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Capsule reviews by Andy Klein (AK), Paul Birchall (PB), Annlee Ellingson (AE), James Greenberg (JG), Mark Keizer (MK), Wade Major (WM), Joshua Sindell (JS), and others as noted.

After the Wedding. See Latest Reviews.

Air Guitar Nation. See Latest Reviews.

Amazing Grace. This latest conscience film from director Michael Apted tells the true story of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd), a British member of Parliament, who, in the late 1700s, waged a tireless and too often fruitless battle to end Britain’s participation in the slave trade. As the title suggests, the story also dovetails with the origins of the famous hymn, whose author, John Newton (Albert Finney), is depicted here as helping inspire Wilberforce’s indefatigable struggle. Well scripted by Dirty Pretty Things writer Steven Knight and boasting a sterling cast of A-list British talent (including Michael Gambon, Rufus Sewell, Ciaran Hinds, Romola Garai, and Toby Jones), this is far and away Apted’s best film in many years. It’s hardly perfect – at times the treatment feels better suited to television – but the choice to let the story’s inherent power stand on its own, minus any overt cinematic embellishment, is a wise one, endowing it with the gentle power of righteousness. (WM)

Avenue Montaigne. Veteran French screenwriter Danièle Thompson’s third film as a director (after La Bûche and Jet Lag) is an ambitious attempt to give the Parisian theater district a Nashville treatment, threading three stories of an individual at a crossroads through the wide-eyed wonderment of the young waitress (Cécile de France) who sees what they cannot. A soap star and stage actress (Valérie Lemercier) longs for the lead in a film bio of Simone de Beauvoir being planned by an American director (Sidney Pollack); a renowned concert pianist (Albert Dupontel) yearns for a simpler existence, to the chagrin of his devoted wife; and an art collector (Claude Brasseur) prepares to auction off his collection. Thompson has always excelled at poignancy, and her new film is no exception – thoughtful and eloquently crafted in every detail. But it sometimes feels like too much of a good thing, poignant to the point of being stifling. (WM)

Black Snake Moan. A troubled bluesman-turned-farmer (Samuel L. Jackson) finds a beaten, half-naked sexpot (Christina Ricci) lying in the road; he takes her into his home and chains her to the radiator, as he tries to straighten out her sinful ways. Writer-director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) has dressed the old W. Somerset Maugham chestnut “Rain” in lurid Southern Gothic clothing and come up with this enjoyably overcooked melodrama. But he’s operating in a different psychological era. The farmer is no hypocritical prig, and the woman is no debased prostitute: They’re both, you know, decent folk with troubled souls. Brewer doesn’t give us any stylistic hints of irony; with the exception of a few psycho-freakout scenes from Ricci, he plays it pretty straight, suggesting that maybe he didn’t intend it all to be quite as humorous as the audience I was with found it. On the other hand, he did cast Jackson, whose delivery and iconic presence automatically create a certain attitude. (AK)

Blades of Glory. See second Film feature.

Boy Culture. Gay dramas should be more innovative than director Q. Allan Brocka’s slick, soulless adaptation of Matt Rettenmund’s popular 1990s cock-lit novel. Dewey-eyed and dimple-mouthed X (Derek Magyar) is that oldest of clichés, the sad male prostitute who tricks endlessly with hideous men for cash, but is almost a virgin in his private life because he fears – horrors! – having his heart broken. He lives in a lovely Portland apartment with another pair of walking stereotypes – bouncy twink Joey (Jonathan Trent), and Andrew (Darryl Stephens), an only-just-out-of-the-closet twentysomething stud, who is sowing his oats with plenty of one-night stands. Brocka’s filmmaking style has the quick-paced, lushly colorful mood of a Coke commercial, but the tired screenplay (credited to Brocka and Philip Pierce) creaks with ghastly romantic platitudes. The performers don’t make sense of the downright illogical psychological twists and lend little freshness to this fusty collection of irritating, stock gay types. The result is a film that feels almost as stiff and unromantic as paying X for his “time” might be. (PB)

Breach. The pursuit and capture of Robert Hanssen, the FBI mole responsible for the most damaging intelligence compromise in American history, is craftily reenacted by director Billy Ray (Shattered Glass) as muted intellectual warfare between two men, armed only with paranoia and closely guarded secrets. Hanssen (Chris Cooper) spends more than 20 years selling classified information to Moscow. The Bureau asks him to head a new division, really a front to keep closer tabs on him. Wannabe agent Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is installed as his clerk and told to report on his boss’s every move. But Hanssen’s antennae never retract, and, while mentoring Eric on spying and leading a pious life, he’s calculating whether his subordinate is friend or foe. Phillippe isn’t an interesting actor, but he’s a fine catalyst for the amazing Cooper, who internalizes both sides of Hanssen’s dichotomous existence. The film moves with the methodical pace of its characters, wringing noose-tight drama from every sideways glance and offhand remark. (MK)

Bridge to Terabithia. Two preteen outsiders (Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb) create the imaginary secret kingdom of Terabithia, a magical place only accessible by swinging on an old rope over a stream in the woods near their homes. There they play-act a series of fantastical escapades against figurative representations of school bullies and, in the process, change each other for the better. Based on Katherine Paterson’s popular Newbery Award-winning novel, Bridge to Terabithia is part family drama, part adolescent fantasy – a movie about friendship, as well as about the power and exhilaration of a blossoming imagination. Beautifully fleshed out in non-pandering fashion by screenwriters John Stockwell and David Paterson, and directed with a clear, streamlined tone by Gabor Csupo, the film mines a deep reservoir of genuine feeling that’s often missing in adolescent entertainment, combining it with just the right amount of sensory pleasures. Robb and Hutcherson are warm and engaging; and the conflicts, schemes, and resolutions are all believably to scale, resulting in a winning piece of family-friendly entertainment. (BS)

Dead Silence. When his wife is murdered, a young man (Ryan Kwanten) discovers that her hometown is haunted by the vengeful ghosts of a crazed ventriloquist and her dummies. James Wan (Saw) directed; Amber Valletta, Bob Gunton, and Donnie Wahlberg costar. (AK)

First Snow. A fortune-teller (J.K. Simmons) informs a shallow, hustling salesman (Guy Pearce) that he hasn’t long to live, though he’ll be safe until the first snow. Understandably freaked out, the latter tries to evade his doom. Pearce is a terrific actor, and this is a type he’s played before – abrasive and pushy, but somehow able to win a certain degree of sympathy. Like Lenny in Memento, he’s a man desperately out of his depth, trying to stay afloat in perilous waters. Unlike Lenny – who, by definition, couldn’t ever change – he has hope of coming to terms with his doom. The directorial debut of screenwriter Mark Fergus – who, with writing partner Hawk Ostby, has a credit on Children of Men – is a decent freshman effort. It’s solidly made – which, for this sort of film, is nothing to sneeze at – but it doesn’t leave that strong an impression. (AK)         

Ghost Rider. For the past couple of years, Daredevil director Mark Steven Johnson has deflected all criticism by complaining that the studio didn’t let him do his version of the movie. So now he gets his hands on another Marvel movie, and surprise! It’s pretty much the same kind of thing – introduce a bunch of comic-book characters, augment them with CGI in almost every shot, and let them fight. Worry about plot later, if at all. The big difference, though, is that this time, instead of boring Ben Affleck, we get crazy Nicolas Cage in the lead, who unleashes 30-odd years of pent-up excitement now that he finally gets to play a superhero. As stunt biker Johnny Blaze, made nigh-invulnerable and occasionally skeletal by a deal with the devil (Peter Fonda), Cage does all kinds of crazy stuff, most of which he probably came up with on the spot, and it’s all every bit as entertaining as his hairpiece or the notion that he and Eva Mendes are supposed to be the same age. (LYT)

The Hills Have Eyes 2. Martin Weisz directed what appears to be a sequel to Alexandro Aja’s 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 horror film … rather a remake of Craven’s 1985 sequel … or something. This time around, it’s a bunch of National Guard soldiers who stumble across the desert-dwelling cannibalistic mutants. Michael McMillian, Jacob Vargas, Flex Alexander, Lee Thompson Young, Eric Edelstein, and Daniella Alonzo costar. (AK)

The Host. On a beautiful sunny day, a gargantuan mutant monster leaps out of the Han River in the middle of Seoul, South Korea, and starts gobbling the lunchtime picnickers. Among the nearby residents is the Park family, centering on an apparently mentally challenged single dad (Song Kang-ho), who looks after his 13-year-old daughter (Ko A-sung) as best he can. When the monster – who also appears to be transmitting a lethal virus – kidnaps her, the dad has to lumber into action, together with his own dad (Byun Hee-bong) and two siblings (Park Hae-il, Bae Du-na). When released last summer, Bong Joon-ho’s relentlessly entertaining horror comedy became Korea’s highest grossing film ever and went on to remarkable critical buzz at festivals. It encompasses many genres; at its heart, it’s a dysfunctional-family story, with a number of parallels to Little Miss Sunshine, except with an evil giant carnivore instead of an evil beauty pageant. (AK)

I Think I Love My Wife. Investment banker Richard Cooper (Chris Rock) is suffering from that old seven-year itch. Wife Brenda (Gina Torres) is frigid, and he’s fuming … until Nikki (Kerry Washington) struts into his office, curves a-jiggling. What’s odd about the script – cowritten by Rock and Louis C.K. – is that it’s as devoted to hashing out racial politics as sexual ones. Monogamy is equated with whiteness, i.e., minivans, suburbia, and double dates where couples tsk-tsk about rap lyrics and spinning rims. But the genuine issues of class and aspiration get derailed by extended Viagra jokes. Despite the hack comedy, there’s a riveting scene where Richard finally strips off Nikki’s panties, and the world seems to stop while he takes a nervous breath. Poised on the brink of losing his real identity, Rock the comedian vanishes for a moment, leaving behind an everyman facing an everyday choice. (Amy Nicholson)

Into Great Silence. Director Philip Gröning’s sprawling documentary details six months in the lives of the monks of the Grande Chartreuse, an ancient monastery nestled deep in the French Alps. Gröning’s cameras are allowed unprecedented access to the Carthusian monks, but we still feel that we’re on the outside, just watching the brothers going about their tasks, as opposed to understanding why they have chosen this particular existence. While there is doubtless some fascination watching monks perform their daily activities, each shot feels like it’s an hour long, and the lack of narration replicates the silence that is at the core of the monks’ lives. During the film’s near-glacial two and three-quarters hours, the spiritual resonance never quite comes across, and the viewer’s mind inevitably starts to wander. (PB)

The Last King of Scotland. In this stylized telling of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s brief but eventful reign of terror in the 1970s, a fictitious Scottish doctor (Simon McBurney) ventures to Uganda on a lark and finds himself enlisted as Amin’s personal physician. If you don’t know that Amin was a certifiable lunatic, you might view Forest Whitaker’s performance in this very impressive and surprisingly entertaining narrative debut from documentarian Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void) as embarrassingly over-the-top. In truth, Whitaker so flawlessly incarnates Amin’s homicidal bipolarity and gaudy, third-world charisma that he at times seems to capture the essence of the madman better even than Barbet Schroeder did with the real Amin in his chilling 1974 documentary General Idi Amin Dada (A Self Portrait). Macdonald and screenwriter Jeremy Brock (Mrs. Brown and the forthcoming Driving Lessons) – adapting the novel by Giles Foden – liberally mix fact and speculation in a way that very impressively re-creates the essence, if not the literal truth, of a truly bizarre place and time. (WM)

The Last Mimzy. The man who risked his career by greenlighting the Lord of the Rings trilogy can direct any damn movie he pleases, so New Line co-CEO Bob Shaye chose to adapt the 1943 short story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves.” Chris O’Neil and Rhiannon Leigh Wryn star as 10-year-old Noah and younger sister Emma, who find a mysterious box floating in the ocean near their Seattle home. Investigating its contents, they develop supernatural powers and soon learn the box is from the future, and their new abilities are needed in a final attempt to save humankind. Shaye’s thematic concerns, encompassing spirituality and eco-friendliness, are refreshingly heady and subtly posited. He occasionally pushes the topicality too hard, but this post-9/11 kiddie-empowerment saga understands that children must be smarter than adults if they’re to undo the mess that adults are currently making. After a 17-year directing hiatus, Shaye is too rusty to create an E.T. level of wonder, but he respects his young audience, giving them a timely lesson in being good world citizens. (MK)

The Lookout. See Latest Reviews.

Meet the Robinsons. See Also Opening This Week.

Music and Lyrics. A hasbeen ’80s pop star (Hugh Grant) – clearly a gloss on Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley – is given the opportunity to write a new single for a Britney-like superstar (Haley Bennett) and teams up with a bubbly amateur (Drew Barrymore). Success and romance are the obvious results. The central problem with this latest romantic comedy from writer-director Marc Lawrence is that, while both stars are as charming as always, there’s no chemistry between them at all. It’s as though they filmed their scenes separately and were composited together in postproduction. Part of the mismatch may be age or, more accurately, perceived age. Grant is 46 and Barrymore 31 – not a prohibitively outrageous age difference. But Barrymore remains, you should pardon the word, “girlish,” while Grant’s entire role is predicated on him being a proto-geezer. There are a few good gags, but, for most of its length, Music and Lyrics is, at best, amiable. The main fun to be had is in the music, most of which is perfect parody/homage to the period in general and Wham! in particular. All the songwriters involved – primarily pop master Adam Schlesinger – deliver the goods. (AK)

The Namesake. Spanning more than three decades, from the early ’70s to the present, Mira Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel is a heartfelt look at the travails of an immigrant Bengali couple (Indian stars Irffan Khan and Tabu) in New York and their American-born son (Kal Penn). Nair and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala have done a praiseworthy job of distilling the novel’s expansive tapestry into a two-hour movie, preserving most of the melodramatic wallops without sinking to the usual culture-clash clichés prevalent in films about Indian and Pakistani immigrants. Though it starts to lose its way and drag a bit in the final third, there are more than enough four-hankie moments to sustain the audience’s emotional investment. Penn shows promise in transitioning out of the lowbrow comedy roles to which he’s previously been relegated (Taj, Kumar, et al.), but it’s Khan and Tabu who resonate most strongly. Nair is always best when dealing with profoundly personal material, and, while this falls well shy of Monsoon Wedding, that film’s fans will be relieved to find that it hits many of the same chords. (WM)

Norbit. Black comedian in drag with a fat suit: Eddie Murphy shows Tyler Perry and Martin Lawrence how it’s done. A dubious achievement, perhaps; but, as lame as Norbit is, it’s still preferable to Big Momma’s House or Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Murphy plays three roles: Norbit, a nerdy orphan raised at a combination orphanage/Chinese restaurant; Mr. Wong, the proprietor of said establishment; and Rasputia, a grotesquely fat harpy who saved Norbit from bullies at a young age and later insisted on marriage. Under layers of Rick Baker’s latex, Murphy pushes Rasputia and Mr. Wong so far into insane caricature that it’s easier than one might expect to find them amusing. As Norbit, however, he’s awful. A simple reprise of Bowfinger would have been better than the halfhearted, lisping nerd stereotype on display here. There are legitimate laughs to be had here, but the material’s unpleasantness cancels out too many of them. In particular, the film’s climax plays uncomfortably like a PG-13 version of a lynching. (LYT)

Notes on a Scandal. When Barbara (Judi Dench) – a solitary, somewhat frumpy teacher at a working-class secondary school – strikes up a friendship with Sheba (Cate Blanchett), the new arrival in the faculty lounge, we might, at first, think she is a benevolent sort or, at worst, an irritatingly nosy biddy. But when she catches her new friend blowing a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson), she is able to emotionally blackmail her. And, since Barbara’s feelings toward Sheba are more romantic and sexual than platonic, she fairly bursts with plans to pry the latter away from husband, children, and underage lover. This wicked comedy from Brit director Richard Eyre (Iris) and screenwriter Patrick Marber (Closer) could have been called The Prime of Miss Butch Brodie. Every one of Dench’s little reactions or changes of expression is priceless, and Blanchett makes her not-exactly-prudent character so alluring that you instantly understand why everyone in the film wants to jump her bones. As Sheba’s husband, Bill Nighy has a much smaller role, but, as always, he is somewhat better than perfect. This is a nasty, nasty movie – every wonderful moment of it. (AK)

The Number 23. Much to the dismay of his wife (Virginia Madsen), a dogcatcher (Jim Carrey) becomes obsessed with a mysterious book about a detective (Carrey again) who finds mystic significance in the titular number. The script by first-timer Fernley Phillips is in the tradition of Pi and the 1998 German film 23, leading us into the hero’s feverish mental world. Unfortunately, Phillips tries to have the whole thing make sense, which only draws extra attention to the fact that it doesn’t; even if it did, any film that requires 15 or so minutes of flatfooted explanation at the end to set things straight shouldn’t even bother. Director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth, Phantom of the Opera) started out as a costume designer and loves stories that call for flashy visual stylization. He gets to go to town here: The first half is dominated by the story-within-a-story, full of CGI and morphing, as well as more traditional stylistic devices, primarily lighting shifts. That I got so much enjoyment from the movie’s flamboyant style made the inanity of the plot all the more irritating. (AK)

Offside. In a huge Tehran stadium, Iran’s soccer team is going up against Bahrain for a spot at the World Cup competition. Among the devout fans are a half-dozen teenage girls, who are trying to sneak into the stadium, despite a strict prohibition on women. One by one, they are caught and placed in a holding area, where they are guarded by three soldiers, who will be in deep shit if any of the women escape, but who can’t really defend their actions when their prisoners challenge them. As in his earlier The White Balloon (1995) and The Mirror (1997), Jafar Panahi – one of Iran’s best filmmakers – presents the story more or less in real time, with a sense of documentary realism. That may sound dry, but Panahi is exceedingly clever at keeping things varied and deftly outlining characters. Despite the film’s obvious criticism of the antiquated laws that restrict women’s freedom, Offside is mostly a gentle comedy of cultural and generational clash. This is as multifaceted and nuanced as protest films get. (AK)

The Page Turner. See Latest Reviews.

Pan’s Labyrinth. In early Franco-era Spain, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her widowed mother (Ariadna Gil) arrive at the rural home of Mom’s new husband (Sergi López), who commands the local Fascist outpost and by whom she is pregnant. He is a fascist by temperament as well as politics, and the unhappy Ofelia escapes into a fantasy land at the heart of an apparently ancient stone labyrinth, ruled over by a not-entirely-welcoming faun (Doug Jones), who tells her she is a long-lost princess and that she can reclaim her position with her regal parents and live forever … if she completes three tasks. The latest from writer-director Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, Hellboy) is a startling, idiosyncratic combination of children’s fantasy and brutal political realism that switches effortlessly from one world to the other, eventually synthesizing them. Baquero, López, and Maribel Verdú (as Ofelia’s only ally) are all terrific in what is surely one of 2006’s best films. (AK)

Premonition. A middle-class homemaker (Sandra Bullock) learns that her husband (Julian McMahon) has been killed in an accident … except that the next morning, he’s back to life. She eventually realizes that she’s living one week of her life out of order, with pre- and post-accident days alternating perfectly and leading up to the day of the accident itself. Extraordinarily, this “time out of whack” movie is even worse than The Lake House, Bullock’s last effort in this tricky subgenre. There are two classes of errors in films that screw around with time. First, those that are the natural result of impossible fantasy/sci-fi plot devices; second, those that could easily have been prevented, with a little rewriting or extra thought. They are usually a sign of the filmmakers having contempt for the audience’s intelligence or deserving contempt for their own. Premonition commits both, repeatedly, so that the whole story ends up making no sense. One suspects there was postproduction reshooting and reediting, so it’s hard to know whether the blame belongs to the producers or screenwriter Bill Kelly or director Mennan Yapo; in any case, there’s plenty to go around. (AK)

Pride. In 1973, Jim Ellis (Terrence Howard) takes a break from dismantling a Philly rec center to teach some teens swimming – as well as respect, dignity, and diligence. Sunu Gonera’s inspirational flick about the Little Inner City Swim Team That Could will play heavy on the heartstrings … and with some merit. Swim meets back then were so racially insulated that the all-black team’s first appearance causes their competitors, an Abercrombie prep school, to wonder if they’re a protest march before provoking them poolside with slurs like “Be glad they took the cuffs off so you can swim.” While it’s paint-by-numbers stirring – thanks to Howard’s weepy, dreamy eyes – there’s something innately silly in a bunch of tough-guy talk about learning to do the breast stroke. Still, as the usual local pimp/dealer (Gary Anthony) raises the stakes by peeing in the pool and forcing the charismatic gang of kids to step out of that sissy spandex and into a gun holster, it’s difficult not to cheer along through every contrived ebb and flow. (Amy Nicholson)

Race You to the Bottom. See Latest Reviews.

Reign Over Me. Dentist Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) reconnects with needy old college roommate Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), who, after losing his wife and three daughters on 9/11, has shut down and slipped into a hermetic existence. The pair’s rekindled friendship becomes a sort of lifeline for both. Charlie’s pronounced social disconnection and wild mood swings, however, leave Alan worried over his friend’s mental competency and long-term ability to care for himself. Reign Over Me uses the events of 9/11 as an implicit, low-watt prism through which to refract one widower’s swallowed anguish and then examine the fashion in which what hurts one most is buried in a manner that only the aggrieved can unlock. It’s much more thoughtfully constructed and of a piece than writer-director Mike Binder’s last effort, The Upside of Anger. Bittersweet and for the most part gracefully pitched, the film avoids the most maudlin possibilities of its narrative, and credibly imparts conflicted feelings about the best path for Charlie. It’s all anchored by moving work from Sandler, who delivers a potentially career-remaking performance. (BS)

Shooter. A former army sniper (Mark Wahlberg) is called out of retirement by a colonel (Danny Glover), who wants him to help unravel a rumored plot to kill the president. Despite his better judgment, he obliges and soon finds himself shot, bleeding, and framed for a murder he didn’t commit. Will he be able to evade a massive government dragnet in time to prove his innocence? Will his survival training and military skills come in handy? Will the real bad guys get theirs in a super-cool hail of bullets and fiery explosions? Is his former partner’s widow (Kate Mara) just too smokin’-hot for words? If you even think about answering “no” to any of the above questions, the movie-cliché police will hunt you down like the dog that you are. This is a serviceable formula film: neither Lethal Weapon 4 writer Jonathan Lemkin nor Training Day director Antoine Fuqua is an exceptional talent, but at least they know where to put the pieces. And even though the movie ultimately bungles its formula with a protracted ending that tries far too hard to be “important,” genre fans with tempered expectations should still have a good time. (WM)

Ten ‘til Noon. See Latest Reviews.

300. Around 480 BC, Sparta’s King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads a force of only 300 in a suicidal defense against invasion by Persian King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), whose army is at least a thousand times bigger. Subtlety is not a key virtue of director Zack Snyder’s slavishly faithful adaptation of the 1998 graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley: The noble Spartans are all fabulously buff white guys, while the few Spartan traitors and the hordes of Persians are overwhelmingly either dark-skinned or hideously deformed. It would be unfair to say that 300 is utterly without value: like (for example) Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, it’s visually stunning, but cutting it up into postcards and wall calendars would lose nothing. Lucas at least attempted to present his stupid story visually, but the events here are narrated by the sole survivor (David Wenham), with the beautiful images essentially illustrations to his text. Both the dialogue and the voiceover hold forth endlessly about fighting for freedom and other noble ideas, but we see no evidence of any laudable qualities in Spartan culture … nor do Butler and the rest display the charm or charisma that might have engaged audience sympathy. In short, 300 is a perfect combination of moral wrongheadedness and inept filmmaking. On any level beyond the pictorial, Snyder makes Cecil B. DeMille’s clunky The Ten Commandments look positively deft. (AK)

TMNT. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reteam in animated form to battle an evil industrialist (voice of Patrick Stewart). Kevin Munroe directed; the voice talent also includes Mako, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Billy West, and Chris Evans. (AK)

Wild Hogs. Walt Becker, l'auteur de National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, directed this poignant drama of four middle-aged men (John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy) pursuing memories of temps perdu by falling off their motorcycles. Ray Liotta and Marisa Tomei costar. (AK)

The Wind That Shakes the Barley. British director Ken Loach’s arch-socialist paeans to the common man have become increasingly repetitive and tiresome over the past decade, but his tackling of the Irish fight for independence – winner of the top prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival – is arguably his masterpiece, exposing the tortured soul of a people through the experiences of a handful of idealistic young Irish Republicans as they fight against the occupying English forces during the early 20th century. It’s a bittersweet fight, however, as their efforts lay the groundwork for not only the nation’s eventual independence but the political partitioning that ends up pitting friends and brothers against one another at a time when they ought to be drawing together. Cillian Murphy leads an outstanding ensemble cast that also includes such recognizable Irish actors as Liam Cunningham, William Ruane, and Padraic Delaney. Character wins the day here, and, while there’s no mistaking the political point of view, Loach ably weaves it into a historical tapestry that is at once deeply moving and intellectually compelling. (WM)

Zodiac. Director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) looks at the case of the never-apprehended serial killer who terrorized Northern California in the late ’60s and ’70s and called himself the Zodiac in a series of provocative letters to Bay Area newspapers. Fincher intercuts the killings with the stories of three real-life characters who became obsessed with the mystery: SFPD’s lead investigator on the case, homicide detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo); Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), the San Francisco Chronicle reporter who covered the story and eventually became part of it; and Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), an amateur who wound up writing two books about Zodiac. Fincher has crafted a completely engrossing “true” crime saga that holds our attention consistently for more than two and a half hours. The most surprising thing here is that Fincher employs a style 180 degrees opposed to the sort of pyrotechnics that made Se7en and Fight Club two of the most influential movies of the last 20 years. The range of film noir has always accommodated both the heavy stylization of German Expressionism and the almost newsreel-like matter-of-factness of the police procedural, and here Fincher abandons the former for the latter. (AK)