Changeling ***1/2
Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, a single mother raising her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) alone. One weekend, she agrees to take a co-worker's shift at the telephone company. She returns home to an empty house. Christine's concern escalates into a controlled panic, fueled by frustration and fear. File a missing-child report? Wait 24 hours. Challenge the LAPD when Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) produces a "son" who isn't hers? Intimidate Christine into playing along, so the cesspool of a police force gets some good publicity. Then deem her a hysterical woman and toss her into the county loony bin. Meanwhile, the pages are flying off the calendar. And Walter is nowhere to be found.
Rated: R for some violent and disturbing content, and language 2 hours, 20 minutes.
--Susan Tavernetti (Reviewed October 31, 2008)

Milk ***1/2
Performances are king in this poignant homage to late great San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. Sean Penn has a field day portraying the first openly gay man elected to office in the U.S. After several misfires Harvey is elected supervisor and makes a name for himself in the City by the Bay, chumming around with liberal mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) and trying to making nice with conservative supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). The rest is history -- a painful chapter in American politics.
Rated: R for language, sexuality and mature themes 2 hours, 7 minutes.
--Jeanne Aufmuth (Reviewed December 5, 2008)

Quantum of Solace ***
Daniel Craig continues his smoldering run as takes-a-lickin'-and-keeps-on-tickin' British super agent James Bond.

"Quantum" is a true sequel, picking up where the more stylish "Casino Royale" left off, with Bond so blinded by inconsolable rage (over the death of favorite femme fatale Vesper Lynd) that he's laying waste to his nemeses with reckless abandon. Bond goes rogue to avenge Vesper's death, much to the consternation of unflappable M16 head M (Judi Dench). She wants his kinetic energies focused on Mr. Greene (Mathieu Almari), a spiteful bad boy ostensibly rejuvenating the earth while secretly gaining control of natural resources by negotiating illegal pipelines with foreign dictators.
Rated: PG-13 for language, violence and adult themes 1 hours, 45 minutes.
--Jeanne Aufmuth (Reviewed November 14, 2008)

Seven Pounds **1/2
Will Smith is U.S. Treasury Agent Ben Thomas, a genial do-gooder quite unlike your average IRS slouch. "Seven Pounds" keeps its secrets so close to the vest it's tough to know what to make of a man who wants to forgive a number of his taxpaying clients their financial sins. But forgive he does. A congenital heart patient who owes tens of thousands in backlogged medical bills (Rosario Dawson as Emily Posa), a sweet blind meat salesman (Woody Harrelson) and an abused mother of two (Elpidia Carrillo) are all spared economic hardship with one simple caveat: that they live life abundantly and demonstrate they are decent human beings.
Rated: PG-13 for language and adult content 1 hours, 58 minutes.
--Jeanne Aufmuth (Reviewed December 19, 2008)

Slumdog Millionaire ****
In present-day Mumbai, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) sits on the hot seat of India's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" game show, poised to win the elusive grand prize of 20 million rupees. Refusing to believe that Jamal is coming by his answers honestly, the police get involved, punctuating their brutal torture tactics with questions on how a simple chai server from India's poorest slums came by such arcane knowledge. With serendipitous charm, flashbacks detail Jamal's rise through hardscrabble poverty to survival of the fittest.
Rated: R for violence, language and disturbing images 1 hours, 56 minutes.
--Jeanne Aufmuth (Reviewed November 28, 2008)

The Tale of Despereaux ***
Based on the New York Times best-selling children's book, "The Tale of Despereaux" introduces the protagonist, Despereaux, who happens to be a tiny mouse with unusually large ears. The kingdom has fallen upon hard times, and Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick) is punished for his decidedly unmouse-like refusal to cower and his unnatural friendship with the human Princess Pea (Emma Watson). Despereaux is banished from his safe and familiar Mouseworld to the dark dungeon city of Ratworld, from which no mouse has ever returned. There he meets fellow outcast Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), a misunderstood rat who, with a very Tracy-Ullman-like sounding human (Tracy Ullman), plots his revenge.
Rated: G 1 hours, 34 minutes.
--Douglas DeVore (Reviewed December 19, 2008)

Twilight ***
The story is a good one: An over-the-hill private eye is asked by a friend to drop off a large envelope that just might contain a blackmail payment. At the drop spot, the private eye stumbles across the bullet-riddled body of a retired L.A. policeman, a detective who decades earlier had investigated the mysterious disappearance of a man linked to the friend who gave the private eye the envelope. In the process of unraveling who did what to whom when, where and why, the private eye travels through the always satisfying terrain of Ross Macdonald-style Southern California detective stories--a terrain in which dark secrets haunt the elegant, sun-drenched homes of the new-to-money ruling class. Intelligent plotting, intelligent dialogue and crisp direction make "Twilight" easy to watch, but a major flaw prevents it from being fully satisfying. While Gene Hackman is perfectly cast as a powerful but dying Hollywood producer (the friend who gives the private eye the envelope) and Susan Sarandon is equally at home in the role of his devoted but Machiavellian wife, Paul Newman makes no sense at all as their down-on-his-luck, live-in handyman--a washed-up private eye whose career was destroyed by too much booze and too little attention to detail.
Rated: R for sex and violence. 1 hours, minutes.
--Leonard Schwarz (Reviewed March 1998)