There are so many things that could have gone wrong with “The Blind Side.” What could have been a horribly cheesy, hard-to-swallow “Remember the Titans 2” turned out to be a viscerally engaging film about love, family and the importance of acceptance, and possibly the best film of Sandra Bullock’s career.

To put it plainly, this is the best film I’ve seen in a long time. There were points in this movie where the audience erupted into spontaneous applause. There were other times when I had to cover my face because I couldn’t stand to think of what might happen. And there were other triumphant moments when I gave a couple of hearty fist-pumps. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, I’m just saying it happened.

This incredible true story follows Michael Oher, or “Big Mike,” an intimidatingly large African-American teenager who has a rough past and very little to say about it. Through powerful flashbacks, we discover that Michael is on his own in this world and has been living a transient life, going from couch to couch in his friends’ homes.

He finds himself accepted into a prestigious private school in Memphis (the football coach made sure he got in) and is immediately ostracized because of his size and the color of his skin.

Leigh Ann Toughy (Sandra Bullock) picks Michael up off the street one night after school and without asking any questions, welcomes him into the Toughy home. Slowly, Michael becomes a part of the family and discovers what it means to be loved.

The Toughys are a ridiculously wealthy family whose two children attend Michael’s school, and they own “like, a million Taco Bells,” according to the precocious and adorable S.J. Toughy.

Quinton Aaron, who plays Michael, does a superb job. His character is misunderstood, yet lovable, and he plays stupid in a very smart way. We immediately want the best for Michael, even though he barely speaks a full sentence throughout the movie. His expressions, his tears and his laughter speak volumes about his past, his heart and his thoughts.

S.J. Toughy (Jae Head) is a brilliant young actor with an incredible sense for comedic timing. Reminiscent of a young Macaulay Culkin, S.J. is the first kid at school to accept Michael, telling him the girls at school wouldn’t be so scared of him if he would just smile a little bit.

It would seem that Michael becomes S.J,’s constant companion and protector when it’s really S.J. teaching Michael about friendship, laughter and, most importantly, football. There are several heartwarming sequences where S.J. trains Michael until he eventually conquers on the field.

The second most compelling relationship in the film is that between Leigh Ann and Michael. Bullock plays a strong-minded southern belle, a no-nonsense mother and Michael Oher’s biggest fan. Leigh Ann, who is as tough as nails, advocates for Michael in every area of his life. She takes the boy who had one set of clothes and no place to stay and gave him a home, a new wardrobe, a new truck, a career, and most importantly, a family. The audience questions its presuppositions about race and poverty as Toughy challenges her own.

Admittedly, I rolled my eyes when I saw that Tim McGraw was going to be in this film. However, despite a bad hairpiece, McGraw delivered with the best of them, particularly in a scene where he’s studying with Michael and recites a poem.

And just when you think the movie couldn’t get any better, halfway through we get to see Kathy Bates, Michael’s motivating tutor. Bates is compelling though her part is small.

So, in the end, you should just go see “The Blind Side.” You’ll be a better person for it.

A lot of things were going on yesterday. Oprah was announcing the end of her daytime talk show. Sarah Palin was touring the country, promoting her new book and jabbing at Obama’s policies at every turn. Surely, Taylor Swift was walking around somewhere telling someone that she wasn’t dating Taylor Lautner.

But ask most any girl under the age of 16 (and their moms, for that matter) what November 20 meant to them, and they’d tell you one thing: “New Moon.”

At midnight last night, girls were lining up at theaters all around the world to catch the first glimpse of the sequel. Would it include all the important parts from the book? they wondered. Will the special effects be cool? Will there be enough Edward?

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit I was asking myself the same things as I walked into the theater. And in the end, I was not disappointed.

Catherine Hardwicke’s “Twilight” was lacking in these ways: there was stilted dialogue, awkward special effects and some funny scenes that weren’t meant to be funny. Director Chris Weitz transitioned the cold, awkward world of “Twilight” into a warm, emotional and dynamic “New Moon.”

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg seems to have taken a little more time with this script, as the banter between the characters feels natural. She leaves the “lion and the lamb” quotes in the book where they belong.

The movie touches on almost every important scene in the book, which will please die-hard (or Twi-hard) fans. The movie moves quickly, giving about 15 minutes to process every intense emotion that Stephenie Meyer spent 100 pages talking about, so it can feel a bit rushed. But when you realize that the movie is over two hours long, you re-think that assessment.

The only part of the film that was seriously lacking was the wolf pack. Only two of the four have any serious build, and if you’re going to spend half the movie walking around shirtless, you need to at least get rid of the muffin top. Not to mention the fact that the wolf transformations are by turns incredibly realistic and incredibly…not. The wolves sometimes look fierce and other times, look like cartoons, which is a big disappointment if you’ve seen “The Golden Compass.” And there’s an unforgivable sequence where wolf pack leader Sam Uley jumps off of a cliff and you feel like you’re watching an animation from the “Tomb Raider” computer game you had as a kid.

Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner have incredible chemistry. Kristen plays the broken Bella very well, and Lautner exudes the warmth of his character. Plus, he’s not bad to look at either. In the end, your heart breaks when he begs her to stay, and the most loyal Edward fans wonder if maybe they wouldn’t choose Jacob instead.

But in the end, the movie brings you back to Edward and Bella, as it should. It ends on a well-deserved cliff-hanger, leaving the Twi-hards squealing until next June, when the third installment, “Eclipse,” is scheduled for release.

I think it’s only fair that I preface this review by saying that I absolutely love disaster movies. Bruce Willis versus an asteroid the size of Texas in “Armageddon?” I’m there. Jake Gyllenhaal battling wolves in frozen New York in “The Day After Tomorrow?” Save me a ticket. Kurt Russell fighting to get out of an upside-down cruise ship in “Poseidon?” Oh hells yeah.

So I came into “2012” with rather high expectations, and for the most part, if you want a disaster movie, it delivers, cliches and all. At nearly 150 minutes, the movie is a bit overstuffed, but the pacing is solid throughout and never boring. And Emmerich lovingly covers every imaginable disaster movie cliché. From the cute and precocious kids to the dog with a better survival instinct than most humans, to the tearful goodbyes between survivors and their doomed family members- all the predictable beats are hit.

“2012″ is delightfully preposterous. A mash-up of pretty much every disaster movie ever made, the movie depicts worldwide destruction on an impressively massive scale. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and clouds of ash combine to not only destroy the world, but to kick it in the face while it’s down for good measure.

Roland Emmerich brings a destructive glee to the proceedings, depicting the end of the world with real élan. Emmerich, having already destroyed the world twice in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow” knows how to handle his set pieces and puts his reported $200 million dollar budget to good use. He constructed scenes depicting entire cities crumbling in 10.5 earthquakes and being washed away by 100-foot tidal waves that are stunning in their scope. Unfortunately, a fairly cheesy script hampers the film and detracts from the visual delights.

When US Geologist Adrian Hemsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers there is something screwy going on with the Earth’s crust that is going to have cataclysmic consequences for the planet’s surface, the US President (Danny Glover) and the rest of the world’s leaders decide to keep Earth’s impending doom a secret from the majority of the planet. Instead they offer safety to the select few with a bank account big enough to bankroll hastily-built arks in China- even salvation is getting outsourced these days.

While the idea of a massive worldwide conspiracy to cover up the world’s end is intriguing, it is handled rather ham-fistedly. At one point, a possible whistleblower threatening to expose the conspiracy is killed in a car crash in the same tunnel where Princess Diana died. A detail meant to give the death gravitas and shock value, got a laugh instead at my screening.

Fortunately some inspired casting enables the movie to roll past most of its narrative rough spots.

The conspiracy storyline may be a dud, but Chiwetel Ejiofor is not. Ejiofor- in the year’s most earnest performance, and I mean that as a compliment- makes Hemsley’s decency feel like a genuine trait and not a result of simplistic screenwriting. Oliver Platt does just the right amount of scene chewing as presidential advisor Carl Anheuser, who battles Hemsley’s more noble instincts. You know Anheuser’s a jerk because he doesn’t let his ex-wife or his senile mother know the world is ending.

John Cusack puts in a solid everyman turn as Jackson Curtis. Curtis’ quest to prove himself to his children and ex-wife is the emotional core of the movie. Cusack brings a just the right amount of quirkiness to the part and emerges as a surprisingly adept action lead.

During the family’s mad drive through a Los Angeles that is slowly crumbling into the Pacific Ocean, Curtis proves himself to be the world’s greatest limo driver- dodging falling buildings, tumbling billboards and collapsing freeways. The scene is genuinely thrilling and the film’s most exciting.

“2012” is not high art, but it is a lot of fun. Emmerich’s genuine affection for the material, and solid acting by an interesting cast helps keep things moving and delivers some solid popcorn-ready entertainment.

“2012″ is now in theaters.

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” plays like a collection of scenes without a central thread uniting them. Perhaps worse than the film’s lack of cohesion is its smugness- the movie practically shouts at the audience, “Laugh already! This is really funny!” Unfortunately, more often that not, the movie simply doesn’t deliver.

The film tells the story of the Pentagon’s attempts during the Reagan administration to create an army of psychic soldiers. “The New Earth Army” is founded by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges, in full on “Dude” mode), an army officer who searches for alternative means to wage war after being wounded in Vietnam.

After years spent in the counter-culture scene, Django comes back with all kinds of new ways to fight America’s enemies (psychedelics are heavily involved) and with the help of the intensely zealous Brig. Gen. Dean Hopgood (Stephen Lang), gets funding for his unit of “American Jedis.”

Ewan McGregor gets his meatiest role in years as Bob Wilton, the journalist looking for a story about the New Earth Army. McGregor drives the film. Unfortunately the character feels completely misconceived. Instead of focusing on Wilton’s journalistic quest for a story, the script is more concerned with his desperate search for meaning in his life. This makes Wilton become an active participant in the craziness he is encounters instead of a lens through which the audience can enter such a bizarre and zany world.

Wilton turns to Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) — a former New Earth Army member who he encounters in Iraq — to act as his source and life coach. Clooney dives into the part with relish. With his mustache, sun-baked skin, and movie star good looks, Clooney resembles an enthusiastic and crazed Clark Gable. He clearly has a ball playing off-type. Clooney’s enthusiasm and pure star power almost make the whole thing work.

By having Wilton embrace Cassady’s crazy lifestyle, the audience is left without a levelheaded perspective with which to counter Cassady’s eccentric ways (The guy thinks he can cause clouds to disappear with his mind).

Maybe a stronger director could have wrangled all of this together and turned it into something that worked. Simply put, Grant Heslov seems completely overwhelmed here on his first feature. Heslov, Clooney’s producing partner, seems to have given the actors free reign to play their characters however they wanted- whether it serves the narrative or not. The comedic beats are poorly timed and Heslov does a tremendously awkward job of integrating the more dramatic scenes throughout the film. The worst thing a comedy can do is make you question whether or not you should be laughing.

Walking out of the theater I couldn’t help but think that “The Men Who Stare at Goats” comes off as a lazy and self-congratulatory film. While it’s clear the actors are having a lot of fun, there seems to be little attempt at engaging the audience. I’m glad they all enjoyed it, because I sure didn’t.

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is now in theaters.

The style that was so fresh, funny and enjoyable in 2004’s “Napoleon Dynamite” has become stale, predictable and merely amusing in this year’s “Gentlemen Broncos.” Writers Jared and Jerusha Hess returned to their home of Utah for the setting of their third film, recycling their kitschy, eccentric characters and awkward, squeaky-clean comedy in hopes of recreating their first film’s magic. While the plot is somewhat compelling and the characters are loveable, the film devotes too much time to the “Yeast Lords” side-story and not enough time the main character, Benjamin Purvis.

Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano) is a gullible, homeschooled 16-year-old introvert who has a passion for writing sci-fi. Benjamin appears to be the only sane, reasonable person in a cast of badly dressed misfits.

His loopy mother (Jennifer Coolidge, “Best In Show”) owns a company called “Decent Beginnings” that sells hideous nightgowns for $100 a pop. Gown names include “Reachable Dream,” “Front Pew” and “Righteous Do.” This type of role is Coolidge’s bread and butter. She plays the role of clueless-but-concerned mom to a tee, at one point shoving a popcorn car through prison bars to her son on his birthday.

Benjamin is a reluctant friend with the immensely annoying Tabitha (Halley Feiffer) and Lonnie (Hector Jimenez), two other homeschoolers who run a small amateur adult film company. They eventually dupe Benjamin into giving them his original manuscript, “Yeast Lords,” to make into a movie. The Hess’s went a little overboard with these guys, their unforgivable weirdness making each scene with them in it seem endless and inescapable instead of funny. Tabitha’s oddness would be more acceptable if she showed some redeeming quality like humor or integrity. Lonnie is just flat-out irritating.

But Tabitha and Lonnie aren’t the only ones who swindle Benjamin. His literary idol, Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement, “Flight of the Conchords”) swipes his manuscript from a contest and pawns it off as his own. Clement does a remarkable job in hilariously depicting the arrogant British author. He provides most of the comic relief in Benjamin’s sad story, delivering lines like, “Do you think they’ll remember us for our writing? No! They’ll remember us for our wealth!”

Angarano’s Benjamin is delightfully awkward, from his cracking pubescent voice to his feet curled insecurely beneath his desk. The audience feels for him as he gets walked all over and roots for him when he finally stands up for himself. The only downside is that by the time he does so, the film is over.

There are few people who could have wanted to like this movie more than myself. Alas, I won’t be quoting it for years to come as I’d hoped. It’s worth seeing for its individual comedic performances, but bring something to do when Clement, Coolidge and Angarano aren’t on the screen.

Cult films are a dangerous thing. Sometimes great, sometimes not, they create a fervor and devotion usually saved for fringe religious groups and third party candidates. And the films make their way into the canon of filmic classics, whether or not they deserve to be there.

There is only one thing more dangerous than a cult film. A cult sequel.

I was once an acolyte who worshiped at the altar of “The Boondock Saints,” the 1999 comedic thriller about two Irish brothers in Boston who decide to become vigilantes. I saw the film when I was 16, right before I was about to move to Boston. Perhaps it was the gritty Southie cache that resonated with me, or the idea of two good-looking Irish boys saving Boston from danger, but I was in love. I’d lost touch with the movie until last week, when I saw the sequel.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen it in a couple years. It was the exact same movie.

The plot’s a bit different: our anti-heroes Connor and Murphy (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus, respectively) are on the lam in Ireland by their father (Billy Connolly) after killing numerous mobsters in Boston. After a mysterious villain starts mimicking the Saints reverent killing style, they return to Beantown to take up their savage quest. They’re pursued by another FBI agent, this time a woman- Julie Benz, who does a truly spectacular job stepping into Willem Dafoe’s airy shoes, even with half of her scenes being slow camera shots up her gamine profile. We also get a protracted back story about the boys’ father, a righteous murderer in his own right.

But the cult sequel is a very big problem because it’s made for the fans, and the fans alone. Outsiders are not just ignored, they are actively discouraged. This would not be so terrible, if not for the fact that Troy Duffy, the mastermind behind the “Saints,” decided that the only way to appease his fans would be to simply make the movie again. So we have the two boys who plot to kill bad guys based around action flicks they’ve seen. We have the hilarious, vaguely ethnic sidekick (the last one got offed in the first film). We have the religious imagery, the filthy dialogue, the stylized shoot-outs and a wily Southern FBI agent with a feminine drawl. There’s even a reference to rope- one of the first film’s best gags.

All-in-all, it’s less a movie and more of an inside joke. And as we all know, boys and girls, inside jokes are only funny to the ones who know what you’re talking about. For those who are fans of the first film, this will be a welcome diversion. Duffy is a truly wonderful screenwriter, and his dialogue clips along at a good pace. Reedus and Flanery are excellent; it’s as if they’d just stepped off the set of the first film last week. And I really did enjoy watching Benz take a luscious bite out of the scenery around her. There are surprises too- and if I spoiled any of them I’m sure I would have gold coins on my eyes by the end of the week, so let’s move on.

But if you don’t know what I mean when I talk about gold coins, or rope or that wicked funny scene with the cat, then chances are “Saints II” will only leave you slightly dizzy, and more than slightly confused. As for me, a die-hard fan of yore, I suddenly realized that somewhere between 16 years old and today, this movie had lost its cult status in my heart. It was still a good movie, sure. So is the sequel. But in terms of my devotion, I guess I’ve been deprogrammed.

Just a few days before his untimely death, Michael Jackson was gearing up to set out on a sold-out 50-concert comeback in London. Following ten years of silence from the misunderstood artist, this final performance was going to be unlike any that the King of Pop had ever done before. But little did he know that his true final performance would come in the behind-the-scenes documentary of the show’s final rehearsals.

“This Is It” is pervaded by an eerie sense of foreboding. When watching the (still, at 50) incredibly nimble Jackson fly across the stage, it’s hard not to think of the autopsy photographs of his ruined body that would surface soon after. Jackson says, on several occasions during rehearsal, that he is saving his voice for the real thing, and it’s sad to think of the performance he might have given had he known it would be his last. And on several occasions, the extremely meticulous Jackson would stop mid-performance, fix whatever issue he had with the band, and say, “This is why we have rehearsal,” with a laugh.

Fans who go to “This Is It,” hoping to hear Jackson’s last words to his fans will come away disappointed. Though the film is a documentary, there are very few interviews with the crew, and there are none with Jackson. The film begins by talking to Jackson’s principal dancers, who are so choked up that it’s hard to believe the footage was shot before Jackson’s death.

The rest of the film is straight rehearsal footage, sometimes shot with poor-quality cameras, which reminds the audience that this was never intended to be released in theaters. Despite the fact that this footage only gives a brief glimpse into what the real performance was going to be like, it’s incredible to watch such a talented performer who still, after all these years, hits his mark every single time, both dancing and singing.

This film won’t win any awards based on its cinematography (the opening and closing credits looked like they were made on iMovie) but the packaging doesn’t matter a whole lot when the content is Michael Jackson. Viewers will take away the message of the film, which Jackson repeated to his crew several times — “It’s all about love.”

“(Untitled),” a wicked new satire of the New York City art scene, focuses on two brothers, Josh and Adrian Jacobs.

Josh (Eion Bailey) has found incredible financial success selling his pleasant-but-unexceptional paintings for $10,000 a piece to doctor’s offices, law firms and hotel chains. Checking out his latest work in a busy hotel lobby, Josh assures Adrian that this is a worthy place for his work to be shown- “More people are going to see my work here than if it were hanging at MOMA.”

Adrian (Adam Goldberg) is an unsuccessful composer. Having decided that harmony is a “capitalist plot,” he composes music that strains against most peoples conceptions of what music is. His pieces are hilarious in their detail. There is purposeful misplaying of instruments, not to mention sudden unexplainable wails, and a big finale, which includes dropping a chain into a bucket and then kicking the bucket repeatedly. These elements combine to produce pieces that are delightfully wretched.

In their search for artistic fulfillment, the brothers navigate a New York full of fascinating and hilarious characters. Director and co-writer Jonathan Parker has created a world that is both outlandish and completely believable.

Adrian and Josh get tangled up with snooty gallery owner Madeleine Gray, who is Josh’s broker. Madeleine is obsessed with having a hand in discovering the next Van Gogh. Because many great artists have been traditionally under appreciated in their own time, Madeleine is attracted to those who seem to lack any discernable talent.

That quality draws her to Adrian and pushes her way from Josh, whose financially viable works bankroll her search for the worst artist in New York, but don’t appeal to her need to discover the next great artist.

Every detail of Madeleine’s world feels spot-on- from the artist Ray Barko (Vinnie Jones) who lets others created his art for him (“he wants to prove the process can be administrative”) to the wealthy buyer who wants to diversify his portfolio by buying art he doesn’t understand.

The performances are excellent across the board. Marley Shelton is sexy and delightfully pretentious as Madeleine and she is well matched by Adam Goldberg’s brooding and oh-so-tortured turn. Eion Bailey’s work as Josh is pitch perfect. Bailey is able to capture Josh’s incredulity and disenchantment with the art scene while at the same time suggesting how desperately he desires to be accepted by it.

Josh’s obsessive need for critical feedback and Adrian’s intense desire to create something wholly original grounds the satire in real and true human emotion.

“(Untitled)” is a hilarious and pointed satire, but one that suggests an uncertain future for art and artists. The film is certainly over the top. But when I think of some of the truly outlandish art being created at the moment, I find myself wondering along with Josh, when he asks Madeleine near the end of the film, “When did beauty become so fucking ugly?” That’s a good question and one “(Untitled)” does not have an answer for.

Amelia Earhart took major risks. She flew solo across two oceans and died trying to be the first pilot to fly around the globe. Unfortunately “Amelia,” the new film about Earhart’s life, is never able to escape the basic biopic structure. It is ironic that a film about a woman who strained against the boundaries of society never takes any chances of its own.

The safe nature that permeates the entire production is unfortunate, as the pieces are there to make a captivating film. Mira Nair, probably best known for “Monsoon Wedding,” has crafted a lovely film. The shots of Amelia flying over Africa are gorgeous and all the period details feel spot-on, but the characters feel sterile and lethargic.

Richard Gere does nice work as George Putnam, Amelia’s husband and chief promoter who came up with ways finance her flying. Gere’s performance captures Putnam’s awe and love for a woman he knows he can never completely have. It is a shame that Hilary Swank is unable to match him.

Swank is perhaps the most baffling actress working today. She’s won two Oscars for electric and emotionally honest performances, and yet her range seems surprisingly limited here. While it’s nice to see Swank deliver such an uncharacteristically smiley performance, it feels hollow. Swank looks the part, but is sadly incapable of capturing the adventurous spirit that Earhart embodied.

Swank is a good physical match for the character, but she never seems to connect with Earhart as a person, and the script’s dialogue isn’t doing her any favors. She has to deliver lines like “flying lets me move in three dimensions.” While lines like that may have looked brilliant and deep on the page, they fall very flat when actually spoken on screen.

The one moment were Swank sparkles is during a nighttime flight when Earhart flies Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) over Washington D.C. The scenes of these two women who played by their own rules are truly magical. Roosevelt’s joy when Earhart gives her the wheel is the film’s best moment of excitement and wonder.

The other supporting performances are all solid. Ewan McGregor is charismatic, if underused, as Gene Vidal, the other love of Earhart’s life. The movie tiptoes around her affair with Vidal, which limits the audience’s connection to Earhart herself. If we are not allowed to see how Vidal, or George Putnam, for that matter, stirred her passion, how are we supposed to understand her as a character?

Nair does her best work with the depiction of Earhart’s doomed last leg of her attempted flight around the world. She is able to build tension despite the fact that we already know how the story ends. Swank’s work in the final scenes is understated and powerful. Christopher Eccleston ably backs her up as her navigator, Fred Noonan.

“Amelia” simply never takes off. The film isn’t able to break out of its rigid and formulaic structure. While it does an admirable job of depicting Earhart’s accomplishments, it doesn’t show us who she was outside of the cockpit. We get to know Earhart the pilot, but not Amelia.

“Amelia” is in theaters now.

“Astro Boy,” an animated film based on a 1960’s Japanese cartoon, is a surprisingly deep and emotionally mature superhero tale. Despite a fairly pedestrian and action-heavy third act, I found myself thoroughly invested in Astro’s search for a home and sense of belonging.

Astro (Freddie Highmore) is created by the brilliant Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) to replace Toby, his son who died in a tragic lab accident. Tenma desperately clings to Astro at first, but callously discards him when he realizes that despite the physical resemblance and the fact that he has given Astro his son’s memories, Toby is truly gone.

The scenes between Astro and Tenma are handled with real intelligence and emotional depth. Tenma’s reactions to Astro feel motivated by a father’s grief at the loss of his son and not due to the necessity of the plot. And Astro’s realization of an identity separate from Toby’s is simple but effective.

It is when Astro goes in search of a new home that the film is at its best visually. The setting of the film changes from the surprisingly visually dull Metro City, a floating metropolis, to the Earth’s surface, long-abandoned by humanity due to pollution and a huge buildup of garbage.

Once there, Astro makes friends with a group of children who have been living on the surface. Cora (Kristen Bell), the spunky leader of the group, is the standout. She spends clear nights trying to contact her parents in Metro City using old cell phones she finds in the massive junk piles that cover much of the Earth’s surface. The shots of Cora sitting on the hood of an old car and staring up at Metro City, framed by the moon and the city floating above her, are the films loveliest.

While the action-heavy third act is nothing particularly special, I was involved enough in Astro’s journey that it did not bother me all that much. The fight scenes are exciting but unoriginal.

The fact that Metro City is poorly rendered does not help the film. Metro City is never portrayed as a bustling metropolis. It seems the animators spent most of their time working on the much more colorful and visually interesting surface of Earth, which robs Astro’s desperate fight to save the city of much of its emotional weight. Why should I care about a city that doesn’t feel real?

The voice acting is solid, with Freddie Highmore being the real standout. Highmore invests Astro with the same intelligent sensitivity that has marked all of his live-action performances.

The film falls into the trap of casting actors with name value instead of finding voices that match the characters. The best example of this is Bill Nighy, who voiced a character that does not suit him physically. Nighy does very nice work. I just didn’t buy his voice coming from the diminutive and fat Dr. Elefun.

“Astro Boy” is far from perfect, but it hooked me anyway. By the end I genuinely cared what happened to Astro. Was the ending all that surprising? No not at all, but it was fun watching Astro get there.

“Astro Boy” is in theaters this Friday.

Brian Clough was an arrogant and outspoken soccer manager so famous for his willingness to give the press an uncensored comment on any subject that Muhammad Ali once asked, “Who does this Clough guy thinks he is?”

“The Damned United,” the new film about Clough’s disastrous 44-day tenure as manager of Leeds United, does a great job at depicting Clough’s arrogance, but falters when trying to show what made him brilliant.

Clough’s tenure with Leeds is a fiasco from the start. His first day on the job he gives an interview where he calls out Don Revie, the legendary coach he is replacing, and the Leeds players for dirty tactics- never mind the fact the team has been the best in England for almost a decade. Clough confidently tells his interviewer “If the players were having fun they wouldn’t have played that way.”

Michael Sheen does tremendous work here. Sheen plays Clough as bundle of ego, passion and self-destructiveness. The film wants you to believe that Clough was driven to the peak of his profession after feeling insulted by Don Revie for not shaking his hand after a match. In the hands another actor, that scene might not have played, but if any man would be insulted and obsessed with a personal slight so tiny, it would be Sheen’s Brian Clough.

It is when trying to show us Clough’s talents where the film stumbles. The film suggests that Clough relied on his loyal assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), to find him talented players and much of his failure in Leeds can be tied to Taylor’s absence. There is never any talk about tactics or training methods that would separate Clough from any other coach. While the film suggests Taylor was key to Clough’s success, there is not enough time given to the relationship to show us that.

Peter Morgan, the film’s screenwriter, has proven adept at putting a historical event into context by focusing on a relationship between two people with films like “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon.” But here he seems to focus on the wrong relationship.

The confrontation between Clough and Revie on a local sports show after Clough is fired by Leeds is electric. Sheen in particular does stellar work in the scene. His depiction of Clough’s crushing realization that he can only blame himself for his failure is powerfully portrayed. Sheen is able to undo all the bluster and bravado of his character with a few reaction shots.

The movie builds to that confrontation between Clough and Revie. It is when the focus turns to Clough’s relationship with Peter Taylor that it seems to loose focus. Up until that point the story had been about one disastrous period in Brian Clough’s life. The final scenes of the movie try to turn the story into one that encompasses his entire career, and in doing so loses much of the power found in his failure.

“The Damned United” is in theaters now.

“Couples Retreat,” a painfully unfunny comedy, is a lazy and slapped-together movie. It is constructed around scenes of wasted opportunity and characters with no vitality or humor.

Vince Vaughn, who wrote the script along with co-star Jon Favreau, has to shoulder a lot of the blame. Vaughn, so lively and uninhibited in movies like “The Wedding Crashers” and “Old School”, seems stifled here as a leading man. I can’t help but think that maybe Vaughn would be better served by going back to playing sidekick to actors like Owen Wilson. Vaughn drowns here trying to support the plot and worst of all, does not seem capable of setting others up for laughs.

What is even more frustrating is that instead of at least taking the opportunity to try something new, Vaughn’s Dave fits directly into his increasingly unfunny comfort zone. Dave is a self-involved workingman who meets anyone who suggests that his priorities are out of whack with incredulity. Sounds kind of familiar right?

While there are a couple of moments where Vaughn shows off the rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness delivery that seemed so fresh a few years ago, it is all rather joyless. Vaughn is just giving the audience what he thinks they want.

The only time the film clicks, is when it puts the whole cast together – something it doesn’t do very often. The film’s best scene has the four couples responding to an overly amorous and inappropriate yoga instructor. It is one of the few moments where the entire cast is given an opportunity to play off of each other, which I found ridiculous, considering the fact the movie is being sold as a gathering of really cool actors.

There are far too many scenes of couples therapy that aren’t funny and don’t take advantage of the gorgeous island location- for a movie set in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, too much of the action takes place indoors. I can’t help but think that the movie was written that way so the actors could enjoy as much beach time as possible- hardly the thinking you want screenwriters basing script decisions on.

Favreau and Vaughn have some nice moments together, but it is more due to their natural chemistry than anything that is in the script and there work here is light years away from their classic pairings in “Swingers” and “Made”.

Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell do solid work as Jason and Cynthia, the uptight and uber-organized couple that plans the retreat to help their marriage. Bell in particular adds some genuine emotion to the more serious scenes, which almost made me believe her marriage to Jason – she definitely deserves better material.
First-time director Peter Billingsley (yes the guy who played Ralphie in “A Christmas Story”) does a decent job keeping the film moving but misses a few chances for some big laughs, particularly a scene involving a guitar hero battle between Vaughn and an employee at the resort. Billingsley’s direction robs Vaughn of any chance to cut loose and have fun. Like a lot of the film, the scene is all set up and no punch line.

I would love to think that “Couples Retreat” will serve as a wake-up call for Vince Vaughn and that next year we will get something funny and daring from an actor who used to be both. Then again, I said the same thing last year after seeing the horrendously wretched “Four Christmases”. I shudder when I think about what we might be subjected to next.

Love him. Hate him. No matter what your stance is, Moore is on-target with the portrayal of how capitalism and corporations have pushed people out of their houses, jobs and savings accounts. This film is a call to arms for the audience to stand up the way he does… well, maybe with fewer theatrical antics.

“This is a movie I have been making for the past 20 years,” Moore said in a Q&A after the film.

Totting a loudspeaker, Moore demands a citizens’ arrest for the board members of AIG. He also wraps yellow crime-scene tape around the New York Stock Exchange Building. It is clear he is trying to make a statement and create a comic effect rather than an attempt to actually meet these wheelers and dealers, as he knows (as we do) they will dodge his calls and not show their faces.

That being said, Moore has clearly not lost his flair for street-side tactics (though there significantly less street scenes catching people off-guard, than in Fahrenheit 9/11), or his tenacity for representing the disenfranchised.

“It’s a system of taking and giving… mostly taking,” Moore said, describing capitalism.

He knows this all too well, coming from Flint, Michigan where decades ago, his father lost his job as an assembly-line worker at General Motors. Rewind twenty years and he was confronting GM’s CEO Roger Smith in the documentary Roger & Me (1989). In Capitalism, he is seen standing alongside his father in front of an empty lot that once was a spark plug factory where his father used to work. We humanize Moore in a way that we might not have been able to in his previous documentaries. In the film, Moore opens up about his childhood aspirations to be a priest.

He proceeds to the part of the film that I consider the most astonishing: examining the connection (or lack thereof) between Christianity and capitalism. He talks to three clergymen from Michigan and even a bishop who agreed that capitalism is not lined up with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Moore used footage of films portraying Jesus Christ, in probably the funniest part of the film. On the issue of healthcare, the film cut to a scene from a movie with Jesus Christ trying to heal another man, but Christ is dubbed over saying, “Sorry, but you have a pre-existing condition.” Another scene shows Jesus Christ with the dub, “Go forth and maximize profits.”

The film quickly transitions from hilarious moments to sad stories of working-class families being evicted from their homes because their mortgage rates skyrocketed. Moore seems more restrained in manipulated statistics and imagery and sequences of imagery in this film, but, with lack of a back-story on these eviction cases, we are left to wonder if, in some of the situations, the families might have been complicit in their own financial ruin.

He also lays out what is called the “Dead Peasants” insurance by which a corporation can take out life insurance policies on their employees and when they die, reap millions in tax-free payouts.

Moore joked, “So, you know, I could get fire insurance on your house.”

Moore also explains how two Pennsylvania judges sentenced children, some for minor “crimes” (one boy explains that he threw a piece of meat at his mother’s boyfriend) to a privately run facility in order to get millions in kickbacks.

All in all, it’s not so much a film filled with conspiracy theories as it is a film to shine light on real issues perhaps not known or hidden from the masses.

The only difficulty Moore encounters is that there too much Moore for just one film. Whereas the film Sicko tackled the pharmaceutical issue, and Bowling for Columbine the gun control issue, this is a multi-prong issue that branches off into healthcare, the mortgage/banking fraud, job loss, etc. Put shortly, it tries to cover too much: When you think it’s over, it’s just starting to talk about the economic meltdown, which could be a movie in and of itself.

Powerful, passionate and inspiring, the film had more fight than Oscar de la Hoya on a good day. The audience gave him a standing ovation as he entered the room.

“I’m glad you guys have Goobers and Twizzlers and not pitchforks and knives,” He then said “Aren’t you surprised I can saying this kinda stuff and be in an AMC theatre on a Friday night?”

When asked when he’ll make another movie he responded the audience member, “When are you going to make the next movie?

“I am totally fried,” Moore joked. “Maybe I’ll make a romantic comedy.”

Joel and Ethan Coen open their excellent new film, “A Serious Man”, with a quote by French Rabbi, Rashi: “Receive with simplicity, everything that happens to you.”

Larry Gopnik, the beaten-down protagonist would probably find that philosophy fairly infuriating. Perhaps because over the course of the film, Larry is subjected to a gauntlet of humiliation and misery only Job could sympathize with.

Larry’s nicely boring existence in 1960’s suburbia seems to be falling apart. Larry, a physics professor, has his chances at tenure threatened, his oddball brother Arthur (Richard Kind) has taken up permanent residence on his living room couch and his kids seem completely oblivious to him.

Perhaps most baffling is Larry’s shrewish wife Judith’s announcement that during the couples recent “problems” — we never learn what they are and sense Larry isn’t sure either — she has fallen in love with their neighbor, Sy Ableman. Sy, who scores a 12 (out of 10) on the smarmy scale, suggests Larry might be more comfortable moving into a local motel.

As Larry’s life spins further and further out of control his friends urge him to seek council from the local rabbis. Surely they can explain why Hashem (God) is testing Larry’s faith in such extreme ways?

The council of the three rabbis Larry speaks with proves frustratingly vague and unhelpful (The first demands that Larry look at the parking lot and bask in God’s wonder). Larry, finding spiritual guidance not as enlightening as he hoped, clings to his oft-shouted cry, “But I didn’t do anything!”

The Coen Brothers inject their tale with healthy doses of dark comedy, but it would be unfair to overlook the fact that they are asking questions as serious as any they posed in their masterpiece, “No Country for Old Men”. Larry’s journey to find meaning and reason for the bad things that keep happening to him, while exaggerated, is something most anyone can relate to.

Michael Stuhlbarg’s excellent performance as Larry deserves a lot of credit. Larry is not a buffoon that we laugh at. Sure, Larry’s misfortune often yields moments of humor, but the comedy never overwhelms the character and turns him into a caricature. Stuhlbarg’s ability to capture the desperation and despondency of a seemingly cursed man, keeps the character heartbreakingly human.

And while the Coen Brothers certainly bring a certain glee to the depiction of Larry’s suffering, they never pull back from the character. They force us to see the toll that all of Larry’s woes are taking on him. The film is clearly asking some personal questions, ones that the brothers have probably been asking themselves ever since their childhoods spent in a 1960’s Minnesota neighborhood that clearly inspired Larry’s own.

Neither Larry nor the audience is given any real answers as to why such bad things are happening to such an unassuming and seemingly nice man. Hashem’s plan for Larry is not any more clear or defined at the end of the film than it was in the beginning. How could it be? The Coen Brothers seem to be suggesting that while Hashem may judge us simply- if you do good you are rewarded, bad you are punished- the way Larry and the rest of us choose to act is based on reasons far from simple.

It is amazing after 25 years and 15 films that the Coen’s are still able to surprise us, this time with their most personal and profound film to date.

“A Serious Man” is in theaters on October 2. Watch the trailer below.

What should you expect when you’re going to see a movie called “Zombieland?” Obviously, expect some zombies. And in this new comedy starring veteran actor Woody Harrelson and veritable newcomer Jesse Eisenberg, expect to laugh the whole way through.

When Mad Cow Disease becomes Mad Human Disease (after a long series of unfortunate events occur that the movie never takes time to explain), a zombie apocalypse occurs and we join Tallahassee (Harrelson), Columbus (Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) as they make their way to Pacific Playland and kick some zombie ass along the way.

My primary fear before viewing this film, among all the excitement and anticipation, was that “Zombieland” was going to make the classic mistake of waxing too sentimental in what should rightfully be a straight, no-tears-allowed comedy. If Lloyd Christmas had any real reason to fall in love with Mary Swanson in “Dumb and Dumber,” the movie just wouldn’t have been as funny. “Zombieland” avoided that landmine. While we have enough pathos included to connect us to the characters, the director leaves the rest of the time to laugh till our sides hurt. As he should.

The film succeeds by relying on its lovable characters and its delightfully gory slow-motion scenes. Tallahassee (none of the characters reveal their real names for fear of getting “too personal”) provides the majority of laughs as an outrageous, gun-toting, whiskey-drinking, zombie-killing, Twinkie-seeking cowboy. The whole time, you’ll probably be rooting for Columbus, the loner and a lovable geek, who has survived the apocalypse thus far by living by a solid set of rules. (Examples: Don’t be a hero, and always check the back seat.) Eisenberg does an excellent job of delivering his dry sarcasm with a knowing smile without making you think that perhaps Michael Cera turned this role down first. If he keeps on turning out comedies like this one and “Adventureland,” he’ll go far.

Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) are two conniving sisters with trust issues who dupe Columbus and Tallahassee time and again, but end up joining them in their travels. Stone plays the perfect teenage bad girl with a soft side (I predict her being the next Bond girl) in leather boots and heavy eyeliner, who has an extra gun in her boot and would give her life for her little sister. Breslin is hilarious and adorable, as usual.

In effect, when you go see “Zombieland” (and I think you should) just follow Columbus’ rule number two: Buckle your seat belt.

Just about everything stated in the film could most likely be rattled off by any hardcore Stones fan, which is unfortunately the target audience for this DVD. Nothing new or surprising about the group is revealed; even the casual fan would be bored to tears.

The usual history of the group is discussed from the birth of the band and how they were marketed by manager Andrew Oldham to be “the opposite of family friendly Beatles.” Oldham took pains to keep his group hated by the older generation so as to maintain popularity with the youth. The film moves through the band’s formative years, the growing tensions between founder Brian Jones, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Jones wanted to keep them a blues outfit, while the other two personalities gravitated towards rock and roll.

From there, the film details all the various drug busts and romantic trysts of the members, but again, this isn’t any information that hasn’t been discussed before. The most interesting part of the whole DVD was the special feature on former member Bill Wyman’s photography career and exhibit. Other than that, the film leaves us with nothing innovative, edgy, or cool on the level of the band it features.

One of the dirty little secrets of film critique is that sometimes the hardest part of writing a review is finding something to say. Sometimes the movie is so superfluous, so mediocre, so obviously destined for obscurity that, really, why should you care what I have to say about it?

Such is my difficulty in writing this review for “Love Happens,” a colorless, ordinary story about love and loss in Seattle. Burke (Aaron Eckhart) is a lovelorn self-help guru who’s made a killing helping people through their grief and created a motivational brand terribly named “A-Okay!”

Of course, Burke could use some help of his own in dealing with the sudden death of his wife three years ago, which he’s never recovered from. Cue Eloise, the vibrant, “quirky” florist who fills her world with flowers and a funky turquoise van to administer off-beat healing. And, of course, cue their friends: a shlubby manager for Burke (Dan Fogler) and a beat poet radical feminist for Eloise (poor Judy Greer, who’s always the funky friend and deserves so much better).

“Love Happens,” seems like a relic in this day and age — a copycat of “Sleepless in Seattle” and other Meg Ryan atrocities. The plot, the characters, the very aura of this movie is so musty and overused that it seems silly even thinking about it beyond the original viewing.

But really, what is really disconcerting is that the people who have to say the lines are so good. In the hands of a better director, Eckhart and Aniston would make a terrific romantic duo. They have the same kind of likability; the same kind of down-to-earth prettiness that makes me believe they could really be attracted to each other. It doesn’t hurt either that Camp didn’t pair Eckhart with some 22-year-old ingénue, as directors are so wont to do these days, but rather with a gorgeous a woman his own age. But neither Eckhart nor Aniston can move beyond the banality of the plot and completely unimaginative film-making.

The one aspect of this film that works is its depiction of how people experience grief. At one point an elderly admirer tells Burke that his advice to remember her dead husband’s likes and dislikes was very helpful to her. “So say hello to my Stanley!” she says brightly, opening an urn, which has been filled with oatmeal cookies made out of her dead husband’s ashes. “They were his favorite!”

Yes, it’s gross, and it’s weird. But isn’t that what grief is? There is no “right” way to deal with grief, only your way. The point is that it needs to be dealt with. In many ways, this woman’s unholy baking is healthier than Burke’s constant denial.

The other bright spot is Martin Sheen, who thankfully appears as Burke’s father-in-law. Sheen can make reading out of the phone book captivating, and he imbues his tiny role with blustery sweetness and good humor. In fact he’s the last person we see in the film; it seems even Camp knew how to exit this dour redundancy with at least one thing to talk about.

Back in 2007, sci-fi master Joss Whedon wrote a scathing indictment of “torture porn” film-making, notably the film “Captivity.” Whedon said the genre, made mainstream by the work of Eli Roth and others, is simply an excuse to vent violent rage at women, to punish the female form for … whatever it’s guilty of. It’s a rage that’s been brewing since Janet Leigh jumped into that fateful shower in 1960, and it’s only grown more vengeful and exploitative since.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Jennifer’s Body,” Diablo Cody’s campy, hilarious and incredibly flawed feminist response.

At first glance, this would be the perfect transgressive film: Jennifer (Megan Fox) is a mega-hottie who uses men as sexual play things and (after nearly being killed in a very funny satanic ritual) uses them as tasty snacks. She’s found out by her sweet, nerdy childhood friend with the horrible name of Needy (the wonderful Amanda Seyfried), who tries to stop the carnage.

I like Megan Fox probably more than I should. She may come off as dumb as a box of rocks in interviews, but her acting always seems to have a glimmer of wry self-awareness woven into her brainless hot girl act. In this, Fox’s glazed, plastic look perfectly demonstrates Jennifer’s mindless hunger. It’s just far too apt to be an accident. In one moment, she also scared the crap out of me when she appears in Needy’s kitchen covered in blood and grins at her horrifically. It’s without a doubt the most terrifying moment in the film.

“Juno” scribe Diablo Cody wrote the film, and just like “Juno” it’s chockablock with quirky little tidbits that vary from hysterically funny to just annoying. Among other things, J.K. Simmons makes an appearance as a teacher with a hook for a hand and a Canadian accent. In anyone else’s hands it would be irritating, but Simmons has the keen power to make anything funny. On the other hand, if I ever hear the phrase “freak-tarded” or hear men referred to as “salty morsels” again, I will be forced to hit Cody with a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Let us take a moment now and reflect on the much-talked-of make-out session between Fox and Seyfried. The scene is pretty sexy. It’s also exploitative (and not in the good way), occurs in a vacuum, and then lays there in the middle of the film, begging for meaning when there’s none to be had.

Then again, I’m not a straight teenage boy, so what do I know?

Possibly one of the most interesting things about this film is its total focus on the female characters. There’s a lack of any real male input, right down to the fact that neither Needy nor Jennifer appear to have fathers. In a film industry where 28 percent of speaking roles go to women, that’s no small thing. But for all the bloody prom dresses and man-evisceration, I hesitate to truly call this a feminist film, or even a really transgressive one. First of all, none of Jennifer’s victims are bad guys — in fact all of them seem to be sweet, good-hearted boys, the kind you could bring home to mom. It robs us of the sweet satisfaction of watching girl-power in action. What kind of fun is it watching Jennifer kill nice guys? By contrast, Quentin Tarantino, in the vastly underrated “Death Proof,” vindicated females by letting us watch stuntwoman Zoe Bell kick the shit out of bad boy Kurt Russell. “Carrie” let us watch the soft, nerdy girl electrocute her male and female high school aggressors.

And, in the end, Jennifer’s violent sexual dominion is her own undoing. In the end she’s punished for her sins, just like in every other male-centric horror film ever created.

To its credit, however, the end of the film partially rescues what I think Cody is trying to say. Out of the climactic bloodbath, Needy rises as our real heroine. She’s not a sexual succubus, but neither is she a weak virginal sacrifice. And by the time the credits roll, the real villain has been vanquished and we learn that chick with the stupid name can kick some serious ass.

Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” is sold as a comedy. It’s billed as a comedy. Critics are calling it a comedy. It’s even funny, like a comedy.

But there’s more to “The Informant!,” which even has some dark turns. When you realize that the movie is a true story, you’ll still laugh, but you’ll be a little afraid of that laughter afterward.

All the movie elements are there, perfectly arranged. This all happened in the 90s, and the scenery is perfect. The film doesn’t sell the 1990s, but it sells the remnant 1980s influence on the early 90s, even down to the lamps in offices and ties around the necks of all the corrupt execs.

The film is based on the book by former New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, which chronicles several years in the long-ago 1990s in the life of corporate whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, who exposes a price-fixing scheme at his firm. So the FBI has Whitacre — played award-worthily by Matt Damon — wear a wire and report back to them. But things go haywire when Whitacre is revealed as a thief and embezzler. The plot is entirely wrapped around the disconnect between Whitacre and his FBI handlers (including an amazing Scott Bakula). The feds think Whitacre is the perfect mole — an honest family man who just wanted to do the right thing. But from the beginning we see that there’s much less to Whitacre than meets the eye, as explained through a series of Whitacre’s voice-over internal monologues.

As Whitacre’s mind wanders, the government thinks it has an air-tight case against his corporate employer, and Whitacre is apparently either blissfully unaware of what’s going on around him or painfully unable to ever admit the truth, even to himself it seems. Whitacre even asks the Department of Justice is he’ll be ok to return to work at his company after all but bringing it down.

He gets lost in ADHD-like racing thoughts like “Polar bears cover their noses when waiting for seals to surface. How do they know their noses are black? That seems like a lot of thinking for bears,” when he’s supposed to be paying attention to orders from his federal handlers.

Whitacre is a bi-polar, pathologically lying egomaniac, and not only does Damon play the role perfectly, he does it in such a way that we can’t help but compare this wanton disregard for anything but one’s own self, and corporate standing, and new cars with what happened more recently with Bernie Madoff and AIG and countless other organizations.

“The Informant!” is a comedy, but if you stop laughing long enough, you might realize that it’s not funny at all.

“Devotion” is also the perfect word to have in the title. The film’s stance is that Jackson was a merely a tragic victim of the environment around him, and glosses over a lot of the unpleasant aspects of the late performer’s life.

The story unfolds with the untimely death of the beloved Jackson and then takes us back to Gary, Indiana where it all started. After a very brief history of the Jackson Five and Motown Records, the focus swiftly shifts to Michael as a solo artist. The tension between the family and father Joe Jackson during the Jackson Five days is ignored completely. The only interesting thing the film is able to get out of this segment is an interview with Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records.

What “Devotion” fails to capture, is that the iconic essence of Michael Jackson will always be found in his music. Yes he was a philanthropist, had eccentricities, and was slightly vilified by the media but it is his music that upholds his status as a legend. This DVD is basically a narrated list of Jackson’s awards, charitable contributions and wrongs on the media’s part.

The highlight of the film is the “Memorial Service” feature in the bonus features menu. Here, we actually get footage of family and friends remembering Michael and sharing some fond memories.

One resonating clip from an otherwise mundane film is from Jackson’s brief press conference in March when he announced his final shows at London’s O2 Arena. Jackson’s words of “when I say this is it, it really means this is it … the final curtain call,” seem particularly haunting to hear from him.

You’re going to learn a little something about Vogue editor Anna Wintour by watching “The September Issue.” She is supposedly the inspiration for “The Devil Wears Prada.” She’s dense, fierce, complex and a damn good editor, but everyone in lifestyle journalism already knew that.

However, what you really need to learn from watching “The September Issue,” is how big an impact that journalism has on your life, whether you know it or not and whether you like it or not.

There’s no shortage of idiots cheering the downfall of the American newspaper and more recently the American magazine. Watching R.J. Cutler’s documentary, it’s clear that the focus is less on a biographical swooning over Wintour and more on making people understand the impact that she – and thus her magazine – has on people’s regular lives. (There IS, of course, a great scene in “The Devil Wears Prada” about the color cerulean that sums this up nicely)

The September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine was a monumental 800+ page undertaking during the peak of the fashion year. The documentary, made over eight months, chronicles the making of the issue, largely through the eyes of Wintour and her polar opposite, the magazine’s creative director, Grace Coddington.

Wintour is cold, businesslike and very calculating in the film. Coddington is fluffy, artsy and emotional. The pairing works well for Vogue, and we see the two of them butting heads and getting frustrated on their way to a mega-magazine.

Wintour is the focus of the film, as is seen through the opening montage of fashion icons referring to her as a goddess. And it’s true. Things happen in the world of fashion because she wills them to be so.

That’s the movie. Sure, there’s a telephone book sized September 2008 issue being made in the background, but “The September Issue” shows in intricate detail what journalism – particularly the always underestimated lifestyle journalism – means to society.

Not to be left out is what Coddington adds to the flick. The red-haired Welshwoman couples heart to Wintour’s brains as she travels the world setting up glamorous photo shoots with supermodels only to have some of her favorite shots rejected. Frustrated, she rolls with it and schedules more photographs. The two woman enjoy a teenage brother-esque relationship of constantly challenging each other, but instead of football, it’s fashion.

“I think I know when to stop pushing her,” Coddington says. “She doesn’t know when to stop pushing me.”

The documentary is well done. It’s nicely edited with good camera movements and even a catching soundtrack,

But wait, there’s more.

While it’s easy to picture Meryl Streep barking away at her underlings, the documentary does a good job showing us that Wintour is still a person, a woman and a mother, even while she’s rejecting $50,000 worth of photography after looking at it for six seconds.

In one of the most poignant scenes, Wintour interacts with her daughter, Bee Shaffer, who all but brags about the fact that she’s not at all interested in ever working for Vogue or ever working in fashion. The camera turns to Wintour who, while never letting down her guard or breaking into human emotion, seems to be mentally willing her daughter to stop saying that.

A bit of humanity, even from the devil.

I am loathe to discount any female director who has the tenacity to direct an action picture. The mere fact that Kari Skogland managed to get this little film financed (piecemeal, through about seven different production companies) is a testament to her sheer cajones. But just the fact that Skogland’s feat is impressive, does not mean her film is.

“Fifty Dead Men Walking,” a film that’s supremely loosely-based on a young punk in Belfast who becomes an informer for the British government during the Troubles, is deeply flawed.

The young punk in question is Martin (Jim Sturgess) who leaves his job selling stolen goods to the Catholic side of town, and becomes a British spy against the IRA. Sturgess shows a bit more acting prowess than usual. He’s got the appropriate amount of wiry energy and attention deficit you’d expect from a young man out of his depth.

However, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if your name is not Paul Greengrass, stay away from hand-held cameras. Skogland utilizes them quite a bit for the chaotic action scenes, but “Bloody Sunday,” this movie ain’t. The brutal terrorism scenes have significant energy, but it’s not directed or clearly defined. The beauty of Greengrass’ films is that no matter how messy the scene gets you still know exactly know what you’re looking at.

Problems abound, the plot is hastily sketched and badly steered, and most of the characters we’re supposed to care about are so broadly drawn it’s impossible to relate to them. The talented Natalie Press as Martin’s girlfriend carries the traditional actress’ burden of saying things like “When you leave, I don’t know if you’re coming back.” And Rose McGowan is completely wasted as IRA intelligence expert Grace. Besides tossing her fluorescent red hair and seducing us with her wild colleen ways, she really doesn’t seem capable of anything much, much less brokering intricate deals with Iranian arms dealers.

Where Skogland’s movie really shines are the moments between Martin and Fergus. It’s established that Fergus has no relationship with his son, while Martin has no father, and as Fergus sends him deeper and deeper into enemy territory, he paradoxically becomes more and more protective of him. In one of the few humanizing scenes in the film, the two share a cup of Irished-up coffee while keeping vigil over Martin’s new baby.

As a person who spent quite a bit of time in Northern Ireland, it was certainly nice to see a genuine and loving portrait of Belfast. There is a pretty overdone sex scene on top of the Europa Hotel, but though Skogland may not have the golden touch with action scenes, she generally has a wonderful eye for places; Belfast’s gritty, war-like personality shines through in “Fifty Dead Men.” It’s just a shame the plot couldn’t shine in the same way.

Anyone who knows anything about the work of Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki knows “My Neighbor Totoro,” his magical early piece about imagination, hope and resourcefulness in times of struggle. “Totoro” still remains my favorite of Miyazaki’s films. The animation may not be as sophisticated as “Howl’s Moving Castle” or “Spirited Away,” but it’s knowledge about the inner lives of children, and it’s simple elegant story arc make it a masterpiece of children’s film.

How lovely, then, to see “Ponyo,” Miyazaki’s latest film that works in the same vein as “Totoro.” Drawn with shades of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid,” the title character is a goldfish/mermaid kept hostage in a bubble on the ocean floor by her misanthropic father (voiced by Liam Neesan), whose job is to keep the ocean’s life in balance. She makes her escape and rides a jellyfish to the ocean’s surface where she meets and falls in love with a small boy, Sosuke. Her escape, however, causes a massive shift in the moon’s pull on the ocean tides.

That’s a little bit of the plot at least. But there’s so much more to this gentle, elegantly-drawn little fable. Miyazaki used several different forms of drawn animation, from commercial anime style (cue giant sparkling eyes during heartfelt moments) to more classic storybook drawings. He treats the scenes on land with as much care and gravitas as his dramatic ocean scenes; never have I wanted ramen more than when Sosuke’s mother (voiced by the always terrific Tina Fey) made it for the two young heroes on a cold rainy night. And there are very few animated scenes in recent history that can match the sheer force of the scene in which Ponyo dances across tidal waves made of giant fish, her stubby feet and arms akimbo, and a look of fierce and simple joy on her face.

Miyazaki also wisely downplays the environmental “message” of the film. Neesan’s character occasionally rants about the mess humans make in the oceans, but the implication is that the world is far stronger than us and still, in the end, has the upper hand. Far more important is the relationship between the two young characters, a friendship based on mutual loneliness and simple love of the world around them. Miyazaki understands children more than any other director I’m aware of. The intelligence of his imagination is truly something to behold.

There are only two things that can truly be said about Neill Blomkamp’s theatrical debut, “District 9.” First, that it is without a doubt one of the best films to come out of 2009, if not the best. Second, that you should be sitting in a theater right now watching it instead of reading this review.

Ignore the “Peter Jackson presents” from the film’s commercial’s, “District 9″ is Blomkamp through and through. In vision and scope, “District 9″ has done more with its $30 million budget than most films can do with $200 million. It is topical (though a little late to pack a serious punch), it is unique and it is surprising; three topics which aren’t often found in an alien action movie.

Without giving too much away, “District 9″ is about an alien race accidentally stranded on Earth that is sequestered off into a government compound-turned-slum called District 9. Twenty years later, a Multinational United (MNU) employee, Wikus Van De Merwe, is given the job of relocating the aliens from where they landed in Johannesburg, South Africa to a new government compound called District 10, but during this mission things go awry, triggering the events which drive the rest of the film.

What makes “District 9″ so wonderful is that there reaches a point about half way through the film where you realize you have no idea what is going to happen next. There is never a moment where you can anticipate what will come next (which is part of what caused the audience in our theater to cough out shocked laughs and applaud some of the finer moments in the film), but still the ending, when it comes, is perfectly fitting. Shartlo Copley, a special effects artist turned actor for this film, makes an impressive big screen debut — especially with lines he mostly ad-libbed.

But what “District 9″ really has is a story. In fact, “District 9″ is more about the idea of segregation — especially in South Africa where the film is set and Blomkamp is from — than it is about aliens. What is brings into question is the idea of what makes a human human, and when do other creatures become more human than we are; an idea echoed in the sci-fi greats like “Blade Runner.” For the first time in a long time, I feel it is safe to say there better be a “District 10,” because the story Blomkamp created reaches far enough to have much more to tell. Like Arnold in “Terminator,” we anxiously await for “District 9″ to come back.

There’s a simple joy in going to see a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is that propensity for its creators to think a film is better than it is that made so many of this summer’s anticipated hits such terrible disappointments. Even from the TV ads, claiming this film is starring Jeremy Piven, Ed Helms and all those other people from your favorite funny movies whose names you can’t remember (aka Ving Rhames, Kathryn Hahn, Tony Hale, Ken Jeong, Craig Robinson and David Koechner, among many others) it is clear “The Goods” knows exactly what will make it a success: One liners from all the people whose one liners in other films stole the show.

“The Goods” isn’t good per se, but it is funny as hell. The plot is ludicrous: four mercenary car salesmen are called in to save a dying car lot from a land-hungry boy band lead singer, but it is the range of secondary actors stuffed into the film that makes it so great. For people who have made their career off one or two funny lines and scenes (like Hahn in “Step Brothers” and Jeong in “The Hangover”), putting them into the foreground only emphasizes their humor. None of the characters make sense, but “The Goods” isn’t about making sense. It’s about making you laugh, which it succeeds in with flying colors.

Unfortunately, and probably due to the fact “The Goods” doesn’t have much star power to speak of, Will Ferrel’s cameo was already revealed in TV ads to try to get people more interested in seeing the film. But, while Will Ferrel in cameo roles always is a show-stealer, some of the best parts of the film came from its defying stereotypes. It is the rogue alpha male of the story who gets turned into a one night stand, the father-son subplot never turns out the way you expect, and ‘Querque is nothing like what you expect it to be. Somehow, in a genre where everything has been done and overdone, “The Goods” still manages to be surprising and unique.

Without a doubt, “The Hangover” is still the best comedy of the summer, but “The Goods” shouldn’t be written off as fast as its A-lister stars can be named. If you leave your brain at home, “The Goods” will make you laugh, and laugh hard. You’ll just have no idea what is going on.

Honestly, there is nothing more frustrating than a movie that squanders all potential to make itself decent. With Vanessa Hudgens taking top billing, hopes were not all that high for “Bandslam”, but I went in with my fingers crossed that it might prove itself to be a good teen movie and appeal to the cheesier side of my heart. My dreams were crushed.

SPOILER ALERT!: “Bandslam” is the story of loner and David Bowie obsessed Will Burton, played by new face Gaelan Connell, who has grown up being tortured by the nickname “Dewey” since he was twelve years old. Finally, his mother decides to liberate him from high school hell by moving him to Jersey. Once placed in his new school, Will is introduced to Bandslam – the “Texas high school football big” event of the year where students all across the region compete for a record deal. He is recruited by the most popular girl in school, Charlotte Banks (Aly Michalka), to manage her new band in hopes of beating her ex boyfriend and favorite to win – Glory Dogs in the competition.

Despite their differences Will and Charlotte develop an unlikely friendship – one that shows Charlotte there’s more to life than cheerleading and boys and allows Will to find something he’s truly gifted at. Together they create a band with an original, catchy and I’ll even stretch for touching number – Phil’s Song. Of course, all of it falls to pieces when Charlotte’s father dies and it comes to light that her trip to the dark side of unpopularity was just a social experiment to please her sick dad. Suddenly the underdogs must scramble for a new lead singer to get them the Bandslam trophy. If you have seen any trailer for the movie you already know who they turn to, ready and waiting with a “voice to die for” to save the day.

Hudgens, who plays Sa5m (the five is silent), is set up to be the loner of Will’s new high school and the girl who steals his heart. They tried their best to make her look homely, but sticking books like “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” in front of her face did little to make the natural prom queen-esque look of Hudgens more of a bad-ass. It came off more condescending and insulting to any kid who actually does have trouble fitting in. There was also a huge hole in the plot as to why Hudgens was so incapable of making friends. The only revealed source of her angst was losing a talent show in early middle school.

The largest complaint I have about Hudgens’s performance was that her presence in the movie was unnecessary and so obviously an attempt to suck in a High School Musical crowd for higher box office results. The movie is complete with plot, conflict and possible resolution without Hudgens ever being present. Her fledgling relationship with Will distracts from his friendship with Charlotte – which actually results in character growth and development.

By all predeceasing cheesy teen movie standards, Charlotte’s change of heart after she realizes Will’s “Dewey” nickname actually is “DUI” – spawned after his father killed a 12-year-old boy in a drunk driving accident should have been the resolution. As the original lead singer, she should have re-claimed her spot as lead singer and helped the band save the day.

Instead, despite Charlotte’s redemption, Sa5m stays as new lead singer and the band ends up performing “Everything I Own” – which the movie’s demographic will attribute to *Nsync’s first album rather than Bread who recorded the original version of the song in 1972. END SPOILER.

As I said, there was potential for a touching, though cheesy, story if producers had allowed the story to unfold between Will and Charlotte rather than trying to squeeze Hudgens into the movie. Connell does a beautifully awkward job of portraying the bumbling Will, just trying to find his place in high school while struggling with a dark past. Michalka is charming and even funny as Charlotte. Lisa Kudrow’s performance as Will’s overprotective mother is also worth a mention, adding some legitimacy and backbone to the story.

“Bandslam” is also impressive with their music references. If any of the tweens checking this movie come out with a curiosity for Bowie and The Velvet Underground or an appreciation for the history of CBGB then “Bandslam” was a job well done. The truth is that the movie’s strive to add a house hold name to the billing may have squandered the life out of a good story. That kind of sacrifice seems extra sad this week considering the death of high school movie king John Hughes. Unless being forced to attend by your little sibling or cousin, Bandslam is worth skipping.

Is there any group of people more obsessive and ridiculous about food than Americans? We think of food the way we think of sex: we are both giddy about it and repulsed by it. We can be puritanical about consumption and at the same time cram food down our gullet without a second thought. We eat more than the rest of the world, and we probably diet more than the rest of the world too. We attempt to conform to impossible standards set by the ladies at Vogue while we totter out to McDonald’s three times a week for our delicious, delicious quarter-pounder with cheese.

We like food, but rarely do we take real, true sensual pleasure in the act of making and eating our own meal. We eat on the road, while we Twitter something inane and flash our grease-laden middle finger at the guy we just cut off.

“Julie & Julia” is about what eating is supposed to be like. This is evident from the first scene, where cooking powerhouse Julia Child (Meryl Streep) smells the fish she’s just been served and whispers, in absolute ecstasy, “Butter.”

That moment of bliss is what characterizes half of the film, a delightful, fresh view of Child’s life in Paris with her husband Paul (a wry and sweet-natured Stanley Tucci) who works at the American embassy. Streep is perfectly frothy as Child, reminding us again why she’s a living legend on the Hollywood scene. Instead of mocking the chef’s hulking stature and staccato voice, Streep characterizes her quirks as attributes of a strong, intensely-focused, sensual woman. Child was wonderful because she was both motherly and unwaveringly independent, everyone’s slightly hedonist auntie. Ephron, who’s never been a heavyweight in terms of dialogue has sparkling wit and verve in the Child scenes. The plot line may not be the most dramatic (will Child publish her book?) but the joy of cooking, and, by extension, living fully in the world, is heartily felt.

This half of the movie however, makes it all the more disappointing that the other half of the movie is so dry and flavorless (pun intended). The other half stars Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a struggling writer who abandoned her work for a steady, but low-level government job, and decides to blog her way through Child’s cookbook. I have loved Amy Adams since she first crashed the Hollywood party in her tender role in “Junebug,” but her Julie is a little boring, unrelateable and selfish in the most uninteresting way. Perhaps it’s prejudice, but I believe this is less Adams’ fault and more Ephrons’. Too often the writing resorts to having Julie pitch a fit or cry on the floor when things go wrong. Compared with Child’s intricate layers of joy, sadness and jealousy when she learns her sister is going to have a child, having Powell whine over the fact that she burned a casserole is pretty unwatchable.

When you think about it, it’s pretty unbelievable that nourishing our bodies has become one of our biggest stresses in life, or one of the things we overlook completely. We could all stand to learn from Julia Child, who believed that food (cooking it and eating it) was one of the ways to make ourselves purely happy for its own sake. Watching Meryl Streep channel her tornado of a personality made me remember to at least make more of an effort to taste and enjoy every bit of food I inhale on the train to work- regardless of how much butter was used.

At first glance, “Adam,” the freshman effort by director Max Mayer, seems full of pitfalls. It’s a Woody Allen-esque New York love story about a man with Asberger’s Syndrome; besides the obvious problem of any actor attempting to portray someone with a developmental disorder (or, as Robert Downey, Jr. put so eloquently in “Tropic Thunder,” “go full retard”) I feared greatly that the indie kitsch-factor would be far too much to bear. Believe me folks, we’re about two years away from the DSM-IV recognizing “hipster indie fatigue” as a legitimate condition.

On the main, however, “Adam,” and especially Hugh Dancy who gives an incredible performance as the title character, manages to avoid the usual dramedy landmines. For those who are unfamiliar, Asberger’s is a condition on the autism spectrum; broadly defined, it makes the sufferer unable to understand social situations, feel a normal level of empathy or read nonverbal cues. Adam has the condition, and after his father dies he’s left lost and somewhat alone in New York City, until he begins a relationship with Beth, a woman who lives upstairs (Rose Byrne).

Dancy is given the unenviable task of both carrying the majority of the movie and walking that thready fine line between a true portrayal of developmental disorder and simple mockery. He did better than I would have believed possible for the man who’s last film was “Confessions of a Shopoholic.” Instead of being twitchy, or obvious, Dancy executes Adam’s condition in a sense of terrible, unending discomfort with the world around him. Besides a few safe places that he knows, the entire city is a field of traps; restaurants are impossible, as are parties, or a particularly heinous scene when he’s forced to meet Beth’s parents. It’s a strangely graceful performance, and one that Dancy should be proud of.

Byrne performs admirably as Beth, though her character isn’t nearly as well-written as Dancy’s is. We understand quite a bit less about Beth and I wish there was more of her. As always, the inimitable Peter Gallagher gives a great performance as Beth’s sleazy yet winning father. But perhaps the real star of “Adam” is Mayer; this is Mayer’s first feature film and he approached his material with a tremendous sense of honesty and compassion. There are quite a few funny parts in “Adam,” but we never feel we’re making fun of him.

It’s weird with Judd Apatow having his name on so many films to think he only has directed a grand total of three. His touch has been on everything from “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan” to “Superbad,” and seeing actors like Seth Rogen, Michael Cera and Jason Segel immediately brings his name to mind. But like trailers for “Funny People” have suggested, Apatow’s latest film is a combination of toned-down comedy with a heavy dash of drama and complexity. Being a self-professed anti-Adam Sandler fan, I’ve got to admit, I liked the combination.

Opening with actual home video of a young Sandler making prank calls to local businesses, the tone was set for the film: this is a Judd Apatow’s film for Adam Sandler, about Adam Sandler. Granted it’s no biography, but telling the story of a stand-up comedian stuck doing crappy comedies about a mer-man and a man trapped in a baby’s body who needs to find the meaning of his life seems to strike a bit true to Sandler’s life.

Except in this case, instead of returning to stand-up like his character George Simmons, Sandler has showed he is more than just a one-note, baby-voiced comedy machine: with “Funny People,” he reinforced the fact that he could act. But maybe that ties into the fact that, like Eminem’s amazing performance in “8 Mile,” the only reason he did so well was because it was his life and unhappiness he was portraying.

Apatow pushed the bounds of his actors just enough to get them out of their one-note rut. Like Sandler taking on the role of a jaded, unhappy comedian struggling to resolve his life once he found out he didn’t have much time left (and then to find its meaning once he found out he did), Seth Rogen takes many steps away from the characters we have come to know and love of his. Granted, his comedy has taken many shades, all the way from “Knocked Up” to “Observe and Report” to “Fanboys,” but the Rogen seen in “Funny People” is a sincere, innocent variation that has not yet been seen. Rogen, like Sandler, did some incredibly acting that was worthy of mention.

Unlike many comedies out this summer, including “The Hangover” which was arguably the funniest film of the year, there was never one moment during “Funny People” where something absurd happened to make it not seem like a real story. These are real people with real lives and real emotions, which means the not as happy ending might be the right one. Without straying into genre stereotypes and stupid comedy, Apatow proved he is not only a great comedian but a great filmmaker. And what “Funny People” may lack in being a great comedy, it makes up for with being a great film.

Much like “The Shining” before it, “Orphan” is one of those horror movies that really messes with your head by playing on our perceptions of innocence and trust, only in this case instead of a loving, trustworthy father who goes batshit insane, it’s the sweet, innocent little girl that no one would suspect could be so evil.

“Orphan” is surprisingly entertaining, with plenty of suspense to get you on the edge of your seat, as well as shocks and frights to make you jump for cover. Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is creepy enough to give us nightmares for a few nights to come at least.

Torn apart by the recent loss of their baby, John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) decide to adopt to fill the void. When they encounter the seemingly special, angelic Esther at the orphanage, it looks to be a perfect match. However, as the movie’s tag line goes, “there’s something wrong with Esther,” and when they bring their little bundle of joy home, things begin to change.

Farmiga portrays Kate brilliantly, displaying enough craziness to hint at her troubled past, and she shines in this film, especially when supported by the three children. Sarsgaard, on the other hand, plays an unconvincing John, though to be fair he is just playing the role he was given. Throughout the film, John is presented with the choice of who to believe as strange things keep happening, and Esther’s false innocence gets the best of him every time, despite some situations that make the viewer wonder how he could be so myopic. Of course, one must suspend disbelief for a movie of this nature, but one still wants believable characters.

Without doubt, the toughest role, and best filled, was that of Fuhrman’s Esther. Switching between being the perfect little Victorian princess to the brilliant yet deranged monster is done with an impressive talent for someone of her age, complemented by the old-fashioned clothes she wears. The mannerisms and the way she speaks, and even the way that she carries herself, show off the abilities of this young actress, and the lack of sound and use of subtitles at times really draws you into her world as a deaf child.

Once again referring to that old classic, the setting of the story also reminds one of “The Shining.” It’s winter time, in a house that’s off the beaten path, which gives a sense of seclusion and entrapment. The film doesn’t simply rely on blood and gore or cheap tricks to achieve its thrills. It starts building suspense and momentum early on, slowly revealing more of the story, and the histories, of both Esther and the mother.

If you’re up for a good horror movie, this is definitely one to check out, and it has something for fans of all sub-genres. It may not be a masterpiece, but it’s worth the cash to get the adrenaline pumping, especially if you’re one of those people who enjoys a sleepless night or two. If you’re thinking of adopting a child any time soon, though, you may want to hold off.

(Blast doesn’t have anything against orphans in general, just this one.)

Dark brown clouds. In the background, the echoes fade of Bellatrix LeStrange yelling “I killed Sirius Black!” The flashes of cameras, the dulled sound of press questions, and Dumbledore puts his arm around the shoulders of a Harry Potter still bloodied and bruised from his battle with Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic. In just the first few seconds of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” David Yates has redeemed himself for everything he screwed up in “Order of the Phoenix.” And that’s just what “Half-Blood Prince” is: Yates’s redemption.

Though films are supposed to be reviewed singularly, it is hard to talk about the sixth film in the “Harry Potter” franchise without discussing its association with the previous films and novels in the series. After what I consider to be a brutal and unnecessary butchering of the “Order of the Phoenix” adaptation, “Half-Blood Prince” has moments of brilliance that touch on an understanding of the characters not even the novels fully master. It also misses out on one of the biggest chances at an epic action scene J.K. Rowling could possibly have written out for filmmakers.

But before what did and didn’t work for the film’s plot has been thoroughly analyzed, a moment must be taken to appreciate what wonderful actors the young “Harry Potter” stars have developed into. Most notable is Tom Felton, whose Draco Malfoy is malicious and tortured with so many intricate levels of his character expressed in only a grimace or a blank stare it is a wonder his true talent of making Malfoy a three-dimensional person rather than a flat, spoiled villain hasn’t been tapped into previously. Though “Half-Blood Prince” contains Malfoy’s highest level of involvement in a “Harry Potter” installment (meaning we will probably see far less of him in “Deathly Hallows I and II”), here is an actor who is going places.

Beyond Felton, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint continue to shine as Harry, Hermione and Ron. While some of their line-delivery is sometimes still as forced and awkward as it was in the first installments, there are moments when the threesome share a laugh or a knowing look that it is clear: more than just friends off-screen, Radcliffe, Watson and Grint are Harry, Hermione and Ron, and that friendship onscreen is the same as the one in the book. In “Half-Blood Prince,” the threesome lives in their characters more than any other film in the series.

Newcomer to the series, Jim Broadbent, is wonderful as Professor Slughorn, the Hogwarts teacher whose propensity for favorites can be said to have caused Voldemort’s rise to power. Fortunately, Slughorn will return to the series in “Deathly Hallows Part II” when Harry and friends return to Hogwarts.

In early reviews of “HBP,” critics disapproved of the mass amounts of “filler” before the last 30 minutes of “plot,” claiming that the film at almost two and a half hours dragged for far too long. On the contrary, “HBP” is the first film since “Prisoner of Azkaban” to take the time to devote its time to the year at Hogwarts rather than just pick the action out of the novel and turn that into the film’s plot. There’s a reason “Harry Potter” isn’t called “Harry Potter vs. Voldemort: The Fight Rages On;” the series is about Harry’s life during his seven years at Hogwarts and, even in the wizarding world, life isn’t always action-packed. Spending as much time on the burgeoning relationships between the Hogwarts students as on the Draco Malfoy and Half-Blood Prince plotlines is one of the best choices Yates could have made for the film. While an “Order of the Phoenix” David Yates might have ditched the Lavender Brown (played by the wonderful Jessie Cave)-Ron Weasley-Hermione Granger “sub-plot” for a closer analysis of Tom Riddle, here Ron’s unfortunate love triangle becomes one of the main plots of the film.

Yates must also be congratulated for returning Quidditch to its proper place in “Harry Potter” filmography, albeit for only two scenes. Not only does he manage to flawlessly integrate Ron Weasley into the Gryffindor Quidditch team (yet another unfortunately axed “Order of the Phoenix” plotline) but he also manages, for the first time in any “Harry Potter” movie, to not make Quidditch seem like a joke.

Unfortunately, he could not resist the urge to unnecessarily cut important and epic scenes from his adaptation. Rowling wrote film adaptation brilliance in the terrifying showdown between Death Eaters and members of the Order of the Phoenix and the DA at the end of “HBP.” What would have taken five minutes of screen time to set up Yates chose to scrap for a fight-less ending. In choosing to have the Death Eaters enter and exit Hogwarts with no opposition, “HBP” raises too many questions that shouldn’t have gone unanswered and makes those opposing Voldemort’s army seem weak in comparison. Where were those protecting Hogwarts while the Death Eaters were exiting the castle? Why wouldn’t the Death Eaters try to attack students while they were in Hogwarts? Where were the students while all this is happening? And when Bellatrix torches Hagrid’s cabin before fleeing into the woods, where was Hagrid?

And after Snape’s grand admission that he himself is the Half-Blood Prince, where is the explanation as to why? For a plot point so important it is the title of the novel/film, it was unfortunately cast aside in the movie.

Also, nixing Dumbledore’s funeral for a nod to “The Empire Strikes Back” didn’t give the audience the time to mourn the great wizard’s passing like it did in the novel, nor to understand the unfortunate ripple effect of his death. With an ending that rushes headlong to its finish in a messy and needlessly disorganized fashion, “HBP” could have used a beautiful funeral to honor a character who becomes so important in “Deathly Hallows.”

What Yates did give back to “HBP” were moments that only were produced since, for the first time, the end of the “Harry Potter” story was known while the film was being made. SUPER DUPER DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILER ALERT! Harry touches Voldemort’s ring that once was a Horcrux and Dumbledore realizes a piece of Voldemort’s soul might have been left behind in Harry – something portrayed only in a look from the wonderful Michael Gambon. END SPOILER

In a scene unique to the film, Snape (played by a stunning Alan Rickman) shushes Harry before joining the Death Eaters in Dumbledore’s office and ultimately killing Dumbledore, a moment which will haunt Harry until he discovers the truth behind Snape’s actions.

Even the Death Eaters attacking and destroying the Weasley’s house in a scene completely made up for the film stays true to the theme of not just the novel, but the series (and the unfortunate truth that Bill and Fleur’s wedding will never make its way to the big screen).

In the end, “Half-Blood Prince” is a solid film that has progressed leaps and bounds since Yates first took a stab at adapting the series in “Order of the Phoenix.” He has clearly learned the necessity of staying true to the novel’s plot in addition to making the film entertaining. The film itself is a work of art, and is already beginning to generate Oscar buzz. Hopefully with both parts of “Deathly Hallows,” Yates will master the formula so many directors have struggled with in the past and create the perfect “Harry Potter” movie.

I went to see “I Love You, Beth Cooper” reluctantly. The ouerve of teen sex comedies where young nerdy boys go on wild adventures in the hopes of getting laid has been pretty much exhausted since the late 90s. And, judging from the trailers only, that’s what this film looked like: two recent high school graduates spend one night trying to lose their virginity (one of whom is in love with the most popular girl in school, natch). Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, pawned the DVD a while ago.

But what a pleasant surprise to see what “I Love You Beth Cooper” really is: a delightful, sweet, and relatively gentle comedy. It’s not a masterpiece, but it does have a sense of joy and whimsy that’s frankly astonishing at some points.

The beginning is pretty typical: Dennis (Paul Rust) is the valedictorian of his high school class and a regulation nerd. After confessing his love for the mythical popular girl, Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere), he and his best dork bud Rich (Jack Carpenter) get taken away by her and her friends for one night to get the true high school experience. There is the usual roster of boner jokes, slapstick fighting, sexual innuendo, and slow-motion shots of Panettiere in a low-cut dress. The first half hour is an awkward, stilted affair; a half-baked reincarnation of every teen sex comedy since Jason Biggs first molested a pie.

But the moment Dennis and Rich enter Beth’s adorable car (which she drives like a bat out of hell) something very different comes to the fore. Dennis realizes that the Beth Cooper of his dreams may not exist; the real Beth Cooper is a real flesh-and-blood girl with flaws and a past. The rest of the movie may be slightly absurd in parts. It may hold to cliché and the dialogue may be a little simple. But there’s an essential truth there about the nature of our teenage dreams, which may or may not have been deflated in the face of cold hard fact.

Panettiere is unlike any other female comedic lead I’ve seen in a long time. Instead of a simpering virgin, slut, bitch, or airhead, we get a whirlwind; a reckless, magnificent goddess of destruction. Beth Cooper’s a little lost and flailing in her suddenly dropping off the cliff of graduation; astonishingly self-aware, she knows full well this is her last night to be the coolest girl in school. Panettiere has pretty decent comedic timing, but in the more dramatic moments she’s wonderful to watch as she oscillates between vulnerability and steely will. Even the two girls who work as her entourage are terrific, especially Lauren Storm, who gets probably the best comedic lines in the film. (Upon hearing that the boys have wine, she rebuffs them, saying, “Oh no, wine reminds me of Jesus.”)

The film will probably fall to the wayside in the wake of the press tsunami that is “Bruno,” and that’s quite a shame. It’s so rare to see a real surprise come out of the major film industry anymore; it’s well worth the $10 to go see one.

It was nearly impossible to miss the promotion going on for Sacha Baron Cohen’s newest film, “Bruno.” If you weren’t bombarded with teaser trailers on TV, then you saw his best impersonation of “Blue Steel” plastered on billboards or tales of his antics at premieres scattered throughout the media. With so much bizarre publicity, “Bruno” was bound to be something: brilliant or horrifying was yet to be determined, but definitely something.

Similar to 2006’s “Borat,” Bruno is an outsider looking to understand America. Except here he is the most popular fashionista in any German-speaking country (except Germany) who has a major fashion faux pas and is “out” from the Austrian fashion ciruit… and then goes to the States (and from there to the Middle East) to become a big-time American celeb.

What goes on behind the scenes during Cohen’s films only the production crew (and Special Features once “Bruno” hits DVDs) will know, but parts of “Bruno” were clearly scripted. After the controversy of “Borat” from people who said they didn’t know what they were being filmed for, it seems a given that “Bruno” would have had to take a different approach.

But realizing some scenes were scripted didn’t detract from the humor of “Bruno;” in fact, it almost made the film funnier. It created a cohesive story that “Borat” lacked: instead of just being a road movie, it had a beginning, middle and end, and satisfactory ones at that. Undoubtedly this is the best film Cohen has created.

Don’t be misled by R-rated movies that border on PG-13 content: “Bruno” is not a movie to bring the kids to. Making “Borat” look tame in comparison, “Bruno” has more penis shots than a porno and “Watchmen” combined. But what is most bizarre about Cohen’s affinity for male genitalia in his films is that it’s funny. Unbearable at times, yes, but almost tasteful in its usage.

What’s most surprising about “Bruno” is that, despite its often offensive content, it is still incredibly funny. It continued the political commentary begun in Cohen’s “Da Ali G Show” which continued through “Borat” showing exactly how ignorant and appalling Americans can act. But the commentary was second to the story (although it can be argued the story is a commentary in itself) and that’s what makes it a strong film and undoubtedly one of the funniest films to come out of this year.

Beneath the action blockbuster (cough “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”) that graced the screen recently hides this mispackaged gem. Every piece of advertising I have seen on “The Hurt Locker” has pushed it as a war packed shoot’em up but this couldn’t be further from the truth. This film isn’t about explosions or tactics, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

“The Hurt Locker” stars Jeremy Renner and focuses on a small Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (EOD), whose job it is to diffuse bombs in Iraq. Yes, it does have its fair share of violence and explosions, but don’t be expecting a Schwarzenegger-style hero spouting off one-liners in between amazing feats of strength. Expect real people in real bad situations.

Renner plays William James, a staff sergeant who straps on his bomb suit at every opportunity. James is a bit unstable, but a good leader when he’s letting his adrenaline junkie side take the reins. His foil, and second-in-command, is the level headed Sergeant JT Sanborn played by Anthony Mackie. Sanborn certainly starts off as more of the hard-nosed solider type, but goes though some severe changes during the movie. That’s where this differs from other war movies. It doesn’t tell us that war changes people, but rather shows us.

It also shows that some men are just meant for war, and they take it differently. The richness and depth of these two characters is certainly the selling point of this film. You get dragged along their emotional gambit. You understand that Sanborn’s business-like approach is to shield himself and the others from the real horrors going on around them. You understand that James is an addict that has been changed into a walking casualty of war.

And while it is a war movie, it isn’t as preachy as one would expect. There is little to do with the traditional war themes, or even political themes. This film isn’t out to prove a point about the Iraq War, or any war for that matter. With just a little script editing, this film could easily be about the Gulf War or the Vietnam War. The setting is wonderful, and I commend them on actually going to the Jordon to get the true middle-east feel to it, but the story and characters are strong enough to survive on their own.

This movie is shot in a style very similar to a documentary, and it leads us to become more immersed in the world of this EOD team. With it’s over the shoulder shots and most of the focus being James, it almost feels as if this is being told in first person. By the time the bombs go off, the watcher is too far engrossed to be pulled away. The grit of the sand covers the actors, and the heat waves stand in the way of the camera lens. Never before have I seen a movie express heat so well, and it only furthers to pull you in.

There are bomb explosions and gunfire in the movie, but the scariest parts are when there isn’t an explosion on the screen. As James approaches each bomb, there is a feeling that this will be the last. Normally there is an unwritten rule that takes a lot of the tension out of movie: The main character can’t die until the end. This rule isn’t true here. There isn’t a safe moment. At no point did I feel as if any member of the EOD team was invulnerable. It leads to an incredible amount of stomach turning tension. When the realistic explosions finally do hit, that tension is released. You feel good that they succeeded or bad that failed.

This movie will undoubtedly be considered heavily for Oscar treatment, and it should. I tried to find faults to pick at, but those that were there were few and far between. It is a great action movie, yet still has both plot and heart. Director Kathryn Bigelow has made a magnificent must see film, and the best film about the Iraq War yet. Stylish, meaningful and gritty, this type of film that wins award, yet still has enough mainstream appeal to make its way out of the art houses and into the big screens nationwide.

You may have seen the blockbuster “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” The movie “Humpday” is nothing like that. 

Both share some of the basic characteristics, however: two friends come together to make a porn movie. Both are dialogue-heavy comedies.  However, the gold is in the difference.  In “Humpday,” instead of the friends being played by two opposite sex buddies, they are played by two very heterosexual male chums.  Also, as much as the heavy dialogue succeeds in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Humpday just gets bogged down in it.

The film opens at 2 a.m. when Ben (Mark Duplass) and his wife Anna (Alycia Delmore), are woken up by Ben’s bohemian, wild-man college friend Andrew (Joshua Leonard). After the friends are reunited, Ben immediately loosens up his white picket fence demeanor to party hardy with Andrew.  Fancying themselves free-spirited and artistic, they decide to enter a film contest that is “so weird it pushes boundaries.”  They run with this idea, for better or worse, and decide that they should star in their own movie as two straight men that have sex together.  This boundary-pushing piece of art would be “beyond gay.”

With so much happening at the beginning of the film, Director Lynn Shelton leaves little of the characters to be developed as the film progresses.  She uses most of the good lines and events within the first 40 minutes, leaving the audience waiting for the last part of the movie.  This is rough particularly in a dialogue-centric movie, where the audience is not learning new things about the characters, nor does it have the events to move the plot through.

As a gay man, usually homoerotic subtexts will get me through any movie.  Humpday, for a movie about man-on-man porn, is charming in that is lacks any of this.  It is like the drunk, overweight fraternity guy, who always stands too close to you when he is talking with his shirt off.  In the current world of Bromance movies, (see “I Love You Man”) this movie is refreshing in that it balances the relationship between Ben and Andrew with Ben’s relationship with his wife.

Delmore, who plays wife Anna, gave the strongest acting performance in the movie. This may be due to the fact that she is given most of the best lines throughout the movie. Anna, although not directly involved in the relationship between the two men seems to be what holds the movie together, and makes it last its short 92 minutes.

The movie is believable.  After Ben and Andrew make the drunken, high decision to make porn, they immediately regret it the next morning.  However, neither of them wants to chicken out, so they both keep going along with the plan.  The film is great at depicting masculinity and male bonding in a humorous way, but seemed to let the audience down in terms of it being funny.

Remember when “Miami Vice” came out a few years ago? It had everything going for it: a truly accomplished action director, a terrific cast and captivating source material. It promised to be a fun, interesting ride — maybe not an Oscar film, but solid summer fare. Then it came out and we got an overlong, unsatisfying mash of maudlin storytelling and Colin Farrell’s sideburns. Sighs of disappointment could be heard from miles around.

Mann does a little better in his latest, “Public Enemies,” but I do see the signs of a repeat performance. Again we have the truly talented director. We have the fabulous cast (Depp! Bale! Cotillard!) And we have excellent source material: the films follows the rise and fall of John Dillinger, a 1930s bank robber and show-boater who lived fast and died young. And, in general, it’s an homage to every gangland film ever made since Jimmy Cagney was walking. Mann appears to be hoping reignite our fascination with amoral bank robbers who shoot at police while riding the running boards of their getaway cars. And it’s a good time for it — anti-heroes abound in today’s films, and moral ambiguity fits our current sensibilities just fine.

All this would be great, if Mann and Johnny Depp (who plays Dillinger) had created an anti-hero anyone could actually care about. No one’s a bigger fan of Depp than I, but it’s pretty obvious he’s phoning it in here. Dillinger was a fascinating character. He understood the power of the media in shaping history, and he played it to his advantage. He was also fearless, and would walk in and out of police stations and prisons just to show that he could. We see scenes of both these attributes, but the real Dillinger; his motives, his inner life and his personality largely remain a mystery. Depp appears to be under the impression that a twitch of the eyebrow and a a half-smile constitute fine acting, and we know he knows better.

Depp’s supporting case fares much better. I was completely underwhelmed by Marion Cotillard’s performance as Dillinger’s dame, Billie, until a scene late in the narrative when she lets loose with a vicious, spitting, animal soliloquy that stops the show. It’s a version of “Stand By Your Man” with a hell of a lot more chutzpah. Bale does a surprisingly well-shaded performance of FBI Agent Melvin Purvis, assigned to the task force to capture Dillinger. Bale lures us into the belief that we’re watching the normal trope of the relentless, obsessed lawman and then shows us a real human being who loves his job and fears the increasingly draconian methods he has to use to do it. And Billy Crudup shows up doing a pretty damn good impression of a young J. Edgar Hoover — he’s sleazy and insincere in just the right way. Mann also includes a bunch of fine actors who show up, yell “Hey, I’m here!” and then leave again; Lili Taylor, LeeLee Sobieski and Giovanni Ribisi are just a few that make up the carousel. Since this story basically rests on Depp’s shoulders, it’s still pretty disappointing, but at least we have some good people to look at in the meantime.

I always give Mann props for taking chances with his camera work, but he’s doing some weird stuff in here. As with all action films made in the last ten years, the movie suffers a severe case of shaky-camera syndrome. Mann also seems way too fond of extreme close and low shots, sending the audience right up into the actors’ nostrils (an amateur mistake that’s far below what Mann’s capable of).

There is, however, one brilliantly executed action sequence: a shoot-out at a safe-house, followed by a midnight car chase. In this scene handheld cameras are used to their intended effect: a sense of controlled chaos that makes the audience feel as if they too are running through the woods, dodging the sniper fire. The car chase especially is wonderful: two cars barreling down a highway, with shooters firing while hanging on to the running boards for dear life while the night closes in on them. It’s a familiar scene, no doubt; we’ve seen this chase scene since the beginning of narrative film. And it still manages to terrify, exhilarate and take our breath away.

It’s a classic for a reason.

It could be said that the hip world of the undead has moved from the zombie horde fad that populated the last few years back to the blood sucking, easily sexed-up vampire scene. With the “Twilight” movies and books being the new midnight release craze, “True Blood” getting the green light for season two, and the popularity of the “Underworld” series, blood suckers are in when it comes to creatures of the night.

Coming out in the middle of the vampire chic craze is the live action adaptation of the manga/animated series “Blood: The Last Vampire,” the story of a half vampire, half human girl named Saya and her quest to hunt down the demon known as Onigen, an ancient evil that is responsible for killing her father.

In order to do this, she teams with an organization simply known as “The Council,” a group of black tie spooks led by the rough voiced veteran known as Michal. Noticing a large vampire/demon infestation in Japan, the council has Saya go undercover at an American Air Force base in Tokyo where she befriends repressed military brat Alice McKee.

Despite the generic plot of the movie and the not so pristine run of anime-turned-live-action flicks, “Blood” is a surprisingly entertaining time. This is mostly because of how much the film embraces its style over its substance. The entire movie used a manga-like pacing and framing to get the effect of the crossover to work. The lighting is never natural; instead it’s either pitch dark, electric red, or perpetual twilight in order to fully push the current scene’s mood.

The story’s backdrop also allows for multiple visual options. Being that the main location for the story is an American military base, based in Japan, in the early Vietnam era, all these cues show up. The soundtrack rings with old rock and roll of Buddy Holly and The Surfaries. The military grunts are all eerily similar looking to give the sense that something is very wrong with the setting while the hippy youth gives a good comparison with their flared looks. Saya dawns the classic skirted Japanese school girl look throughout the movie while the setting moves to the mountain forests of Japan to give it a classic Samurai vengeance theme.

The acting in the movie varies. Gianna Jun, who stars as Saya, trips over a few of her more clichéd lines, but isn’t anything hard to watch. Alison Miler plays a decent sidekick in the Alice role, though the character herself is slightly useless to moving the plot along. The main baddie demon is played by the long legged Japanese model turned actress Koyuki, who moves cold and smooth through all her scenes, fitting her “devil with class” role.

The spooks of The Council take the movie, especially Liam Cunningham portraying the veteran Michal. Cunningham spits out every line in an unnatural scripted way, which would be a deterrent if he wasn’t supposed to be a faceless black tie agent bent on killing demons and keeping quiet about it. His robotic, gravelly voice fits his role like a glove and he may be one of the best black-tie agents seen in the theaters in quite sometime.

“Blood” suffers from its budget more than anything. The graphics are mostly cheap, Sci-Fi Channel original movie level, the fight scenes are mostly quick cuts and cheap tricks with light rather than anything impressive, and the poor blood effects are covered by the one line fix, “demon blood is different than human blood.” The demon forms of the vampires are terrible computer graphics which could have been left out without the film suffering at all.

All in all, “Blood: The Last Vampire” is a cool movie. Following in the steps of “Dick Tracey,” “Sin City” and “Watchmen,” it is a style-over-substance comic interpretation which may not change your view on life, but will get a few good wide eyed moments out of you.

I went to see “My Sister’s Keeper” the other day, and I still can’t get the taste of earnestness out of my mouth.

From the first over-exposed shot of beaches, scrapbooks and poor, doomed Katie Fitzgerald (Sofia Vassilieva) you can tell you’re in for a classic Cassavettes uber-weeper (he also directed “The Notebook”). The Fitzgerald family is completely geared towards fighting for the life of young Katie, who has cancer, so much that the parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) actually have another child (Abigail Breslin) for the express purpose of using her to help keep her sister alive. The girl, Anna, sues her parents for the rights to her own body, so she doesn’t have to give her sister a kidney when she goes into renal failure.

The novel upon which the film is based was written by Jodi Picoult, the Queen of Child Misery, and Cassavettes in many ways is the perfect director to adapt it. Which would be perfectly fine, except for the fact that every moment from the first opening credit to the bitter, bitter end is narrated: every movement, sound, sigh and hiccup is deciphered by omniscient cast members; whenever a true emotion or poignant moment threatens to break the surface the voice-over is there to tamp it back down into its Lifetime movie box. Then it’s mixed with the predictable soft lighting and the near constant slow-motion, just to emphasize that what’s happening is SERIOUS and IMPORTANT and that this is a movie about life and love and family and death, in case you didn’t realize it before.

While focusing completely on Katie’s illness, both Anna and brother Jesse fall to the wayside. Jesse is left to his own devices, which apparently consists of his walking around some vaguely seedy downtown area and watching streetwalkers while gnawing on a Slurpee straw — would that all neglected youth were so clean-cut.

Also, Alec Baldwin’s in it.

What, you’re surprised? He plays the TV lawyer that Anna hires to sue her parents. He’s basically playing Alec Baldwin, which is hilarious and delightful, but he’s doing it in a movie about a dying teenager, which is perplexing and weird. Joan Cusack is much better cast as a grieving judge; her usual slightly twitchy nature is beautifully translated into a woman just barely holding on to her sanity.

I was crying by the end of “My Sister’s Keeper.” But every moment of the film is so manipulated and twisted to achieve that end, I’d be shocked if anyone could sit through that film without getting at least a little choked up. But whatever Cassavettes thinks, crocodile tears aren’t based on anything real.

SPOILERS ARE CONTAINED IN THIS REVIEW.

So my co-reviewer Meg Vick really liked “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Like, really, really liked it. To the point that she told me there were tears of joy streaming out of her eyes during it.

Maybe it was because she saw the film in its theatrical release, and I saw it in IMAX. But if there were any tears streaming out of my eyes, it was from pain and eye exhaustion.

Michael Bay likes big, blockbuster action movies, that much is clear. Headlining hotty Megan Fox has said in numerous interviews that, in Michael Bay films, it’s not about the acting; it’s about the running and screaming. Problem is, that’s all “Revenge of the Fallen” is.

In Bay’s 2007 “Transformers,” the robots were secondary to the stories of the people. Through Shia LaBeouf’s charisma and the eyes of the wide array of humans, it was easy for audiences unfamiliar with the idea of “Transformers” to become acquainted with the premise.

With “Revenge of the Fallen,” which picks up a bit after the events of “Transformers,” not only are two main (and fun) characters from the first film (played by Rachel Taylor and Anthony Anderson) inexplicably nowhere to be seen, but military studs Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson only begin to play a major role in the film at its end.

To replace them is Sam Witwicky’s (Shia LaBeouf) conspiracy-theory happy roommate Leo, played by Ramon Rodriguez. The returning cast members respond to “Revenge of the Fallen” like returning fans of the first film; they have the basic premise, but are still a bit confused. Newcomers to the franchise can relate more to Leo: clueless and running around screaming, “What is going on!”

If “Revenge of the Fallen” skimped on the humans, it can be said it made up for it with the robots. The first film featured about 10 to 20 robots, most named during the course of the film. “Revenge of the Fallen,” by comparison, introduces over 40 robots with only 5 carryovers from the first film: Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Megatron and Starscream.

Among these new robots, only three are at all memorable: Jetfire, Devastator and the Fallen himself. This is enough to put lifetime Transformers fans into a coma of joy, but for those who can’t recognize and name a Transformer by sight, it is unfortunately overwhelming.

What worked for the first “Transformers” was its great combination of snark and action. In “Revenge of the Fallen,” Michael Bay has said he has upped everything. But instead of upping everything, he overcompensates. Instead of gradually continuing to introduce film-goers to the idea of “Transformers” like he did in the first, he assumes everyone is familiar and sacrifices plot development for brief interchanges of dialogue to connect massive action scenes. It doesn’t work.

Michael Bay knows how to make a good action scene, that’s a fact. He knows how to make things explode and keep everything high octane. What he doesn’t know is how to edit these great action scenes together. The camera flies back and forth across the screen, splicing between normal widescreen and IMAX shots all the while, which isn’t exciting but dizzying. Tears streaming out of your eyes? It’s because you’re trying too hard to figure out what the hell is going on on screen.

The problem is that the camera work was dizzying throughout the entire film, not just the action shots. Michael Bay’s favorite camera movement is the counter-clockwise 180 degree spin. Sam and Mikaela (Fox) making out? Let’s spin around them. Drama going on in a military hangar? Let’s spin around it. Never is the camera in one place; it’s always moving – and fast.

What’s worse is that Bay hides his problems editing with the quick camera movement. One of the best scene from “Transformers” is when Optimus Prime transforms for the first time. The camera is steady on him, and if you slow down the rate of the frames when watching it, every little piece can be seen moving to transform the leading Transformer from truck to robot. Don’t expect that in this. Transformations either happen too quickly to be followed or occur behind objects while the camera is once again swooping around.

Despite all this, the movie could still have been salvaged if we cared. Not everyone was a fan of the first “Transformers,” but at least it made you care about the characters. With the focus primarily on the robots this time around, it’s hard to care about Sam and Mikaela’s difficulties saying “I love you” to the other while you’re too busy being annoyed by the obnoxious new Autobot twins that have arrived (you don’t want your robots to look like idiots, you want them to look like badasses; come on) or Wheelie, a Decepticon Mikaela caught and has trained as her pet (and humps her leg just like a dog).

Too much was sacrificed in “Revenge of the Fallen” to make the Transformers seem closer to humans (a concept Optimus emphasizes in his opening dialogue) but instead makes them off-key (Bumblebee crying oil is uncomfortable and corny to watch) and too cartoony. Yes, “Transformers” is based off a cartoon, but the films are not meant to be cartoony themselves. They are meant to be big blockbuster action films.

“Revenge of the Fallen” felt carelessly done, and that is its downfall. The continuity was off, the beginning too drawn-out and the plot took too long to kick into gear. Bay seemed too distracted cramming as many explosions and Transformers as he could into the film to be bothered in the editing room. And if anyone can tell me where Wheelie went after Devastator started kicking ass, I’ll pay you $5, because it seemed to me he disappeared right off the face of this movie – just like my interest.

Too often sequels of successful action movies fall short of their epic predecessor. Many times it leads to third and even fourth movies (”Lethal Weapon” or “Die Hard,” anyone?) which are all enjoyable, but somehow the magic of the original is lost. As a huge fan of the first “Transformers movie,” I was expecting the same enjoyable continuation of a great movie, but I had little hope that the second one could live up to the first one’s standard. Then the impossible happened – Michael Bay made transforming robot aliens hiding out on Earth even more awesome.

Sequels have a habit of trying to cut and paste the best aspects of the original and then amp them up or distort them just to be refreshing. There’s more action and less story or more characters and plot over development. In the newest installment of “Transformers,” director and producer Michael Bay realized he had a perfect mix the last go round and like an expert producer at the mixing board spread his fingers across all the elements and amped them equally. If you were a fan of the first movie, the second is everything it was, but more.

First: More robots. Having heard Optimus Prime’s call to all Autobots (nice robots) in the last film, new good guys have arrived on Earth to protect it from increasing Decepticon (evil robots) attacks. The most notable being “The Twins” – the dirty-mouthed robot brothers who spend as much time beating each other up as they do Decepticons but are responsible for a large part of the comic relief. Decepticons also grow in numbers — from evil robot panthers to fembots – and it is safe to say Megatron (think of him as the Darth Vader of evil robots) is no longer the biggest badass in space.

Second: With more robots it is only logical that there should be more robot fights. While there were a few scuffles in the first “Transformers,” the movie cultivated around one huge robot beat down at the end of the film. In the sequel Bay spreads out the carnage, delivering huge explosions and alien ass-kicking in the first five minutes. The Autobots throw down with the Decepticons in a fight parallel to the battle of the first movie halfway through the film and you’re scared thinking they’ve blown the best beat down before we’ve found out why the Decepticons are back in the first place -– but alas, all robot boxing is just warming up for the final epic battle. The last 45 minutes are robot on robot combat (with a little help from the humans with some shiny new Army toys).

The only thing there is slightly less of in this movie is Optimus Prime (but just in screen time. He does, as hard as it is to imagine, actually get even more badass). Granted he is leader of the Autobots and the protector of human civilization but Bay does an excellent job of showcasing the other robot talents. Both Bumblebee and Iron Hide threw punches that elicited rabid applause from the audience. There’s plenty of Decepticons to take down for every Autobot to show why Prime calls on them to “Roll out!”

It’s not all about robots though -– the humans really stepped it up in “Revenge of the Fallen.” Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson return as head soldiers of a now elite top secret robot division of the military -– NEST. John Turturro also reappears in all of his Sector Seven pride and glory to keep everyone laughing, but goes above and beyond to help the anti-evil-robot cause.

The human team is joined by newcomer Romano Rodriguez who plays Sam’s (Shia LaBeouf) new roommate at college, Leo. Obsessed with the “government cover up” of alien invasion, Leo gets swept up in the robot civil war and never fails to amuse with his constant back and forth between chickening out and wanting to take part in the greatest war Earth has ever seen.

That brings us to fourth: more humor. The first movie was riddled with LaBeouf’s natural sarcastic humor and robot jokes but as the danger elevates in Fallen, so do the jokes. Sam’s parents, played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White, are hysterical when dropping their only son off at college (Spoiler alert: hash brownies make everything funnier). It just shows that when it seems the world is going to end the best thing to do is laugh.

SPOILER: Most impressively is that Bay and crew managed to incorporate more story to explain the amplification of everything else. Last time we followed Sam Witwicky and the Autobots in search of “The All Spark” which was the source of power for all of Cybertron -– the robot home planet.

“Revenge of the Fallen” opens amidst a sneak attack by NEST on the yet another discovered Decepticon and we learn that the number of evil robot attacks has increased significantly over the past year -– but no one knows why. After finding a shard of All Spark on his shirt the day he leaves for college, the answer becomes embedded in his mind as a series of ancient alien robot symbols. The first half of the movie revolves around Sam trying to figure out what it means -– while still arguing with him that it isn’t his war — and the second half appropriately trying to prevent Megatron (who is awakened from the sea by his even more evil master) from using Earth’s energy to jump start Cybertron again. END SPOILER

The whole ordeal does a really good job of demonstrating just how strong the robot to human connection has become. Lennox and Epps (Duhamel and Gibson) fight along the Autobots in a camaraderie that feels reminiscent of how real war buddies feel buried in the trenches together. Sam’s connection with Optimus Prime and crew is also strengthened, despite how much he initially tries to distance himself. The robot compassion for the human race comes out in their protectiveness of Sam, adding a deeper human element to their metal shells. You get the sense that there is actually something to them saving Earth rather than just feeling sorry for the human race.

I thought the first “Transformers” was as epic as it could get and no sequel could be made without diminishing at least some of what made the original so awesome. I have now learned that the first “Transformers” was merely an appetizer to the “Revenge of the Fallen”s full meal. And even though all common sense says I should be full, I can’t help but ask…when is dessert?