A silly remake of a 1951 sci-fi classic (Hollywood is surely running out of original ideas), The Day the Earth Stood Still circa 2008 stars Keanu Reeves as an alien whose task is to save planet earth from the human race that’s killing the environment, even if that means offing every man, woman, and child to prevent further ecosystem destruction. 

A loose biopic of the birth and heyday of the Chicago blues and the artists who populated legendary Chess Records, including pioneers such as Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon. Cadillac Records relies on a handful of basic historical facts and creates drama around them, chronicling poverty, the pursuit of fame and riches (but mostly fame), shady dealings, addiction, bigotry rampant in post-World War II America, racial integration, and how musical creativity and originality eventually won the day.

The cinematic version of the popular video game has Mark Wahlberg in the lead role: A New York City detective out for revenge after finding his wife and infant son slain in their home six months before. A cross between The Matrix, The Fugitive, and (I’ll explain this later) Ghost, Max Payne should appeal to fans of the video game—of which a significant number are teenagers—as well as fans of Wahlberg and effects-laden action flicks.

An almost exclusively teen-oriented dramedy focusing on a pair of underground music lovers who find each other over the course of a single night while hopping from club to club in the City That Never Sleeps. And save for a bus station ticket window attendant—who may as well have been parroting muffled gibberish a la the unseen adults in the Peanuts cartoons—it’s a teen-only world Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Overview: Simple. Sweet. Unassuming. Bare bones, small cast, indie-style dram-edy that doesn’t try to be more than it is (i.e., no multilayered meanings with mile-deep subtexts, subtleties, and nuances). The core spiritual message gets top billing, but not in a way that feels overbearing or forced.

Overview: A down-and-out drunkard from a small New Mexico town getting to cast the deciding vote in a presidential election? Despite the unbelievable (and admittedly flawed) premise, Swing Vote manages to bring up a good deal of important issues in an engaging way—with both humor and drama—and is full of lots of valuable fodder for discussion. 

One of those rare flicks that lives up to the hype. Flashy. Imaginative. A lot of adventure and a few well-placed twists and turns. A speedy two-and-a-half hours. The late Heath Ledger’s performance is brilliant, arguably besting Jack Nicholson’s penultimate Joker of nearly two decades ago—but the cast as a whole is great (i.e., Ledger didn’t steal the show). The plot grows complicated—bordering on convoluted at times—but you still get the gist of things throughout...and that’s enough.

Will Smith plays a modern-day superhero who’s immortal and invincible (well, 99.99 percent of the time—hey, even Superman was dogged by Kryptonite). The problem is that Hancock is a surly, depressed drunk who causes so much property damage and general mayhem while doing in the bad guys around Los Angeles that the citizenry and head honchos no longer want Hancock around. (Not unlike “Dirty Harry” on ginseng, steroids, and Cutty Sark.) 

For a flick that borrows heavily from The Matrix (think stunning special effects, cartoonish gun violence, vague nods to spirituality, and a main character snatched from a humdrum, oppressive life by a band of renegades in the hopes that he can discover his unique identity and do a job none of them have the ability to pull off) and just a tad from Office Space (think sad-sack, pencil-pushing cubicle drone constantly pushed around by a nauseatingly repellent boss and only slightly less boorish girlfriend), Wanted doesn’t feel like a knockoff. In fact, it’s quite entertaining. 

Near the end of this bloody piece of celluloid, when wickedly conflicted vice detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) asks his aptly named boss, Capt. Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker), “What happened to just locking up the bad people?” Wander responds with a little dose of Romans 3:10: “We’re all bad, Tom.” That’s the essence of Street Kings, a dark-cop flick sprung from the dark-cop minds of writer James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) and director David Ayer (Training Day).