Grade: A+ | Genre: Indie/Drama/Comedy
Summary: Indie as usual does good, and in the case of Juno, it does even better than most. An unconventional story of a very unconventional young girl with the sass and wit of all the people you wish you could be and sound like, Juno demonstrates how great screenwriting and endearing characters can engage and carry a film beyond any high-budgeted studio "Blockbuster."

Ellen Page is a revelation (in case you haven't seen Hard Candy, do so!), who has put herself in the pop-o-sphere of beloved and endearing female characters. From interviews, you can see that much of her own personality came through to Juno, but with an added whip smart sarcasm that wraps every word coming out of her mouth rivaling anyone that dare stand in her way.

Grade: B+ | Genre: Political Drama
Summary: The Last King of Scotland constructs a fascinating story of a country in flux and the power of unchecked idealism. President Amin is the role of a lifetime for Whitaker, and he takes advantage of the ripe opportunities it presents.

Africa seems to be finding the spotlight more and more among Hollywood's savvy directors and screenwriters. Perhaps this is due to a lack of news coverage on pressing issues or the cyclical poverty that seems to huddle the region in darkness. Whatever the cause recent years have shown us riveting portraits of this continent in crisis from the genocidal struggle of Hotel Rwanda and the intrigue of the Constant Gardener to the mangled youth of Tsoti. With each passing day, we know the killing impulses strengthen in Darfur and the AIDS epidemic slowly toils away at its task of blotting out an entire generation. The Last King of Scotland aids us in answering some of the questions plaguing Africa today through the looking glass of Uganda in the early-70s. It is a film hinged on stirring performances and a gripping intensity that doesn't let you free.

Grade: B | Genre: Comedy
Summary: No one is more surprised by the outcome of this rather witty little film than I. It has its share of problems, but this is light years away from the suck fest this was destined to be.

The rise and fall of Kevin Smith has been a swift and ugly thing to witness. I think the general sentiment was summed up best in a recent episode of Entourage when Vince discovers they've sloughed off directorial responsibilities of the Aquaman sequel to Kevin Smith after James Cameron bailed. The communal gasps of disappointment couldn't have been more telling. Smith was a man who entered with all the promise of indie Superman. Clerks had the grittiness of an El Mariachi with the savvy of Reservoir Dogs. It was lewd, crude and set its own rules that naturally come with a lack money and studio muscle forcing the film's evolution through focus groups. He would sputter out on Mall Rats, but fulfill all of his tremendous promise in the insta-classic Chasing Amy. Since then, one bad film has cascaded into the next -- Jersey Girl, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the brilliantly mis-executed Dogma. It's amazing that this man can still take meetings in Hollywood. So when I first heard the rumor that Smith was queuing up a sequel to his indie smash hit, I could only think that he was sucking out that last ounce of indie credibility before getting tossed on the heap of hack directors for hire. Believe me, no one is more surprised by the outcome of this rather witty little film than I. It has its share of problems, but this is light years away from the suck fest this was destined to be.

Grade: A- | Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Summary: A "Spike Lee Joint" that delivers a satisfying, big-Hollywood heist movie in the best sense of the genre, sprinkled with a stellar cast that includes uber-cool Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. A nice night out for the money.

This movie introduces you to Dalton Russell (Clive Owen), criminal mastermind, with a monologue that appears to take place from a prison cell. So okay, we think we know how it ends, but hang on, sorting this plot out is half the fun in this two-hour flashback of a bank-robbery where cool, collected thieves execute a daytime siege of the main Manhattan Trust Bank. The heist happens when a band of gunmen take over this Wall Street bank and seize hostages who are forced to wear the same coveralls and white masks as the crooks to confuse the cops. Enter expert negotiator Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), who has his own cloud of mystery, as does this rich, complicated story of twists and turns. The dance begins between Frazier and Russell as they play mental games with each other in this film that is strongly reminiscent of some of Sydney Lumet's films such as Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico, and while this film is not exactly on the same par, it comes close and is a substantial effort in that direction. In fact, Frazier, makes mention of that epic film when he and mastermind Russell debate the escape plan details, by saying, "We've all seen Dog Day Afternoon, you're stalling."

Grade: C+ | Genre: Sci-Fi
Summary: V for Vendetta isn't unwatchable. It has its moments, but overly its a preachy version of the future where the government is as dark as they can be and the populous exists with a purity of soul, hinged on grand ideals.

So everyone had to do a neck wrenching double take when they saw the striking Natalie Portman playing a cue ball during promotions for the final chapter of the Star Wars saga. No Princess Amidala wasn't shipped off to some intergalactic concentration camp. She was busy filming her new sci-fi film V for Vendetta. Straight off the comic book pages, V comes to us when we are overloaded with roaming vigilantes and men in tights on the silver screen. V for Vendetta is one of DC Comics lesser-known series, tucked away in their Vertigo wing. It tells the story of one vigilante fighting a British government of the future (2020 to be exact) that has stripped its people of their freedoms and rules with an iron fist of fear. V's (Hugo Weaving) sole purpose in life seems to be the incitement of anarchy in the masses in order to topple the totalitarian regime. In an age where illegal government wiretaps and freedoms are cinched ever tighter with the decidedly unpatriotic Patriot Act, it's hard to see V as anything but a commentary of a bleak 1984 type existence we could be hurling towards.

Grade: C+ | Genre: Drama/Romance
Summary: John Fante's, Ask The Dust is a 1939, hipster's novel that is lost in translation to the big screen, confirming to me again, that some literature should be left to the ancient art of reading.

Directed and adapted to the screen by Chinatown scribe, Robert Towne, Ask the Dust, follows the life and loves of an aspiring Depression-era author, Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) as he makes his way in Los Angeles, while becoming involved with a Mexican waitress (Salma Hayek). Arturo is a second-generation Italian, who dreams of landing a writing career and a hot blue-eyed blonde on his arm, while Camilla Lopez, the intense and fiery Mexican waitress, wants to marry someone wealthy and above her station. So what do they do? Of course, this couple runs headlong into a love/hate affair that is filled with angst and racial conflicts. This folks, is the entire film, honest. Director Robert Towne, who possesses a huge fascination with old Los Angeles and has done well in sharing that image onscreen in this film, reportedly spent years bringing this cool, celebrated novel to the screen after meeting the author of this book in the 1970s.

Grade: D+ | Genre: Romantic Comedy
Summary: It won't change your outlook on love and life, but it might help you pass a couple of hours. Otherwise, spare yourself Terry Bradshaw's cottage cheese behind because this film is a stinker.

We should have known better when we saw the word "Failure" in the movie title. While we would never judge a book by its cover, especially one featuring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker, a movie title can speak a thousand words. Sure, Failure to Launch may have not been such a failure in it's opening weekend, but it has set itself up for the numerous play-on-words that will foreshadow how quickly this film will fade away. Systems won't be a go for much longer, and as fast it launched to the top, it's sure to come crashing down.

Grade: A- | Genre: Action Adventure
Summary: Superman Returns is a thrilling rebirth of yesterday's "Man of Steel" for today's generation. The time spent in development was worth the wait and we can only hope that the following additions continue to build and stay true to the franchise.

Review: The "Man of Steel" has indeed come a long way since his Quest for Peace and finally returns to the big screen to soar over all those that get in his way (those that aren't Pirates of course). It seems director Bryan Singer was able to take the franchise back in time and drop it snugly between the second and third Superman installments just before Mr. Bulletproofs film career began to tank.

Clark Kent has continued to see some life on the small screen in the hit series, Smallville, but alas with not one glimpse of the red cape and blue tights. It took a while for Superman to take over the big screen where previous incarnations saw Rush Hour and X Men 3 director, Brett Ratner manning the helm and, get this, Nicholas Cage playing "The Man of Steel." With years wasted and millions of dollars lost, the studios finally got the right pieces in place to create a Superman fitting of today's movie climate. This time around, we are given a film that doesn't necessary reinvent the franchise but is a dedication to the legacy left behind by Christopher Reeves.

Grade: B+ | Genre: Comedy
Summary: Unfortunately, unless you know a bit about Steve Coogan and appreciate the realistic edginess of British wit, you could miss the laughs in this mockumentary about making a movie based on a novel that simply cannot be filmed.

Just to get this out of the way first, in case you do not know about one of England's funniest and most creative men, Steve Coogan, shame on you. Not only will this keep you from catching some of the jokes in this film, as some are based on his former TV character Alan Partridge, and one running gag is about a real-life tabloid headline that plagues Coogan, but you are missing really brilliant humor from a great comic actor. But enough of that, and onto the review of the movie, which is a film about making a film from a novel that is un-filmable. In fact no one in their right mind would attempt to make a movie about this particular novel. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a weighty novel written by Laurence Sterne that is one of those great books famous for being owned but seldom actually read. The book itself is a perfect vehicle for a movie about a novel that one simply cannot film, for this piece of literature is the fictional autobiography of an eccentric English gentlemen that have more digressions, narrative segues and utterly exhausting contrivances than any postmodern works that have ever been written.

Grade: D+ | Genre: Action/Suspense
Summary: Basically, it's a film that treads over ground we've seen hundreds of times to date and offers up nothing new for us to sink our teeth into. The goal seems to sufficiently vegetate the audience rather than intrigue them.

Its truly sad when once great actors become synonymous with bland filmmaking. Instead of being gracefully put out to pasture, they overstay their welcome, going through the motions without feeling and completely devoid of heart. Harrison Ford set the standard for tense action thrillers with nail biters like Patriot Games and The Fugitive yet these days he's a paycheck player, getting plugged in as the lead in the latest tepid action feature on the market. Remember stellar, gripping films like Hollywood Homicide, Six Days Seven Nights and K19: The Widowmaker? I didn't think so. The latest stink bomb is Firewall, pulling out all the formulas and wallowing in its own mediocrity. Shouldn't there be a mandate that guys like Ford, DeNiro and Pacino can't soil their brilliant body of work, slumming it in every half-baked project that gets green lighted through Hollywood?

Grade: B+ | Genre: Documentary
Summary: The power of this film lies in its array of eye opening facts, coupled with a desire to let both sides be heard. It sidesteps the heavy-handed flash that Michael Moore would employee, insuring he'll never preach to anything other than the choir.

In the San Francisco airport, I was in search of reading material as I prepared to swallow the nation in my flight home. I ran across the latest US News and World Report profiling presidents at war. Basically, it was trying to remove some of that polish and shine the history books have glossed upon great emancipators like Lincoln or Nazi weed killer Roosevelt. After all, Roosevelt did authorize certain American citizens of Japanese descent be relocated to internment camps during World War II. A new BBC documentary looks to shed fresh light on America at war and, more specifically, why it is that we fight. Are we following the path of the once great Britain with our economic imperialistic ways? How much longer can we serve as the world's policeman, brandishing our guns? Are we destined to be dethroned by our own hubris like every great civilization that has come before us? Why We Fight puts these difficult questions on the table to identify what exactly is in the fabric of the American DNA that keeps us at war.

Grade: C | Genre: Comedy
Summary: Nacho Libre isn't a total loss. There are a host of funny scenes, making it entirely watchable, but you come out feeling you got gypped.

Jared Hess has to be one of the most unlikely of heroes in Hollywood. His indie flick Napoleon Dynamite has become a baffling cult hit, embedding itself in the lexicon of our generation. Can you go anywhere these days without being hit up with the campaign message 'Vote for Pedro' blazoned across someone's t-shirt? Napoleon made it cool for everyone to embrace their inner dork whether its shaking your groove thing in front of the high school auditorium or putting your nuts into an electric vise labeled 'time machine.' We've all been through the hell known as high school and can finally smile about the daily misery Napoleon suffers on a continual loop because there is a little Napoleon in all of us. Now creator Jared turns his gaze from time warped Idaho to a Mexican monk turned wrestler, spearheaded by eccentric comic Jack Black. The fusion of humor between Hess and Black was just too tempting to pass up. It's a shame that something got lost in the translation.

Grade: D+ | Genre: Independent Drama
Summary: While I'm not ready to slap this with the label as being a 'bad film,' it doesn't have much point. It's a slice of life piece featuring a life not terribly interesting, which unfortunately seems to be Matt Dillon's specialty these days.

In a recent visit to Barcelona with my babelicious girlfriend, we were seeking a brief reprieve from history's engine and magnificent modernist architectural works. It was decided a choice piece of American cinema could definitely fill this craving. The problem was not stumbling over one offensive theatre after another busy dubbing box office blockbusters like the Da Vinci Code into Spanish. Have these Spaniards not heard of subtitles? I have to say that watching Clueless dubbed on late night TV was simply priceless. "Rollin' with the Homies." Here is a thought. Why not have special headphones/glasses at the theatre so the film can always run in its original format, allowing you can plug in the appropriate dubbing/subtitles as you see fit? After bouncing around town to three different theatres, we ended up on the Passeig de Gracia that screamed cool with its trendy shops and complete absence of tourist flavor. It also housed two of the cities indie cinema houses, featuring the much sought after VOSE (Version Original Subtitulada en Espanol). After narrowing a dozen foreign films down to two US imports, we settled on Factotum with Matt Dillon and Lili Taylor (Six Feet Under).

Grade: A | Genre: Drama/Thriller
Summary: If you think you dislike big oil companies and are suspicious of the feds now, you just wait until you see this flick. This film should be seen for its political insight and the sheer power of the message.

Syriana is an intelligent and masterfully crafted movie about the intrigue, politics, and underbelly of governmental involvement in the oil business. This movie possesses more plot lines than you can count on one hand, however, rest assured that by the end of the film all the dots will be connected, but you might not like the picture you are seeing. Syriana confronts the topics of big oil, shady government and the Middle East and demands that you think about those issues. This is a big, bold movie that is as complicated and as confusing at times as the subjects it is trying to cover, but somehow this film works. The writer/director, Stephan Gaghan delivers an ambitious piece of cinema which asks really tough questions about America's need for oil, in pretty much the same way he wrote about the drug world in his Academy Award winning screenplay Traffic, and amazingly enough, he succeeds. Gaghan forges a challenging, fictional thriller and solicits unaffected, honest performances throughout, but this film is not going to make you feel satisfied at the end, or comfortable, in fact you will feel quite the contrary.

Grade: C+ | Genre: Romantic Comedy (Supposedly)
Summary: The problem(s) with The Break-Up is that it was/is marketed as a romantic comedy that in reality is more serious and not as romantic as you would expect. You don't really feel anything for the characters and don't really understand why Gary can't get his act together early on, but when he finally does, why it's just not enough for Brooke.

Review: Many therapists like to encourage their patients to act out the quirks of relationship conflicts to help find resolve and an eventual inner peace. Jennifer Aniston takes that method one step further in her new movie, The Break-Up, playing a woman dealing with the inevitable end of her relationship with Brad...I mean Gary (Vince Vaughn). Actors tend to borrow from real life experiences in order to create a role that feels more genuine. Luckily, Aniston doesn't have to go far in her research as her real life divorce (in case you haven't heard) to Mr. Pitt contributes to this tired story about a couple, Gary and Brooke (Aniston), who can't seem to turn around their doomed relationship.

Grade: A- | Genre: Action/Comedy/Crime
Summary: A witty, sprawling mess of a film about a murder in Los Angeles that is as absurd and bizarre as the city it openly makes fun of.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is a flick as breezy, surreal and disjointed as Los Angeles and yet it happens to be my first guilty pleasure of the year. Shane Black, screenwriter of the Lethal Weapon series, directs his first feature film after a long absence from the screen and surprisingly charms me silly. With a touch of film noir, a shade of Pulp Fiction, a hysterical narrative, bizarre flashbacks and machine-gun dialogue, Kiss Kiss rolls into kind of snowballing mess, and while you are not quite sure of what it is, you really do not care once it gets going. It is the first film I have laughed out loud at in at least two years. The plot has more twists than a pretzel and can almost overwhelm you with its continual barrage of action, humor and darkness making one wonder what the inside of Black's head must look like. Yes, this film is a mishmash of everything, but it somehow cooks up into a completely edible feast of a movie, thanks to some brilliant writing, superior performances by Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr., and edgy direction by a man who truly knows the strangeness of Los Angeles inside and out.