Movie Guide

Director: Jacques Audiard. With Romain Duris, Aure Atika, Jonathan Zaccaï, Linh Dan Pham. (107 min.)

Sterritt **** Inspired by the 1978 thriller "Fingers," this superbly acted thriller focuses on an aspiring concert pianist who intersperses his piano lessons with errands for his mobster friends. As stylish as it is suspenseful. In French with subtitles.

Director: Stephen Marshall. With Rosario Dawson, Nathan Crooker, Brett DelBuono, Amy Redford. (90 min.)

Sterritt ** A rogue journalist tracks the activities of a black anarchist group as the Republican National Convention draws near. It's a pity that such vital, thought-provoking material has been rendered so lifeless and inauthentic on the screen.

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. With Sakda Kaewbuadee, Banlop Lomnoi, Huai Dessom. (118 min.)

Sterritt **** See review, at right.

Director: Steven Spielberg. With Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Justin Chatwin. (117 min.)

Sterritt *** Earthlings battle alien invaders who wreak deadly havoc until they're stymied by ... you know what, if you've read H.G. Wells's influential 1898 novel. Spielberg gives the story his full high-tech treatment, building great scariness with help from first-class music and camera work. The picture gets repetitive, though, since its terrors are pretty much the same from start to finish. Cruise is in good form and Fanning is still the best child actress around.

Director: Jia Zhangke. With Chen Taisheng, Zhao Tao, Jing Jue, Jiang Zhong-wei. (139 min.)

Sterritt **** See review, at right.

Director: Robert Rodriguez. With Cayden Boyd, Kristen Davis, David Arquette, George Lopez. (94 min.)

Sterritt ** You'll know who the target audience is when you discover the story's setting is called Planet Drool, and the hero is an imaginative schoolboy who joins the title characters to fight the evil Mr. Electric and save the world. Only part of it is in 3-D, but youngsters should enjoy pulling their special specs on and off.

Director: Christopher Nolan. With Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman. (141 min.)

Sterritt ** How a young man became the Caped Crusader instead of just Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy. Neeson plays a ninja, which shows how desperately the story stretches for angles. But you finally get good answers to the Joker's excellent question: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?!!?"

Staff *** Well plotted, dizzying, uneven, comical.

Sex/Nudity: 1 instance of innuendo. Violence: 29 intense scenes. Profanity: 11 mild profanities. Drugs: 4 scenes with drinking, 1 scenes with drug dealing.

Director: Nora Ephron. With Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine. (95 min.)

Sterritt ** Launching a new version of the TV sitcom "Bewitched," an actor (Ferrell) with more ego than talent inadvertently fills the role of a witch with a real witch (Kidman) who's trying to give up hexes and become a normal person. Always whimsical, occasionally quite funny.

Staff ** Occasionally charming, predictable, nostalgic.

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