Selected mini-reviews, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, by Rick Groen, Liam Lacey, Kamal Al-Solaylee, Stephen Cole and Jennie Punter. Full reviews appeared on the dates indicated.
Coraline
***½
Comedy and horror mingle in this thrilling, eye-poppingly gorgeous, stereoscopic stop-motion animated film by Henry Selick ( The Nightmare Before Christmas), a family-friendly adaptation of Neil Gaiman's dark, award-winning novella. The "down-the-rabbit-hole" tale follows feisty but lonely 11-year-old Coraline (Dakota Fanning), lured into a lively "alternate" world from the barren house where she lives with preoccupied parents and eccentric tenants. But a terrifying legacy lurks behind the facade, which begins to disintegrate as Coraline faces her "Other Mother" (Teri Hatcher), an evil spider-witch. Quite possibly the best 3-D movie ever. PG (Feb. 6) J.P.
Gran Torino
**
When Clint Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, the aging blue-collar hero of Gran Torino, sees something he doesn't like, like his teenaged granddaughter text-messaging at his wife's funeral in the opening scene, he growls. Eastwood plays a retired auto worker living in a rundown neighbourhood in suburban Detroit. The only things Walt loves are his golden lab, Daisy, and the treasure in his garage, a green 1972 Ford Gran Torino in pristine condition, a symbol of what his America used to represent. Among the many things that annoy Walt are the Asian immigrants living next door. But as Walt gets to know the neighbours, he recognizes that his conservative outlook and their loyal, hard-working values have a lot in common. Or, as he puts it, "I have more in common with these gooks than with my own spoiled-rotten family." As both the surviving icon of American tough-guy swagger and a director known for exploring sombre moral themes, Eastwood has made a hybrid film that's both a declaration of righteous rage and a critique of short-sighted American individualism. 14A (Dec. 19) L.L.
Hotel for Dogs
*
Teenage orphans turn an abandoned hotel into a kennel for stray dogs. It's endlessly cute, but at times it feels like we're trapped in an ever-flipping dog calendar. Starring Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin, with bright, briefly flickering cameos from Kevin Dillon and Lisa Kudrow. G (Jan. 16) S.C.
I Love You, Man
***
Paul Rudd, a familiar sidekick in films from The Forty-Year-Old Virgin to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, emerges as a lead character in this comedy about a likable nerd named Peter whose fiancée (Rashida Jones) wants him to find a male friend. Peter goes on a "bromantic" quest and discovers Sidney (Jason Segel) who becomes his mentor in the world of maleness. Effectively a Judd Apatow comedy without Judd Apatow, I Love You, Man is familiar but also very funny, thanks to Rudd and Segel's often nuanced comic timing and sharp, improvised banter. 14A (March 20) L.L.
Knowing
**
Knowing is a catalogue of made-in-America delusions, hallucinations and cosmic catastrophes that draws on environmental fear-mongering in one reel and evangelical lore the next. Nicolas Cage plays an MIT professor whose young son brings home a letter full of numbers that was written 50 years earlier by a troubled child. The numbers correspond to dates of major disasters from the last five decades and predict three coming ones, including the Big One. Can Cage stop the end of the world? He sure tries, but the frenzy, predictability and utter disdain for logic with which Alex Proyas directs his heroics result in a confused film that's only partially successful as a supernatural thriller. 14A (March 20) K.A.-S.
The Last House on the Left
***
Informed remake of Wes Craven's 1972 cult film. A good family is set upon by wolf-pack killers in the woods. Rape and murder follow. But this isn't Scream 2. There is no gruesome fun here. The rarest of things: a deliberate, underplayed horror movie that is truly shocking. From Greek director Dennis Iliad. 18A (March 13) S.C.
Milk
***
In the seventies, when Harvey Milk ran for public office, to be gay in public was to invite a nightstick from your local cop and a pink slip from your righteous employer. Revisiting that era, and profiling one of the cause's most visible martyrs, Gus Van Sant's film is a worthy docudrama, solid if not sublime. But, sometimes, a merely good movie can brush up against greatness, and this does so twice - in Sean Penn's magnetic performance and in the cautionary tale's contemporary resonance, in the lingering caveat that gains are reversible, and hard-won civil rights must be just as vigorously defended against renewed attacks and casual erosion. 14A (Nov. 26) R.G.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
**
Sitcom star Kevin James ( King of Queens) uses his girth and Home Alone-style ingenuity to thwart a gang of nimble thieves as the titular character in this earnest family comedy. Fans of James's average-joe persona may be tickled by the romantic and crime-busting moves of his super-keen and mostly inept Segway-riding security guard. But those anticipating the cathartic laughs of a dumb comedy will probably be disappointed - although the Segway lends itself to a few novel, goofy gags. PG (Jan. 16) J.P.
The Pink Panther 2
**
The second outing for Steve Martin as the oblivious Inspector Clouseau has a couple of moments - one with a toppling wine rack and another with a surveillance camera - that are moderately funny, but the movie bumbles even more than its hero with flat-footed timing and strained jokes. This time out, Clouseau is part of an international "dream team" of detectives trying to find the thief who has stolen a series of the world's treasures. John Cleese takes over Kevin Cline's role and Lily Tomlin has a few scenes for good measure. Given that kind of comic bench strength, you might reasonably have hoped for more. PG (Feb. 6) L.L.
Polytechnique
**
Denis Villeneuve recreates the day in 1989 when 14 women were murdered at a Montreal engineering school by gun-wielding Marc Lépine, who carried a suicide note expressing his hatred of feminists. While the filmmaker's approach is scrupulously respectful, and poetic in its elliptical narrative and fluid editing, doubts about the wisdom of commemorating the event through recreation and invention aren't entirely abated. Polytechnique sanctifies the horror, by thinly drawing its three principal characters - the unnamed killer, a compassionate male student and a woman who survives - as allegorical figures of hate, compassionate guilt and enduring hope. The film also sanitizes what happened, filming everything in pristine black and white, and putting the horror at an aesthetic distance. 14A (March 20) L.L.
Pontypool
***
A very smart, distinctly Canadian zombie movie. The issue? A small Ontario town is being destroyed by a virus spread through the English language. The solution? A radio commentator and his producer fight past trouble speaking French in the manner of every Anglo toastmaster who has broken into a flop sweat negotiating our other official language. Directed with considerable aplomb by Bruce McDonald. With Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle. 14A (March 6) S.C.
Race to Witch Mountain
**
A Disney remake of the 1975 film, Escape to Witch Mountain. Extraterrestrial teens visit Earth in search of a solution to their planet's woes - answers that reside in Witch Mountain. Bad guys are in pursuit. A stranger helps the kids out. And the race is on. Okay action flick for young male earthlings, with Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig. PG (March 13) S.C.
The Reader
**
Dealing with the vast issue of German collective guilt over its Nazi past, The Reader is a big-idea movie. What's more, on-camera starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, and off-screen reuniting director Stephen Daldry with writer David Hare, it boasts an array of big-time talent. Too bad all this bigness just seems so small and unfocused and simply not up to the task - intellectually scant, emotionally scant. 14A (Dec. 12) R.G.
Slumdog Millionaire
****
In Mumbai, an 18-year-old boy, Jamal (Dev Patel), who works as an uneducated tea server for a telephone marketing company, has become the last man standing on an Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. His improbable success has captured the imagination of the entire country but also arouses official suspicion that he is cheating. The night before the final question, the show's producer/host has the police arrest him, string him up and begin to torture him into telling the truth. Director Danny Boyle's best film since Trainspotting is essentially updated Dickens - orphans thrown into the cruel world, brother against brother, a long-delayed romance and a rags-to-riches journey - but it's also as lively as a whirling kaleidoscope. 14A (Nov. 12) L.L.
Watchmen
***
Director Zack Snyder ( 300) offers a solid adaptation of Alan Moore's (writer) and Dave Gibbons's (illustrator) ambitious meta-pulp graphic novel about the folly of hero worship. The film should almost satisfy the 1985 book's fans while risking alienating the uninitiated with its time-jumping narrative, layers of pop parody and enthusiastic gore. The story re-imagines the United States of the postwar era, in which the USA wins the Vietnam War, and President Nixon keeps getting re-elected. Splashy violence and trippy visuals combine, along with a lot of boomer music (Dylan, Hendrix) underlying key scenes. The acting (Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has a comic-book simplicity, with the exception of former child actor Jackie Earle Haley as the twisted anti-hero, Rorschach. 18A (March 6) L.L.
The Wrestler
***
The comeback acting performance of the year belongs to Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Massively pumped up to near Hulk Hogan proportions, the fiftysomething actor has created a character that's both mythically familiar and original - a trailer-park Hercules. Though there are parallels to the actor's life as a Hollywood burnout, Rourke isn't playing himself here. The performance is too disciplined to be anything else than something carefully worked out. For that, he can thank the obsessive discipline of director Darren Aronofsky, working in an austere documentary-style in wintry, working-class New Jersey. Twenty years before, Randy (the Ram) Robinson was a Rocky-style folk hero, who had his most famous match against a villain called the Ayatollah, When a promoter decides to stage a 20-year anniversary rematch, Randy finds a revived sense of purpose. The ring battles are often gruesome, and like pro wrestling itself, The Wrestler has moments of improbable hokum, but the excesses are easy to forgive. The humour and charisma of Rourke's outsized performance, and Aronofsky's canny, low-key direction, are a combination that's almost impossible
Liam Lacey