting his love by loving her. He cannot lose control even though every bit of his body wants to. Their love is unrequited.

But the "bite me so I can be with you forever" is a bit much to take, and guys dragged to this movie by their girlfriends will have to sit through an hour and a half of this overwrought dialogue to get to any action. And unfortunately, the action sucks. The special effects are awful and cheesy beyond belief. No teeth are bared, and all we get is a bunch of flying vampires. What is this? Super Vampire.

Nothing in this movie made me curious about the books or made me interested in seeing the

sequel. Maybe this is because I am not a teenage girl all in love with the whole idea of Edward Cullen. Oh well. Forgive me.

But I like vampire movies, and this wasn't one of the best. Sorry. I need something to sink my teeth in.

Quantum of Solace

In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig gave James Bond something he had never had before -- edge, a smoldering rough, dare I say, thuggish quality missing in the more debonair, witty and smooth incarnations of Bonds past (i.e. Sean Connery).

And that edge is on full angry display in Quantum of Solace, an adrenaline-rush of a sequel that rarely stops for quiet introspection.

Not once does Bond say his signature line, "Bond, James Bond." He's way too busy going rogue, driving his boss, M (played by the always wonderful Judi Dench) crazy and killing people in awfully messy ways.

I was never much of a James Bond fan to begin with, but through Craig, we saw a James Bond that was more visceral and vulnerable, one who fell in love with a beautiful woman only to have her betray him and then die.

The new movie takes up where the last one left off, with Bond mourning the death of his lover, Vesper, and intently searching for her killer. What he discovers is a much greater conspiracy than he could have ever imagined, one that lurks in dark places.

At the center is Dominic Greene, a pseudo-environmentalist who is more interested in the kind of green that stacks. Joining Bond in his adventures is a different kind of Bond girl who, for a change, doesn't bed Bond because she's too focused on seeking revenge for the violent tragedies of her own life.

Marc Foster, the director of such moody pieces as Monster's Ball, gives us an action thriller with an actor's heart. He simply gives space for Craig to work.

Craig gives a muscular performance, both literally and figuratively, saying much in a simple look or gesture. And his scenes with M pop off the screen.

As a friend pointed out, this movie very much reminds one of the Bourne movies, very action packed with thrilling chases and bloody fist fights. I agree but I also think this movie continues an interesting reimagining of the Bond character.

Here, Bond has layers that we see peeled back. We see a heart beating behind the cold exterior. We discover glimpses of Bond's humanity that were hidden in other incarnations.

No, Quantum of Solace isn't nearly as good as Casino Royale, but it does very much leave you wanting to see what other secrets lie behind the seemingly inscrutable facade of 007.

Zach & Miri Make a Porno

In the mind of Kevin Smith, crude and sweet occupy the same space. His films reflect that. Look past the profanity of Dogma, and you will find a semi-serious meditation on religion and spirituality.

Chasing Amy, a testosterone-drenched film about a man who falls in love with a lesbian, has one of the most heart-felt and eloquent declarations of love (from Ben Affleck, no less) from a man to a woman I have heard in quite some time.

And here we have Zach & Miri Make a Porno, which sums up the plot pretty well.

Zach (Seth Rogen of Knocked Up fame) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks who plays Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's W.) are best friends with dead-end jobs who struggle to pay the bills. When their lights go out and the rent is due, they decide they're going to make a porno featuring the two of them having sex.

Yes, there's nudity and yes, there are crude jokes galore. And there are actual porno stars like Traci Lords, who can blow bubbles, just not from her mouth.

The real center of the story is Zach and Miri and how the simple act of sex changes their relationship forever.

This is a syrupy sweet love story about two friends discovering that they might be more suited as lovers. But the trip from friends to lovers is littered with scatological humor that is not meant to be heard or seen by the innocent. Hey, this is about making a porno and it is rated R for a reason.

Banks is the perfect straight woman, and Rogen plays the same lovable slacker he always seems to play in every movie, but you have to admit he is good at it.

The jokes fall flat in the beginning but build up steam throughout. And Smith's usual cast of characters join in on the fun, including Jason Mewes, who usually plays the Jay of Jay and Silent Bob but here plays Lester who has a certain talent that only fans of pornos can appreciate.

We all know what's going to happen at the end, but the sweetness at the end of this crude machine feels worth it.

And after enduring all of that trashy talk, you somehow come out of the movie smelling good. That's a talent Kevin Smith can be proud of.

The Secret Life of Bees

There is a quiet power to The Secret Life of Bees that sometimes threatens to spill over into over-the-top melodrama and pure sappiness.

It doesn't and that is a credit to the performances of the all-star cast anchored by rapper/actress Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning, who is growing up to become a fine actress.

The movie, directed by Gina Prince Bythewood, is based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd. The story is set in South Carolina in the 1960s when blacks were still fighting for their citizenship rights.

Fanning plays Lily Owens, a 14-year-old white girl carrying a dark secret who loves to write and is fascinated by the bees that swirl into her room one night.

Her father is abusive to her and crippled by the tragic loss of his wife years ago. Owens yearns to get away, and after Rosaleen, the black housekeeper played by Jennifer Hudson, is beaten and then arrested for trying to vote, Lily and Rosaleen run away to a small South Carolina town that is somehow connected to Lily's mother.

In that town, they find the Boatwright sisters, three black women who run a successful honey-making business. August Boatwright (Queen Latifah) is the oldest sister, followed by June (a feisty Alicia Keys), a civil-rights activist too serious for love, and May (Sophie Okonedo) who feels so deeply that she has built a wailing wall outside the house to cry her blues away.

The sisters offer a welcoming home in which Lily and Rosaleen can heal and find comfort. And August is the one who becomes a deep well of knowledge for Lily who must finally deal with the pain she has buried for so long.

Nothing really comes as a surprise in this movie. Even the death of a major character later in the movie isn't that much of a shock.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. Strong performances by all help keep the sappiness at bay, especially Queen Latifah, who could have easily allowed her character to fall into a stereotypical black mammy. She instead brings a complexity to her role. As does Alicia Keys, who gives June some layers as a woman too focused to focus on the fact that she needs love in her life.

Okonedo has the hardest job of all but finds the balance between being Sean Penn in I Am Sam and Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. She manages to maintain May's dignity and grace in a role that could have, in other hands, dispensed with both.

And the ending is just right, a wonderful high note in a movie that manages not to fall flat.

Miracle at St. Anna

Spike Lee is not subtle. His movies yell, pound you over the head to get your attention. If you wonder why, pick up Ralph Wiley's Why Black People Tend To Shout.

His intention is to provoke and he has done it in compelling ways, from Do The Right Thing to his most commercial outing, Inside Man. And Miracle at St. Anna is no different.

This story of an all-black Army unit fighting in Italy during World War II begins with an old man sitting in his apartment watching John Wayne in the movie, The Longest Day. Anger is sketched out in the wrinkles of his face as he quietly says, "We fought for this country too."

That sentiment is the theme that runs through this movie, an acknowledgement that black men sacrificed their lives for a country that refused to treat them as U.S. citizens.

A few minutes later, that old man, working in New York at a post office, inexplicably shoots another man. In his apartment is the head of a statute in Italy that's been missing since 1944.

And it is to this time that we are taken, where the old man is now a young Cpl. Hector Negron fighting as part of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division in Italy. The mystery of that statute head and why he shot that man will be solved by going back in time.

In 1944, alongside Negron is Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), 2nd Staff Sgt. Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke) and Private First Class Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller).

The four men soon find themselves trapped in an Italian village even as German forces plan a secret counterattack. Train forges a special relationship with a young boy he finds in a barn. And Cummings and Stamps boil over how to deal with an America that treats Germans better than black Americans as well as fight over the affections of an Italian woman.

Lee packs a lot into the film and sometimes the effort pays off. Especially poignant are the burgeoning relationship between the boy, Angelo, and Train.

And Lee gets at in powerful ways how ironic it is that black Americans feel freer in Italy than they do in their own country. No more is that hit home than in a scene in Louisian where the soldiers come to get something to eat and then are refused, even as German prisoners are given top-shelf service. The racism is of the in-your-face variety and it stings.

But this movie is not just about racism. It is about the tragedy of war and the humanity that sometimes rises out of that muck. We see evil in its worst form at the massacre at St. Anna where Nazi soldiers shot men, women and children begging for their lives.

Yet we also see compassion and the power of human kindness in a harsh world of betrayal and brutality.

There is a rough beauty in this film anchored by Lee's powerful direction, a more than appropriate score and wonderfully rendered cinematography.

Unfortunately, Lee may have been too ambitious, which is not a bad thing if you can hold your movie together. That doesn't happen. The film falls apart in the later half with an over-the-top ending, sentimental in ways Lee has never been and ripped from the much better The Shawshank Redemption. Even worse, having Stamps and Cummings fight over a woman doesn't reveal anything about their characters but only serves to distract from the seriousness of the movie.

Here, Lee forgets the simple power of a story beautifully told. He forgets to pull back.

But that's Lee, never suble, always yelling, resulting in a film that's sometimes too noisy for its own good.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Michael Cera may become the teenage romantic comedy hero of a new generation, possessing a sweet geeky charm no woman can apparently resist.

Or at least the women in the last few movies he's appeared in, including the wildly successful Juno, which also made Ellen Page a star.

In Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, he plays Nick, who plays in a band called The Jerkoffs. He makes mix CDs for his cheating girlfriend that he continues to pine after to the disgust of his fellow bandmates, who know he deserves someone better.

And someone better comes in the form of Norah, played by Kat Dennings, who scoops up Nick's mix CDs after his girlfriend throws them away.

As you can tell by the title, Nick and Norah are destined for each other. But their journey of love is filled with all kinds of wacky obstacles as they make their way to see fav band Where's Fluffy, which is playing somewhere that night.

First, though, Norah and Nick must find Norah's friend, Caroline (played by Ari Graynor), a perpetual drunk who has what we might tactfully call a special attachment to her gum. Her alcohol-fueled adventures are some of the most hilarious and outrageous and most enjoyable parts of this movie, and Graynor goes all out in her role, never pulling back regardless of how horrible she ends up looking. That is the essence of any comic actor.

Michael Cera and Kat Dennings display a cute chemistry toward each other, and when they finally do figure out how they feel about each other, it seems real, not forced, not fake.

This is a sweet movie without being an overly cheesy, puke-fest of romantic comedy cliche. And it doesn't hurt that the music rocks.

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye, the new star vehicle for Shia Lebouf, tries very hard to not only be an action movie, but an action movie with a relevant message for our time about the loss of privacy and government overreaction.

And that would have been nice if the message wasn't beaten over a head near the end with characters giving nauseating didactic messages.

At least, the movie works well as pop entertainment, messy and forgettable the moment you walk out of the theater.

Shia Lebouf is Jerry Shaw, a charming slacker who wiles his days playing poker with his friends, working at a dead-end job at a Kinkos-like copy store and struggling to pay his rent. He also just buried his twin brother, who was in the military and much more ambitious. Then one day, Shaw goes to the ATM and finds $751,000 in his banking account. Soon, his apartment is crammed with boxes filled with weapons and he winds up in the custody of the FBI. And worse of all, a mysterious woman keeps calling and telling him to do various things like jump out of a building and slam his body to the floor before something crashes through the room he is in.

The same mysterious woman is calling Rachel, played by Michelle Monaghan, also telling her to do certain things or her son will die.

For awhile, the action is breathtaking as the two dodge bullets and end up in bruising car chases, with a cranky FBI agent played by Billy Bob Thorton hot on their tails.

Director DJ Caruso ratchets up the action here, obviously getting his tips from quick-cutting king Michael Bay. The result is shaky camera work, confusing audiences about what actually is happening on screen. Not a good thing. Felt like being on a bad roller coaster ride than watching a thrilling action movie.

Thank God Shia Lebouf has such a likable quality, a quick-wittedness and Joe Blow relatability that you find yourself rooting for the guy even in a movie as wacky as this one.

The plot meanders a bit before getting to its central thesis about the dangers of government having too much surveillance. Will Smith's Enemy of The State covered similar territory in a much better way.

And it's sad that the ultimate villain here takes its inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Oh, no, the computer is going to get me. Please, let's get a grip.

Here's how you enjoy Eagle Eye. Don't think too much either during the movie or immediately afterward. You'll only be disappointed.

The Family That Preys

Tyler Perry is not known for being subtle. Far from in fact. His movies, many based on his popular gospel plays, are soap operas with plenty of broad over-the-top comedy, often featuring Perry as big-busted, pistol-carrying Madea, his most famous character.

Madea is nowhere to be found in Perry's latest creation, The Family That Preys (and if you didn't get that play on the word pray, well, you might need prayer).

The film centers on two families, one working class and the other wealthy. Charlotte, played by Kathy Bates, heads up the wealthy family, running a successful construction firm and butting heads with her spoiled son, William, played with snarling charm by Cole Hauser.

Alice (portrayed by the always wonderful Alfre Woodard) runs a diner and tries to instill old-fashioned values into her two daughters. Sanaa Lathan is Andrea, a financial accountant at the construction company who is carrying on an affair with William. She also chooses to run down her hardworking husband, Chris, who has dreams of starting a construction business of her own.

With all of this Dynasty-like drama going on, Charlotte decides this would be the perfect time for her and Alice to on a road-trip to see the country. So amid the seriousness, we see Charlotte trying to get Alice, the teetotaler, drunk, and then we see Alice drag Charlotte to get baptized.

There are no real surprises in Tyler Perry's movies. We know something is wrong with Charlotte. We know that all the secrets are going to come out. And we know someone is going to get slapped or punched or get hot grits thrown on them.

Perry isn't a sophisticated story-teller and doesn't deal well with complexities or nuances. He does, however, know what his audiences want and he delivers that with panache.

His movies are filled with messages of hope and faith and he has become better at delivering those messages without the heavy-handedness of his previous efforts.

And this time, he builds on the success he had with Why Did I Get Married instead of the clunker he had with Meet The Browns.

But he still has a way to go as a director. In this movie, we have long camera sweeps that seem to go nowhere but eventually find their way from one character to another, as music swells. He goes the other extreme of director Michael Bay, who is known for cutting his scenes so much that if you blinked you'd miss most of the movie.

Those technical flaws don't much matter to Perry's core audience. When my friend and I saw the movie, a woman talked throughout, like she was at home looking at one of her favorite afternoon soaps. She talked back at the screen, cheering on Charlotte and calling her Big Mama.

Good entertainment with a message. What else can you ask for?

I'm Through with White Girls

One night, as I was browsing through Blockbuster, I had another reason why I don't do Netflix, much to the befuddlement of my friends who are well-aware of my movie-obsessed ways. It was all in the title, I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks).

Maybe I might have found this jewel through Netflix, but I highly doubt it. And like buying a CD off one hot single, I rented this movie based off just the title.

Sometimes you have to take a risk, which could end up in the catastrophe of a two-hour waste of time.

Or it could end up being the best time of your life, or close to it.

I'm Through with White Girls, the first feature by Jennifer Sharp, is surprisingly sweet romantic comedy about much more than the title might suggest.

Written by Courtney Lilly, the film centers on Jay Brooks, played to perfection by Anthony Montgomery, a black guy obsessed with graphic novels and indie rock and who dates too many white women to count. As one character suggests, the only black woman he may have kissed is his mother.

But what's nice here is that Jay Brooks isn't portrayed as some self-hating Clarence Thomas, which would have been the easy road to take here. As he says in the film, he dates white women because it seems as if black women don't dig him, and in the world in which he operates, he doesn't come across many black women at all.

That is until he starts Operation Brown Sugar. After his last break-up, in which he pens his Dear Jane letter on a yellow pad while his girlfriend is in the shower, he starts to rethink the way he runs his romantic life. He decides to go cold-turkey on white women, who he blames for his love woes.

He finally finds his match in author Catherine Williamson, a beautiful woman with blue-streaked dreadlocks who talks like a Valley girl. Jay Brooks falls hard and begs (literally) like Mars Blackmon in Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It for a shot at love.

Lia Johnson, who plays Catherine, is a joy to behold on the screen. She exudes intelligence and vulnerability, and the chemistry between Catherine and Jay feels real.

Soon, Jay, not knowing a good thing when he has it, inadvertently starts sabotaging his chances with Catherine. And thus is revealed the real problem Jay has. It's not with white women; it's with commitment.

That journey to Jay Brooks undoing is a breezy one, full of insights about the silliness of stereotypes and the beauty of finding love and the freedom that comes with dance.

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is satire overload, often funny but sometimes way over the head of the average viewer.

Perhaps that's the way Ben Stiller, the director, wanted, and he just about pulls it off.

His latest movie centers on the filming of a Vietnam War picture, replete with explosions, tough-guy talk, gore and drooling death scenes.

The movie goes haywire when half the set is blown up and the director decides to put his self-important actors in the middle of the jungle to shoot guerrilla style.

Those actors are a bunch of has-beens hoping for redemption. Stiller is muscle-bound Tugg Speedman, an action star on the rebound from a failed Oscar bid as a buck-toothed mentally-challenged guy named Simple Jack.

Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a heroin-addicted comedian known for playing all the characters of a flatulent-happy family named The Fatties. And Robert Downey Jr. is a Method-acting Australian who is so convinced of his abilities that he decides to surgically darken his skin to play a black soldier.

Rounding out the cast is Jay Baruchel who plays Kevin Sandusky and Brandon T. Jackson who plays rapper Alpa Chino, who has his own energy drink, Booty Sweat.

There's really no plot other than the actors trying to find authenticity in their characters while being chased by real thugs with real guns shooting real bullets in a real jungle.

Eventually, Tugg Speedman ends up captured and the other actors have to save him.

And chaos ensues.

In the process, Stiller has a ball skewering the shallowness of Hollywood greed and the narcissism of some A-list actors. Tom Cruise even humiliates himself in an unrecognizable role as a bald-headed profanity-spewing studio head who loves to shake his butt to crass rap songs. (Just to see Tom Cruise dance is worth the ticket price alone).

Some of the jokes either fall flat or are just too insidery for most people to get. But more jokes work than not. And the energy of the cast is enough to pull the movie through its more dull moments.

Downey is clearly the star in one of the most controversial roles. Blackface isn't something you should mess with, given the history of blackface as a way to dehumanize African-Americans for centuries. But Downey doesn't go overboard and Alpa Chino is always there to challenge him.

About the funniest scene in the movie is when Lazarus explains to Speedman why he didn't win the Oscar.

Tropic Thunder should have been funnier, should have been grab your stomach as you roll on the floor funny, but it isn't. It is, however, eyes tear up every now and then funny, and sometimes, that's funny enough.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

There's something out there. That was the whole premise of The X-Files, the sci-fi series that ran for nine seasons.

FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigated mysteries that couldn't easily be explained by CSI-like forensics. The beauty of the show was in the tension between Scully and Mulder. Scully was the scientistwho constantly searched for the rational explanation.

And it was that rationalism that sometimes saved Mulder, the conspiracy-theorist haunted by his sister's kidnapping by aliens, from going over the edge.

Some shows were stand-alone exploration of things that go bump in the night. Others were about that large maze-like government cover-up involving shadowy figures such as The Smoking Man. In the midst of all that was the relationship between Mulder and Scully, at first platonic and then something more.

Ten years ago, Chis Carter, the creator, brought the series to the big screen in a plot tied to the show. It was a movie that pushed the series ahead, answering some questions and brining up new ones.

This time, The X-Files: I Want To Believe, junks all that conspiracy stuff. Instead, this is a standard episode stretched out to an hour and some change.

If only this movie was a better episode. But it isn't.

The movie picks up years after the series left off. Mulder and Scully are no longer with the FBI, the X-Files unit having been shut down. Mulder lives in isolation, throwing pencils to the ceiling, not shaving and clipping news articles. Scully is a surgeon trying to save the life of a sick boy.

Then a federal agent goes missing, and Scully is asked to find Mulder. And just like that, Mulder and Scully are back again, fulfilling their roles as believer and skeptic, respectively.

Added to that the fact that Scully and Mulder are a couple, their tension taking on a new dimension. In the center of the action is a defrocked pedophile priest played by Billy Connolly, who is given to visions he believes are sent by God.

Well, are they or is this priest a nut? That and Frankenstein-like human experimentation are essentially the plot here. No aliens to be found and certainly no conspiracy.

That's disappointing, putting it nicely. Even for what is a stretched-out episode, this movie doesn't hold much muster.

The script is weak, and Carter doesn't even try to engender much suspense. The series could be scary when it wanted, the bogeyman jumping out at you when you least expected. The twists were real twists, and when the credits ran, you felt a little unsettled, as if all the monsters hadn't been caught.

No monsters here, and the effort to bring some meaning to the relationship between Mulder and Scully ultimately fails. The climax is unsatisfying, and the ending doesn't haunt. The movie fades as soon as the end credits come on.

Some things should be left alone.

The Dark Knight

Batman is a peculiar character in comic-book mythology. Unlike most superheroes, he is merely a very well-trained fighting machine with nifty gadgets, a sort of James Bond in a suit. He has no superpowers, just a tragic backstory about a boy who saw his parents slaughtered by punks and grew up to be a playboy billionaire who moonlights as a bat.

Tim Burton more than a decade ago gave us his vision of Bruce Wayne/Batman, full of Gothic stylings and over-the-top acting by Jack Nicholson as The Joker. The movie was light and heavy at the same time, the idea that Bruce Wayne might be off his rocker lurking beneath.

But when Christopher Nolan got a hold of the Batman franchise (after director Joel Schumacher ruined it), he gave us less of the Batman and more of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. Wayne became flesh, flawed yet noble as protagonists tend to be in tragedies.

Nolan gave us an imaginative reinvention of a beloved superhero. In The Dark Knight, he gives us so much more.

Much has been made about the performance of the late Heath Ledger as The Joker in this film. Some say it's Oscar-worthy. Others wonder if the praise is coming simply because Ledger died a young age.

Well, the performance is all that. Ledger's Joker is much scarier, more twisted and just plain creepier than Nicholson's 1989 version. The make-up is smeared, and The Joker licks his lips and talks in the skin-crawling voice of a man rotting from the inside out.

He is the perfect villain for the Batman. The Joker is an agent of chaos, a madman whose only purpose in life is to watch the world burn. In Burton's Batman, we know how The Joker got that smile. In Nolan's version, we're not quite sure. The Joker tells two different stories, both equally creepy. He is a villain allergic to rationality. He lives by his own twisted logic.

Batman is Gotham City's guardian. He wants to restore order. The Joker wants to blow it up. How does the good guy catch a criminal who revels in anarchy, who ups the ante at every chance?

What makes Nolan's recent venture into the Batman franchise is that this doesn't feel like a summer blockbuster. Yes, we have the elaborate action sequences that look authentic and not CGI'ed to death. We have kung-fu fighting (or whatever martial arts Batman uses in this film). We have romance. We have all the elements you want in a superhero movie.

But we have something more. We have a director interested in the spaces between black and white.

There are no easy answers in The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne wants to give up being Batman, let hard-charging DA Harvey Dent be the white knight, and maybe he can get his girl, Rachel Dawes back.

Life is never that easy, doesn't operate that way, and even though this is comic-book fantasy, it feels more than any recent super-hero movie like the real world.

Dent says this in the middle of the movie: "Either you die the hero or you live just long enough to become the villain."

That applies not only to Dent, who eventually becomes the scarred villain Two-Face, but to Batman himself. The idea of doing the greatest good for the greatest number is fully explored in this film. Batman is not Superman saving some damsel in distress, and The Joker isn't some villain with plans for world domination. As Alfred says, some men just want to see the world burn.

The Dark Knight lives up to 1/3rd of its title. This is one dark, near-depression levels super-hero movie. Not that there isn't fun. The Joker is a lot of fun. He's just not fun to be around. Neither is the Batman.

We have here a movie with layers, pulp with Shakespearean aspirations, a superhero who has both physical and psychic wounds that are not easily healed. And we have evil that is hard to defeat because it becomes bolder the more Batman fights it.

Heavy stuff for a summer blockbuster, indeed. Oh well, why so serious?

Hancock/Hellboy

So far this has been a great summer for superheroes. Iron Man, with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role was fun with an edge. The Incredible Hulk delivered the smashing good time we had wanted in Ang Lee's much maligned attempt five years ago.

And now we have Hancock and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, a way to whet our appetites before the main feast that opens later this month, The Dark Knight.

First up is Hancock, where Will Smith plays a different kind of superhero, the mean kind that is. Smith has always gotten by on his considerable charm and charisma, which have helped him maintain his status as summer box-office king for years.

Here he plays John Hancock, a drunk whose uniform is apparently the latest in bum fashion. He saves lives as any superhero does, but he also has a filthy mouth and causes destruction while he saves lives. And as a result, people in Los Angeles hate him.

All except Ray Embrey, the do-gooder PR guy. Hancock saves Embrey's life and Embrey decides that he'll pay Hancock back by doing some image makeover.

It's pretty much impossible to hate Will Smith, even when he's playing a jerk like Hancock. And the first part of the movie is full of hilarious bits where Hancock tries his darndest to be nice and polite and not use the "F" word too much, all while doing his Superman thing.

Then a twist (why must there always be a twist) comes in the second half that's halfway cool if it had been executed with a little more panache.

And there's a rather vague origin story that doesn't make much sense the more you think about it. The movie with the intriguing premise turns into just another conventional superhero movie with a disappointing villain and lots of mushy talk about responsibility and the consequences of your actions.

It seems as if Peter Berg, the director, got confused about what kind of movie he wanted to make, a comedy or drama or some combination of both. Who knows?

Will Smith does deliver but you wish he could have delivered in a much better movie.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, on the other hand, is a visual delight. Director Guillermo Del Toro has a gift for creating a magical world in which weirdness is normal.

Ron Perlman plays the red guy with horns, a supposed spawn of Satan who manages to do good with a wiseacre, kick-butt attitude.

The mythology is dense. Long long time ago, man made a peace treaty with the freaks. Man can have the cities and the monsters that go bump in the night can have the forests. Everyone agreed except this pale-faced dude named Prince Nuada, a real party-ruiner who moves like Bruce Lee. Centuries ago, he went into exile.

Now he's returned, looking for the pieces of a crown that put together has the power to awaken the dreaded, indestructible Golden Army.

Back for action, besides Hellboy, is his fiery (literally) girlfriend Liz, the gill-faced bookworm Abe, and Johann Kraus, who is all fog and no substance (again literally).

In short, Nuada hates humans and wants to destroy the world (as most villains want to do). And Hellboy and his gang have to stop him.

So the plot isn't that original, but Del Toro's vision is, full of fantastical creatures in weird shapes. One creature's face looks like half of a moon crater. Another appears to carry London on his head.

And there's this wondrous creature who torments the city and has this incredible transformation that I won't spoil for you.

Perlman gives the horn-headed Hellboy a lovable sourness and boyish charm. Plus, he and Selma Blair, who plays Liz, have good chemistry. Their arguments are a lot of fun and a little dangerous.

This is a wild, gorgeously shot ride, an art film masquerading as a summer blockbuster.

Wanted

Angelina Jolie is one hot mama. She exudes a sexy confidence virtually unmatched by any actress working today. She, simply put, has swagger.

And all that swagger is on full, fleshy display in Wanted, one wacked-out train ride of an action movie.

It is the pure definition of mindless, the laws of physics non-existent in this fantasy realm of bloody violence.

The film centers on Wesley Gibson (Scottish actor James McAvoy using a very fine American accent), an account manager wiling away his miserable life in an dead-end job, living in an apartment that rumbles because of the train rushes along just above, and stuck in a relationship with a girlfriend who's sleeping with his best friend.

He doesn't care about anything, and that fact alone is what concerns him.

Into his life walks Fox (played by Jolie), telling him that his father was in a secret organization of assassins and that he's about to be killed by the same guy who murdered his dad.

So begins Gibson's journey from wimp to assassin, a brutal one filled with beat downs and bloody hands while learning how to shoot a target on a curve.

Morgan Freeman is Sloane, the leader of what's called The Fraternity, an ancient organization that get messages in looms on who to kill, the idea being the person they kill today could mean saving thousands of lives later.

Okay, doesn't make much sense considering that this crew of assassins missed out on Stalin, Hitler and Idi Amin. Stuff it. Logic doesn't exist here, at least not in the world that director Timur Bekmambetov.

Instead, Bekmambetov is interested more in octane-fueled action filled with ridiculous stunts, like the one with the car flipping over a bunch of police cars and then landing on the side of a bus as it turns over and then driving off. Yeah, that happens in real life.

Again (repeat like a mantra), logic doesn't exist here.

Taking elements of The Matrix and other action movies, Bekmambetov has created a cool action flick that entertains with a little bit of good acting thrown in.

McAvoy gives his Gibson enough of that regular guy shtick to make us root for him every step of the way. His character does the things that all of smucks who want more out of life wish we could do.

And Jolie, as Fox, sizzles every time she's on the screen, making all of us guys real jealous of Brad Pitt. Lucky bastard.

The Incredible Hulk

Ang Lee's The Hulk was a brilliant, messy failure, an ambitious flop of monumental proportions. Instead of the full-fledged superhero flick many had hoped for, Lee's film was more focused on damaged father-son relationships and suppressed emotional drama that flared up in grass-colored skin and ever-bulging muscles. And the last half-hour was nothing more than a therapy session masquerading as a climactic fight scene ending in a mass bubble of angst being blown away by missiles (yes, that's what literally happened).

The idea of rebooting such a critical and commercial disaster seems an impossible task, close to crazy in fact. But Louis Leterrier, the director of The Transporter 2 and Unleashed, has succeeded where Ang Lee five years ago failed.

Armed with a great cast that's led by Edward Norton as the tortured soul Dr. Bruce Banner, Leterrier ditches the psychoanalysis and cuts to the action. And boy does this movie have action.

We don't have to wait almost an hour before Banner starts bursting out of his clothes and gets all green on us. It happens within the first 40 minutes of the movie.

The origin story is told in the opening credits. The movie opens with Banner as a fugitive working at a bottling company in Brazil and trying to come up with a cure. Hot after him is General Thaddeus Ross, who considers Banner's body the property of the U.S. government. Soon, he's found out, and the chase begins, from Brazil back to the United States.

Emil Blonsky, played by Tim Roth, is an aging soldier who gets a glimpse of The Hulk and wants some of that power. Eventually, he bulks out and becomes the menacing, even more frightening The Abominator.

Leterrier knows that audiences want to see Hulk smash, and Hulk does indeed smash a lot. This is a darker Hulk, much scarier in his power. The action is swift, and Leterrier keeps a nice, rollicking pace.

Elements of the old television show, the one with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, sneak in. We hear the haunting "Lonely Man" theme, and when Banner changes into the Hulk, his eyes go green. And Ferrigno himself makes a memorable cameo.

What the television show got right and what the movie includes is Banner's overwhelming angst over this dark side of himself, this rage that makes him rip his clothes. Norton plays that well. We feel for Banner and his unending struggle to keep himself under control.

Liv Tyler does a good job as Betty Ross, Banner's girlfriend, though here she mostly acts with her incredibly expressive eyes, all flush with emotion.

William Hurt brings heft to his role as General Ross, and Roth is great as Blonsky.

And plus, this movie is a lot of fun, with sprinkles of humor here and there, something mostly missing in Ang Lee's version.

Reports have surfaced that Norton is none too happy about this version of the movie. He had lobbied for a longer, more dialogue-intensive version, but the studios nixed it. And this time, I have to agree with the studios. The movie is lean, it's action-oriented, it's what people want to see.

And unlike Ang Lee's Hulk, this Hulk rocks.

Sex and The City

Yes, I saw Sex and The City, and I'm man enough to admit I actually wanted to see it, to be immersed in all that estrogen. It is not unfamiliar to me, a guy who grew up in a family of women, whose nickname was Man because he was the only testosterone in the house.

So, with my friend, Tracie, along for the ride, I indulged in a movie filled to the brim with girl talk about relationships, sex and fashion.

For those who don't know, the movie is based on the HBO series of the same name, where for six seasons, we followed the lives of four fabulous women and their search for love. At the center of the drama was Carrie Bradshaw, played to perfection by Sarah Jessica Parker, the writer. We also have Miranda, the workaholic attorney, Charlotte, the ever-optimistic cheerleader of the group, and Samantha, the sexually ravenous diva and drama queen.

Together, they were fierce, always ready to love and dish dirt about it over lunch at a New York restaurant.

The movie picks up about three years after the show ended. The women are all ensconced in various relationships, particularly Carrie and her Mr. Big (played by Chris Noth, of Law & Order fame). Samantha is with her boy-toy actor in California, Miranda is with her hubby and their child, and Charlotte is enjoying bliss with her husband and adopted daughter.

All seems well in the world, even more so after Mr. Big nonchalantly pops the big question and Carrie goes out in search of the perfect wedding dress.

Without spoiling the fun, not all goes exactly as planned. Hearts are broken and vows betrayed, and the movie goes down a quite unexpected dark path.

Michael Patrick Smith, the director, has a difficult job in keeping up with four women without letting the movie drag. He does this ably, and he is only helped by a great cast.

What worked in the show works in the movie, a flavorful dish of colorful (literally, in some cases) sex talk, biting wit and hard-earned tears.

But more important than that is the fact that women are at the center of the action, not mere centerpieces. These are grown women dealing with grown-up issues in ways both mature and childish, blossoming and wilting in the ebb and flow of what we like to call life.

And in this movie, we see these women coming into their own, finding their own way, taking responsibility for their mistakes and moving on, in exceptional heels, of course.

So, yeah, I saw it and I liked it. I'm man enough to admit it, though it does help to have a beautiful woman to see it with.

Indiana Jones

Action films these days are nothing more than special-effects-laden excuses to spend money to make money, hoping audiences will see past the lack of character development or plot to plop down their hard-earned dollars for empty entertainment.

So to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is to immerse yourself into something that feels like worthwhile pop entertainment, a rollercoaster ride of the senses, an escape from the earth-bound concerns of life.

You are transported and thus reminded of the reasons why you started going to the movies in the first place.

Steven Spielberg is a master of this, though oftentimes clumsy and not at all poetic. But you don't go to an Indiana Jones movie for poetry. You go to see that fedora and that whip and his wild adventures to find gnarly treasure.

In 1981, with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg and George Lucas created a new template for blockbuster movies, grabbing your attention from the first frame and not letting go until the very end. Jones was a rough-and-tumble archeologist who loved field research, the ones where he ran from big rolling rocks and ducked bullets with a wink of his eye and a smirk on his face. And he had his female students swooning enough that one had the words "love you" etched on her eyelids.

In this third sequel, 19 years in the making, Harrison Ford is back in his iconic role, his face bearing the weathered look of the 65-year-old man he is today. Don't fret. Ford eases back into character and cracks his whip with the same snap as he did when Indiana Jones first burst on the scene in 1981.

This time, he's just narrowly escaped from his new enemies, the Communists (the movie is set in 1957, and the Nazis are long gone), and he comes back to his job as a professor only to find he has been fired. Preparing to go on a long vacation, Jones bumps into Mutt Williams, ably played by hot-new talent Shia Lebouf, who tells him about a long-lost colleague, Professor Oxley.

Jones and Williams, a greaser given to sliding a coke-drenched comb through his hair, head to Peru to start looking for Oxley and the mystery behind the Crystal Skull, an artifact that might maintain the keys to other-worldly knowledge. The Russians are after the skull as well.

Near escapes and gunfights ensue, and in the middle of all this, Marian Ravenwood, Mutt's mother and Jones' one-time lover from the Raiders of the Lost Ark days, returns, wanting to slap and kiss Jones all at the same time.

Spielberg crafts his action set pieces with panache, a brilliant mix of hilarity and tingly suspense. Jones hasn't lost his wit, and Lebouf infuses the film with a nice youthful energy.

The special-effects don't overwhelm the movie, although there is one vine-swinging scene that looks awfully fake. The story doesn't make much sense, with lots of X-Files mumbo-jumbo, but who cares.

This is all about adventure and love and the space between the spaces. Here, we look for magic, and Spielberg gives it to us in abundance, the movie never really dragging even if it goes for more than two hours.

You find yourself lost in another world, hoping you never have to come back.

Iron Man

Long ago, in some distant time called my childhood, I had an eclectic comic book collection. I never took good care of them, the pages being a bit tattered. The collection is gone now, but one stands out in my mind, and that's Iron Man. The first panel of that comic book had Tony Stark slumping at his desk, a nearly-empty bottle of alcohol close by. I was hooked.

So I had to see the big-screen version of Iron Man that opened Friday. Just had to.

Now these days, super hero movies from the Marvel comics pantheon haven't fared well, except for the first two Spiderman movies, Hellboy and all of the X-Men movies. Many of us fans choose to forget Ang Lee's angst-filled Hulk or the horribly executed The Punisher and Daredevil.

Thank God for Robert Downey Jr., who steps into the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man. He's an actor's actor.

Plus, it helps that he has this backstory of being a drunken, drugged mess of a man once upon a time. That past makes him the perfect person to play the boozing playboy billionaire genius Tony Stark is.

He's quick with the quips and loves a good time, especially if it involves a romp in the sack with a gorgeous gal. Stark is head of Stark Industries, the largest weapons-maker in the world. He's amoral, with no concern for making profit out of war.

That is until he ends up being kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists in Afghanistan, his heart connected to a carburetor to keep shrapnel from penetrating it. Stark realizes that his weapons are being used by his country's enemies to do evil.

Well, he builds himself a suit, makes his escape and then builds a better suit, a sleeker, shinier one colored with hot-rod red, and becomes Iron Man.

Yes, it all sounds silly, but then again, all comic books are that way. But the dialogue, for a change, is sharp and witty, and Downey gives the movie the sort of dramatic oomph you don't see in many blockbusters.

The chemistry between him and Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays his red-headed assistant Pepper Potts, is one of the best things about the movies. And you can't go wrong with Jeff Bridges, who plays the sly villain Obadiah Stane. Terrence Howard is a bit underused but more than makes his presence known.

Jon Favreau, the director, gives the film a subversive, independent feel to the movie, even if it is all a bit predictable. The special-effects serve the plot well, though the climax is a disappointment.

The ending, however, which of course makes room for the inevitable sequel, is a hoot. I can hardly wait for Downey to suit up yet again.

Baby Mama

I'm not exactly sure when "baby mama" replaced "mother" or "wife" as a term of endearment, but it is firmly established in the pop culture lexicon. And it was only a matter of time before a movie called Baby Mama was made.

Thank God it's a movie starring Tina Fey, the sexiest female comedian working these days, and one of the sharpest.

Here, Fey plays a hard-working career woman who at 37 realizes she really wants a baby, especially after she keeps bumping into one cute infant after another in her daily walk. But she has no man and can't adopt a child.

So she decides on the best next alternative: She hires a woman to be her surrogate. That woman, Angie, is played by Amy Poehler. Angie is the exact opposite of Fey's character, Kate. She's pretty much white trash, with a "common-law husband," and no manners.

Poehler and Fey have great chemistry, and the movie fleshes out the characters so they aren't simply stereotypes. We find depth in both of them.

Granted, the trajectory of the movie is rather predictable, especially after Kate bumps into Rob, played by Greg Kinnear, the owner of a fruit drink shop.

Steve Martin is wonderful as Kate's boss, a New Age CEO given to finding the essence of a shell and giving his employees the reward of staring into his eyes for five uninterrupted minutes.

The razor-sharp writing and the strong cast keep the movie on a steady pace to the inevitable end, thus giving some fresh meaning to "baby mama."

Stop-Loss

Five years ago, the United States invaded Iraq. Five years later, the United States is still there, the violence seemingly getting worse. More than 4,000 soldiers are dead. The war is a major issue in the presidential race, the two Democratic candidates arguing for withdrawal and the presumptive Republican nominee saying we need to stay and not so easily admit defeat.

In her new movie, Stop-Loss, Kimberly Pierce, best known for her 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, goes beyond the rhetoric by focusing on the soldiers, their pain and struggles, the cost they pay for fighting a seemingly endless war.

In the film, Ryan Phillipe plays Brandon King, a soldier who has already seen two tours in Iraq. This last tour ended with several of his men dead in an ambush. King returns home to Texas, anxious to start a new life and leave the war back in Iraq.

But he can't quite escape. As soon as he's home, he's told he has to go back. King has been stop-lossed, a policy that allows the military to ship back soldiers even if their contract is up. The policy of stop-loss is essentially a back-door draft to make up for the shortage of soldiers.

King is livid. He's served his country long enough. He's seen too many awful things. His buddies are already struggling to adjust to a life that doesn't involve dodging bullets or seeing friends blown up by IEDs.

King decides, against the wishes of his best friend, Steve, played by Channing Tatum, to go AWOL, jumping in the car with Steve's girlfriend, and heading to Washington, D.C.

Along the way, he and his buddies deal with the boiling emotions felt by many veterans just returning home from war, the guilt and anger and post-traumatic stress disorder, the too-vivid images of death and destruction they have witnessed, the sheer senselessness of war itself.

To Pierce's credit, this isn't knee-jerk anti-war. These characters are red-blooded Americans who rushed to join the military and fight, like many did, after 911. As one character says, we might as well kill 'em in Iraq so we won't have to kill 'em in Texas.

The film's power is in how it shows these men's strong patriotism slowly disintegrate into frustration, confusion and disillusionment. They don't understand why they're fighting or more importantly, how long.

King, the moral center of the movie, fights within himself the sense of loyalty he has for the military and his friends and the feeling, ever growing inside him, that he just doesn't want to fight anymore, that he's done his time and he needs to move on.

The movie is melodramatic in some places, but the performances are strong, the tears well-earned. Pierce has pulled together a poignant movie that refuses to beat you over the head with its message. It just tells a story, making the personal very much political.

Meet The Browns

I love Angela Bassett. She, to this black man, is the epitome of strong black woman, providing support for her man but not afraid to walk away if she feels in anyway disrespected. Her eyes flash with anger one moment and soften with tears in the next.

Her chiseled physique belies the emotional strength she has within. She is a woman in all her complexities, human in the most beautiful way possible.

And that's why I was happy to see her in a leading role, something Bassett hasn't had in quite some time, underservedly so.

In Tyler Perry's new movie, Meet The Browns, Bassett plays Brenda, a single mother struggling to raise her three kids. Bills are piling up, and she can hardly afford daycare for her youngest. And just when things couldn't get any worse, she's laid off after the company she works for moves jobs overseas.

Tragedy provides the silver lining. She gets a letter telling her that the father she never knew has died and she needs to come to Georgia for the funeral.

When she arrives, she meets Leroy Brown, who is given to wearing too-tight shirts and pants that look like they were made from multi-colored quilts, and his crazy family.

As with all other Tyler Perry movies, there's a message, or at least a couple of them about faith in God and importance of family. Perry has always managed to mix in over-the-top humor with soap-opera drama effectively.

But he ultimately fails in this movie. The writing and direction feels rushed and forced. Some laughs are to be had, but many of the jokes fall flat.

Rick Fox is Angela Bassett's love interest, a former pro-basketball player trying to help her 17-year-old son improve his basketball skills for a shot at the pros while also trying to woo Brenda's heart. Fox, however, isn't the greatest actor, and the two fail to light any sparks.

And the problems are too simply solved in this movie. Now, no one expects realism from Perry, but we also don't expect to see one character get shot in one scene and run up and down the court like nothing happened in the next. We don't expect silly little obstacles in a burgeoning romance crop up that go away as easily as brushing some dust off the countertop.

When that happens, why root for anyone? You know things are going to work out anyway. Just give it five minutes.

The script feels as if it was undeveloped, and by the time the movie ends, you sense something is just missing. At the very least, you end up with stiff dialogue and contrived situations.

That's not to say the movie wasn't entertaining. It was. But after last year's much-better made Why Did I Get Married, arguably Perry's best movie to date, I came away from Meet The Browns disappointed and expecting more.

And Angela Bassett, my future wife if she ever divorces Courtney B. Vance (not likely at all), deserves better.

Persepolis

Out of pain comes art, often engaging visceral art, and that maxim is no doubt true of Persepolis, a beautifully rendered animated feature based on Marjane Sarapti's graphic novel of the same name.

It is set in Iran during the Islamic revolution, and Sarapti is but a nine-year-old child, rambunctious and still somewhat innocence.

But that innocence is shattered, as she learns about the brutal tyranny of the Shah. People all around her are rising up to overthrow the Shah and his dictatorship.

And the Shah does fall, but replaces that dictatorship, as Sarapti and her family quickly learn, is far worse. Fundamentalists impose their own vision of how life should be and brook no dissent. Women cover themselves in veils and are expected to be silent. Sarapti, however, can't keep her mouth shut, and as a result, she gets into plenty of trouble.

These are dangerous times, and her family eventually send Sarapti off to Austria for school, to protect her and give her a chance at a life.

Sarapti becomes a woman, finds her voice and discovers punk rock. She falls in love and has her heart broken, and soon, realizes, that as much as she hates Iran, she loves it, and returns.

But things haven't improved, and though she finds a way to thrive, she leaves again, knowing she cannot live within the limits the Iranian government proscribes.

Sarapti and the director Vincent Paronnaud have imbued this story, as painful as it often is, with a sharp and biting sense of humor. The political is balanced with the personal. We learn large chunks about Iranian history but we never lose site of Sarapti's intense struggle to be who she is in a society that doesn't always accept her.

We find here an Iran that we both love and hate, a country filled with horrific violence but also love. This is the message Sarapti sends over and over again throughout the movie: home is home, no matter how much it hurt you, how much it abused you. You have a connection to your home that cannot be denied. It is a physical place but home also exists in your mind and heart and cannot easily be forgotten.

And neither will you, once you see this movie.

Thriller

As a child, Michael Jackson scared me. On the night his 15-minute epic music video premiered, I ran into the bathroom, too frightened to see his nails turn into claws or whiskers come out of his skin as sweet-voiced Michael Jackson transformed into a werewolf before the lovely eyes of Ola Ray.

And those yellow eyes with the black slit chilled me to the core.

Yet, as scared as I was, I couldn't stay away. I wanted to see Michael sing and dance, work that magic that only he could do.

In the 1980s, Michael Jackson was the man. He could do no wrong. He was supernaturally gifted, his feet blessed by God to move in ways no mere mortal could. His voice, velvety in its soaring falsetto, floated easily over pop melodies, assured in its force, measured in its power.

His music videos were main events, families gathering around the television set to see what this wunderkind would come up with next to thrill us and take us on that Disney-like musical journey.

And believe it or not, no one, no one, was ashamed to do the moonwalk. Hell, we struggled to make our feet glide as smoothly as his. We wanted to be Michael, both Jackson and Jordan, though I stopped at getting a jheri curl (ain't no hair of mine gonna drip).

And now Thriller, his mega-selling album, a classic that remains relevant today, is 25 years old. Michael Jackson will turn 50 this year, and a lot has changed.

Usher, Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake, clearly inspired by MJ, have taken the mantle of pop entertainers, combining song and dance into one irressistable package.

And the man himself? I am still scared of him, but for different reasons. He hasn't transformed into a werewolf but merely a caricature of youth refusing to mature. His narrow nose, his straightened hair, and his lightened skin have long erased the handsome young man we used to know. Allegations of child molestation and just plain bizarre behavior distract and disgust us so much that memories of MJ's greatness fade.

I hardly believe Thriller is 25 years old. Such a lifetime ago it seems, when we believed in the magic of entertainment, that we saw Michael Jackson as some supernatural entity.

We didn't see, though, that he was only human. Not God, not a freak, but pain in flesh, flawed beyond what we could even imagine, hidden for far too long behind our own hopes and dreams all encased inside one man.

For me, Thriller still thrills, fills me with the innocence of childhood, a time when adult concerns seemed far away and I could fear in the confines of my home the evil monsters out to get me. And that magic was possible.

Atonement: Hated It

I walked into Atonement with high expectations, fed by Oscar buzz and a friend's recommendation.

I left disappointed. The tale told here is sad and tragic, and Joe Wright, the director, milks the pathos for all it is worth. The cast is filled with bright actors such as James McAvoy and Keira Knightly and newcomer Saoirse Ronan who give pitch-perfect performances.

The problem lies in the story, or more accurately, in how the story is told. Going back and forth in time, we learn about the unrequited love of Cecillia and Robbie, whose lives are forever damaged by the lie told by Cecillia's sister, Briony.

It is a lie that lands Robbie in prison and then in the middle of World War II while Cecillia works as a nurse treating injured soldiers. Over several years, we see the two come teasingly close to living happily ever after before being torn apart by circumstances beyond their control.

And at the center of their unhappiness is Briony, a prickly little girl whose narcissistic quest for attention leads her to ruin two people's lives. The rest of her life is spent trying to seek some kind of penance.

But I never quite muster any kind of sympathy for Briony or her guilt. Not once does she ever come forward to tell the truth. The pain of other people are mere canvases for her to tell the stories she never got to write fully as a child.

And though James McAvoy and Keira Knightly pour themselves into their roles with an incredible fervor, the weight of their tragedy lives never grasped me. The non-linear narrative wasn't as effective as Joe Wright thought it could be in painting a portrait of painful consequences stemming from one awful lie.

In fact, it was distracting, keeping one at a distance instead of drawing one into the interior lives of these characters.

And Briony, when we encounter her at the end as a dying novelist still trying to salve her guilt, comes across not sad but pathetic, a coward who couldn't be bothered with the bravery to tell the truth.

I certainly may be wrong in my conclusion, and if I am, there is much to atone for. But I just didn't get it.

The Case of the Sad Movie

Films are pretty bleak these days, and Robin Givhan, award-winnng fashion writer for The Washington Post, tells us why. Bleak is good but today, even though I should watch There Will Be Blood, which has managed to sneak into my little city of Winston-Salem, I opted for more fun fare, namely the dance movie with heart, How She Move.

Cloverfield

YouTube is the new diary, or so it seems in Cloverfield, a Godzilla-like monster movie tailor-made for a generation used to video-taping their lives.

Here, we follow a group of successful 20 something Manhattans celebrating one of their own who has nabbed a cool new job in Japan.

The revelry is caught on tape as a guy named Hud lugs around a video camera. Partying soons turns into running when power outages and earthquakes intrude.

Turns out a monster is terrorizing Manhattan, knocking down buildings and beheading the Statue of Liberty.

Everything, and I mean everything, is seen through Hud's eyes via the camera. The result made my friend's head hurt. But it also gives the film a surreal touch in the first hour or so, leaving the audience with only glimpses of the mysterious monster stomping his way through the city.

The acting isn't Oscar-worthy in the least, and most of the characters are either forgettable or immensely annoying, like Hud.

But the feeling of dread is ever-present, a steady knot in the stomach, with the occassional kick in the gut when the monster gets a little too close to the camera.

Produced by Alias-creator J.J. Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves, Cloverfield is a throwback to the Godzilla movies of the past with some edge.

Does everything make sense? Of course not; this is a monster movie, and you yell at characters who insist on going toward the monster instead of away. And the small efforts at character development don't work. We don't see these films to care about people; we see them to see people get sidewiped by big teeth and sharp claws.

And on that front, the movie delivers, a gnarly scarefest with an indie spirit.

First Sunday

Some have called David Talbert the next Tyler Perry, though he scoffs at such comparisons.

And for good reason. His first film, First Sunday, isn't nearly as preachy as many of Tyler Perry's films. Nor is it as funny.

Ice Cube, who seems to have a permanent scowl etched on his face, is Durell, an ex-con trying to keep his baby mama from leaving Baltimore for Atlanta with his son. Durell can't leave the state because of his probation.

His sidekick is LeeJohn, played by Tracy Morgan, a comic blessed with often manic energy.

Durell's girlfriend needs about $17,000 to pay off her debts and keep her from leaving. And LeeJohn is indebted to some Jamaican gangsters.

They hatch a plan to rob the local church. As is often the case, the plan goes haywire and they end up taking the pastor and a bunch of church members hostage. Hilarity ensues.

Well, not as much as one would hope, unfortunately. Tracy Morgan manages to get some laughs, but the real star of this movie is pimp-worshipping comedian Katt Williams, who plays a effeminate choir director. His facial contortions are a hoot, and the script gives him the best lines.

When Williams appears on the screen, there's a guaranteed belly laugh or two.

Loretta Devine, as the church secretary, has one sweet, tear-inducing scene with Morgan's character.

Talbert does a decent job of pulling out some good performances out of the actors, who include the always-great Chi McBride as the pastor, Malinda Williams as his daughter and Regina Hall as Durell's ex-girlfriend. Plus, the movie thankfully moves along at a rapid pace, before the audience can even begin to detect the obvious holes in the plot.

Somehow, despite the problems, Talbert manages to effectively slip in positive messages about faith and accountability in a movie dependent on the most part on very broad comedy.

But Talbert hasn't mastered the formula yet, and by the end, the movie all but falls apart, with a sappy happy ending that just doesn't feel earned. Which means that instead of saying Amen after walking out of the theater, you might be more apt to say what a shame.

Juno

Juno MacGuff is what every girl would want to be at 16, if she had her dialogue written for her by snappy ex-stripper turned wunderkind writer Diablo Cody. Well, except she's pregnant by her kind-of boyfriend Paulie Bleeker and she finds her adoptive parents through the classified section.

Somehow, this all holds together in Jason Reitman's wonderfully realized Juno. Named after the queen of the Roman gods, Juno is a smart-alecky teenager with a snappy comeback for everyone. And when she is unexpectedly pregnant, she deals with the situation in her own plucky way. After being scared away from the abortion clinic, she finds Vanessa and Mark. Vanessa, played by Jennifer Garner, desperately wants to be a mother. Mark, played by Jason Bateman, may or may not be ready.

Backed by her no-nonsense father and kick-ass stepmother, Juno maneuvers through her nine-months of pregnancy. Ellen Page gives an audience-pleasing performance that revels in Juno's hyperarticulate banter, but the real joy that Page provides is her slowly tearing away the facade Juno's snarkiness hides. She's just a girl still not sure who she is. She wonders if she is in love and she is naive to the complexities of adult relationships.

Reitman balances the laughter with the pathos. My only quibble is that sometimes Juno is too smart-alecky, making it hard to relate to her. After all, real teenagers don't talk like this. At least I didn't when I was that age and no one I knew did either.

Dawson's Creek had this problem. The teenagers gave impossibly eloquent soliloques reminiscent more of Shakespeare than any of the slang-driven drivel one expects of young people these days. Juno's comebacks are entertaining but surreal, and keep her at arms length for most of the film.

Nonetheless, you do begin to care for her, as Diablo Cody's script begins to reveal the confused teenager underneath all of the tough talk.

And then this all becomes real and touching and poignant. And every girl will want to be just like Juno. Well, maybe they'll skip the unplanned pregnancy part, though.