Frank Martin just can't spend a quiet evening at home. In Transporter 3, he's ready to relax when a speeding car improbably crashes through the brick wall of his living room, depositing an associate about to die and a mysterious young Ukrainian woman, Valentina. Computer-generated fireballs will follow, along with software-produced car chases and titanic feats of martial arts simulated through quick-cut editing. Valentina becomes his responsibility on a car trip across Europe from his home in Marseilles to her home in Odessa. Naturally, his agility in whip-stomping the bad guys arouses her interest. By the time they cross the Ukrainian border, they are falling...

Although separated by an ocean and multiple time zones, the Australian Outback bears remarkable resemblance to the American West. Both encompass mesas towering over rocky, dusty deserts shimmering like a mirage under unforgiving sunlight. Whip-snapping cowboys with guns at their side populated both regions, driving herds across rivers and plains on their way to market. Cattle barons exerted inordinate influence over territorial governments and in the brawling towns...

It can't touch Harry Potter for scope of popularity but in some pockets of pop culture, the Twilight series has reached Beatlemania in intensity. The "young adult" novels about a handsome teenage vampire boy and the mortal girl who loves him have sold 17 million copies. Just like the Hogwarts brigade but on a smaller scale, the announcement of a movie adaptation stirred speculation, consternation and controversy among fan bloggers. Although I can't speak to whether the book was better, I will speculate that some of the scenes in Twilight the movie were better left on...

Quantum of Solace is the future of cinema, a movie whose splashiest scenes are tailored to the dimension of big screens. It opens with the camera zooming like a cruise missile, skimming the surface of the sea as it hurtles toward the Italian coast. There, on a winding road in his Aston Martin, James Bond outmaneuvers his high-speed pursuers in trucks and cars; the cameras put viewers in the midst of chaos, careening amid the splintered metal and shattered glass. It's like being immersed in a video game for giants. Just imagine downloading...

Besotted by the cinema of silence and early talking pictures, Guy Maddin also finds humor in old movies-or perhaps the humor lies more in the distance between our experience of the world and the gestures of an antique art form. In My Winnipeg, the Canadian filmmaker composes a poem for his hometown from the elements he has always loved-black-and-white film stock, bits of archival footage, exclamatory title cards, iris-eyed scenes, pointedly primitive animation and highly pitched drama in acting...

The short film Perceval is dedicated to Ingmar Bergman and no one familiar with The Seventh Seal will miss what it holds in common with the gloomy Swedish classic. Aside from the medieval setting and knightly allusions, Perceval reflects on social breakdown in a stark landscape of desolation. Directed by Milwaukee filmmaker Tate Bunker, it includes many gorgeous moments of cinematography—of bare trees stretched like picket fences across the newly woven mantle of spring green...

Grumpy, bloated and disheveled, Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour-Hoffman) rolls out of bed and into another unsatisfying day as Synecdoche, New York gets under way. Caden is a community theater director and frustrated playwright whose life is settling into the malaise of depression. His wife, a miniature painter played by Catherine Keener (the go-to-gal for unhappy movie wives) is likewise semi-despondent. Sometimes she fantasizes about the death of their four-year-old daughter. The bright hope of marriage and motherhood has faded to dull gunmetal gray. The thrill has gone...

The wattage of Anne Hathaway's star power is rare in contemporary Hollywood and the brightness may reside principally in those Judy Garland eyes, which seem two sizes too big for her face. But her poise has always been as striking as her appearance. In Rachel Getting Married, Hathaway pushes her considerable talents into a darker, more destructive zone. She's not Rachel nor is she getting hitched. Hathaway plays Kym, a slouchy twentysomething released from rehab to attend the marriage of her older sister Rachel. With her...

Angelina Jolie has climbed a long way up from her days as a Tomb Raider. Nowadays her roles usually demand acting. In Changeling, she plays Christine Collins, a mother whose panic quietly overtakes her denial when her nine-year-old son doesn't run to greet her when she comes home. Her face registers the gathering unease as she calls out his name, going room by empty room before the realization sets in: Walter is gone. Changeling is closely based on a true story, dateline Los Angeles, 1928. Dressed for the part with brightly rouged cheeks, Jolie leads Christine carefully...

The nighttime football game at the start of Pride and Glory, a contest between aggressive amateurs on a frozen gridiron, sets the wintry tone and suggests the theme. Teams are everything, embracing the families of players lining the stands shouting "Defense! Defense!" Pride and Glory is about teamwork and its abuse, family ties and the game of defense. The movie is set around an NYPD precinct at Christmas, a time when the sun hides in the gloom above a city cold and dark despite the strings of holiday lights...