Grade: A | Genre: Foreign Drama Summary: "Maria Full of Grace" is a stunning portrayal of a young girl's desperate efforts to hold everything together as it all falls apart. Catalina Sandino Moreno is mesmerizing in her debut as Maria and gives the character the strength and "Grace" she deserves.

A Columbian Mule is a drug smuggler trained in various transport methods such as swallowing illegal substances wrapped in rubber balloons the size of large grapes. Mules must swallow dozens at a time without chewing, enter foreign soil, and pass the balloons through their systems in order to retrieve them. It's a risky profession that can yield huge lumps of cash, but is it worth the consequences?

Maria (Morena) is a 17-year-old Columbian teenager dealing with more responsibility than she can handle. She must help to provide for her financially unstable family as her mother is unable to do it alone. However, Maria just quit her dead end job and has now discovered that she is pregnant.

	Grade: B | Genre: Drama Summary: I think this is an important film that needs to be seen, but it's certainly not for the light of heart. It's a tough movie to watch that doesn't offer you any hope. The only satisfaction we get once the credits roll is our knowledge that the Taliban is no longer in power.

Starring: Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati, Zubaida Sahar, Mohamad Haref Harati & Mohamad Nader Khadjeh
Director: Siddiq Barmak

Osama is a highly disturbing film. At its core, this is a scathing indictment on the Taliban regime and its detestable treatment of women. This film has the distinction of being the first to be made in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Director Siddiq Barmark's idea was sparked for this film from reading a newspaper account of a group of women struggling to survive in this repressive regime. This film is unique in that it uses no actors for these parts. This helps to establish the film's genuine feel.

	Grade: B+ | Genre: Drama Summary: If you are looking for a shrewd period piece that flips everything you know about gender and forces you to take a new perspective, this is the film you've been waiting for.

Starring: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes and Rupert Everett
Director: Richard Eyre

Stage Beauty is a deft Shakespearean gender bender that proves incredibly fresh and unique. The film is set in 1660 England during a time when the crown had decreed that all women's theatrical parts would be played by men. We find out that this stems from a fanatic cleric who thought that allowing women to act on the stage would be to resign them to a life of prostitution and debauchery. Strangely, he didn't seem to have a problem with the fact that men would have to become transvestites to fill the vacuum he created. Kynston (Crudup) is the celebrity of her time, declared as the most beautiful woman on the stage as Othello's Desmonda. She has aristocratic groupies overtaken with blinding curiosity to know if Kynston still has his manhood firmly attached. Kynston has studied for countless years to play a woman. Through their passage, he has slowly worked out all of the masculine kinks that make him a man until he is a woman. He has sexual rendezvous with a fellow actor who is more enamored with the aura that surrounds his performance as Desmonda than with Kynston.

	Grade: C- | Genre: Comedy Summary: You've forgotten about it before you've finished watching it assuming you're still awake.

Starring: Matthew Lillard, Seth Green, Dax Shepard & Burt Reynolds
Director: Stephen Brill

What is it about the no brainer comedy that causes us to seek them out on the video store shelves as if they were the English Patient? An even better question would be if they are so senselessly fun then why are they so damn hard to come by? I think that when it comes right down to it, a smart, original comedy that keeps us laughing and engaged while supporting some goofy, implausible story is pretty hard to write even though it ultimately comes off like two stoners hacked it out in a weekend. Without a Paddle is one of the disappointing ones that probably was churned out in a weekend. You've forgotten about it before you've finished watching it assuming you're still awake.

	Grade: B | Genre: Drama Summary: "Ladder 49" is a simple story about simple men who display extraordinary skills and courage. It's not a brainteaser, and it doesn't need to be. The film will instantly draw you in and have you emotionally invested until the last frame.

The comparisons to "Backdraft" are inevitable, so let's just get it out our systems and acknowledge that "Ladder 49" is it's own movie and that lumping the two together is unfair and unjustified. The film is a tribute to the firefighters of Baltimore (and beyond) who willingly risk their own lives so that others may see another day. Director Jay Russell thoughtfully portrays the heroics and selflessness of these brave men and "Ladder 49" is their story.

	Grade: B | Genre: Fantasy/Adventure Summary: Sky Captain is smart, wholesome, family entertainment that Hollywood is running low on. Though the story is generic, everything else is very cool. This film tapped into the kid in me as I launched off with Sky Captain on his adventures to save the world, pesky damsel in distress in tow.

Starring: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Giovanni Ribisi & Angelina Jolie
Director: Kerry Conran

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a comic book come alive. I'm not talking about your modern comic book that at times can look like a soap opera in tights. No, this is your classic comic of the 40s and 50s where heroes and villians were clearly defined and a coy innocence still existed in the world.

	Grade: A+ | Genre: Drama Summary: Friday Night Lights is the real deal. This movie is to high school football what Hoosiers was to high school basketball. You'd get no argument from me if you called it the best football movie ever made. It's that good.

Starring: Derek Luke, Billy Bob Thornton, Tim McGraw, Connie Britton, Lucas Black and Jay Hernandez
Director: Peter Berg

This film is loosely based on a true story by H.G. Bissinger about the 1988 Permian Panters of Odessa, Texas. Odessa is a tiny town that lives and dies by high school football. Their church is the stadium and Friday night is when they worship. All the conversation in the town revolves around strategizing the next game and everyone's focus is set on a relentless obsession to win the state championship by any means necessary. Permian has built a tradition of winning that is echoed through ghosts of championships past that haunt the town.

	Grade: C+ (for the ending) | Genre: Horror Summary: I'll admit that the ending did surprise the heck out of me and will even say that it almost makes up for where the film lacks.

Starring: Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Ken Leung
Director: James Wan

I think the first time I "Saw" this film, it was called "Seven." An unidentified killer preying on those whom he deems as morally corrupt...sounds a bit hypocritical, doesn't it? However, the Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman thriller left me seriously disturbed while losing much sleep for days afterwards. I just couldn't believe that a story like that could come from anyone other than the Devil. "Saw," however, left no psychological marks, and I had no problems drifting into sleep.

	Grade: B+ | Genre: Drama Summary: The contrasting moods of the movie, from serene to tragic, are effective and leave an unshakable feeling of shock and guilt (possibly of the kid you teased or the people you ignored) long after the credits have rolled.

Starring: John Robinson, Alex Frost, Elias McConnell, Eric Deulen, Nathan Tyson
Director: Gus Van Sant

So much was done to explain the horrific events of the Columbine shootings. From news coverage to personal interviews, you do get a feel for what really happened...on the surface. For anyone who's ever been a high school student, you're left to re-evaluate for yourself the relationships you had, the routines you followed, and your fellow students whom you knew nothing about.

"Elephant" isn't specifically about Columbine, though the similarities are undeniable. It's not a film about why or how everything happened. In it's basic form, the film is meant to open your eyes to the things you may never have stopped to notice.

	Grade: C+ | Genre: Romantic Comedy Summary: Wimbledon proves a mixed bag. Tennis fans will no doubt rejoice that they finally have a film to embrace as their own but for those of you looking for a film to inject you with that warm and fuzzy feeling along the lines of Notting Hill, I'd stick with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.

Starring: Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany
Director: Richard Loncraine

It is refreshing to finally see Hollywood making a feature film based on tennis. It is an exciting sport that usually gets overlooked for the flashier, more popular baseball, football and basketball. Sadly it appears that the studio felt that instead of focusing on the human drama inherent within, such as Friday Night Lights, they needed to plug this into a Hollywood formula to stem the nagging from the marketing department. Enter your token romantic comedy where love triumphs over all, queue the Peter Cetera song.

	Grade: D- | Genre: Comedy Summary: Just because a film is labeled as an independent certainly doesn't make it a good film. Use whatever creative licenses you like but don't bury your audience in utter senselessness. Unless you are a complete sadist, stay away from this film. Far, far away.

Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Dustin Hoffman and Mark Wahlberg
Director: David Russell

I Heart Huckabees or otherwise known as Existentialism: the Movie is one of the strangest movies I have ever seen. Who in their right mind would have ever sat down and thought, "Yeah, we should make a movie based around the revolving theme of existentialism." The one thought that was echoing through my head as I was watching this was Sartre is probably rolling over in his grave right about now. This movie is such a discombobulated mess. Plot you say. There was a plot?

	Grade: C | Genre: Action Summary: A fresh take on the King Arthur story that doesn't hold its weight when plugged into this formulaic Hollywood film yielding a rather generic movie. Keira Knightley shines regardless.

Starring: Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, and Stellan Skarsgard
Director: Antoine Fuqua

Yes I'm well aware of what you are surely thinking, "Exactly how many times can we hear this same old tale of King Arthur and his dutiful knights." At least one more time more evidently. To its credit the film takes an interesting spin on the age-old tale by announcing at the movie's onset that new archeological information has surfaced that signaled Arthur may have been based on a real person who lived around the 5th century. This movie is supposed to chronicle that life. The accuracy of these claims I'll leave to the scholars.

	Grade: A- | Genre: Drama Summary: This is a film that sticks with you. It's a stunning portrayal of innocense lost and of life altering decisions.

Staring: Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck, Carly Schroeder
Director: Jacob Aaron Estes

If you could snap your fingers and have your worst enemy drop dead, would you do it? Mean Creek is about Sam, a young school kid who is beaten up regularly by a bigger, stronger and older bully, George. So he and his brother, Rocky, decide to pull a prank by inviting George out a boating trip.

	Grade: B+ | Genre: Documentary Summary: Every scar, flaw and stroke of brilliance in the complex genius of Louis Kahn shines through in this compelling documentary.

	Grade: B- | Genre: Drama Summary: Ray is definitely worth seeing because the music is genius and this tribute is a fitting way to remember the man that gave us "Georgia on My Mind."

Playing Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx gives the performance of his life in a film that would have been nothing more than a cable mini-series without him. Whoah! Did I really say that?

	Grade: C+ | Genre: Drama Summary: This one is like a complex abstract painting. You can tell there are flashes of brilliance within but you're not quite sure what the artist was getting at.