The new, dumbed-down “Day the Earth Stood Still” predictably updates the nuclear warning of the original to a caution about our rapacious treatment of the planet itself. Keanu Reeves’ Klaatu shows up proclaiming he represents a coalition of civilizations that are friends of the Earth, and woe to us if we don’t start treating their buddy more nicely.

“‘Four Christmases’ was set up perfectly. It’s an evergreen subject for the holiday period,“ said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Media By Numbers. “This is a movie that can play and is playing from Thanksgiving through the end of the year.“

Despite the glimmers of potential for typically strong work from Jeffrey Wright as Waters, Mos Def as Berry and Adrien Brody as the label’s founder, Polish emigre Leonard Chess, Martin too often gives them too little of substance with which to work.

Van Sant seamlessly blends archival footage of the time with recreations (the candlelight vigil the night Milk was killed is chilling). And his frequent collaborator, cinematographer Harris Savides, bathes everything in soft, faded shades and light that give the film a sense of both intimacy and melancholy.

The Virginia Film Society is looking at the photographers behind the iconic photographs of New Deal-era America.

Blockbuster’s foray into so-called “on-demand” video also pits the Dallas-based company against instant-gratification services already offered by major cable carriers like Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Inc.

This animated 3-D adventure follows a scrappy, white shelter mutt named Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) who isn’t a superhero, but he plays one on TV.

A guy and a girl, longtime best friends and roommates, realize they’re secretly in love with each other, one of the most hackneyed romantic comedy premises of all time. Through Smith’s skewed prism, though, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) achieve this epiphany while having on-camera sex during an amateur adult movie, something they do out of desperation to pay the bills when their utilities get shut off during a miserable Pittsburgh winter.

Someday, Troy and Gabriella will actually open their mouths when they kiss.

From the earliest announcements about the film, it seemed inevitable what we’d be in for: an evisceration. No other perspective could be possible from any director in Hollywood and especially not from Stone, who previously dug up the White House dirt with the conspiracy-laden “JFK” and the campy and paranoid “Nixon.“

“It’s probably the perfect kind of movie for today’s climate,“ said Rory Bruer, Sony head of distribution. “Let’s just get away from the news, from all that’s going on, and go someplace else, and this is something that’ll take you someplace else.“

Although Bill Maher’s mother was Jewish, he was raised in the Catholicism of his father’s side of the family; now he calls himself a rationalist, and thinks the idea that we all came from a garden with a talking snake is a fairy tale for overgrown children and crazies.

“Miracle” tells of the men of the 92nd Infantry Division, black troops who served in Italy during World War II and were known as Buffalo Soldiers. Lee has long been critical of films about the war such as Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima” for depicting only the white U.S. soldiers who fought. This is his response — voluminous and full of unmistakable anger.

America’s love affair with the movies is now written in the language of box office, numbers that once interested only studio accountants as a measure of whether a film would pay for itself. The figures have become some moviegoers’ proxy for cultural worth.

It’s the rare modern novelist who has a healthy relationship with the silver screen. Stephen King sure knows how to work different media, and Bret Easton Ellis shouldn’t complain about any of his adaptations, but, for the most part, film is a reductive force to literature, be it a masterpiece (“Atonement”) or a beach read (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”).

It’s sure to anger people, and not just for the title, which comes from the novel by Alicia Erian, the film’s source material. In directing his first film, Oscar-winning “American Beauty” screenwriter Alan Ball holds nothing back, which is admirable in its attempt at realism — and yet, some viewers will certainly perceive its exploration of teen sexuality as exploitative.

Good thing the season has a deep bench, with Harry’s backup players including James Bond, a heartthrob vampire, those slaphappy kids from “High School Musical,“ the yammering zoo animals from “Madagascar” and a party boy turned president.

“We have to very rapidly establish the world we are transporting them to,“ he said of his viewers. “That’s very easily done by saying, ‘In a world where ... violence rules.‘ ‘In a world where ... men are slaves and women are the conquerors.‘ You very rapidly set the scene.“

Writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff takes his tale of terrorism and espionage — based on idea from Steve Martin — and runs with it all over the world, from Sudan and Yemen to Chicago and Washington to London and Marseilles.

Well, its depiction of Greek life isn’t all that accurate either, but that’s beside the point. The entire purpose of this late-summer comedy is to serve as a showcase for Anna Faris, star of the “Scary Movie” franchise, whose sunny disposition and solid comic timing make “The House Bunny” a whole lot more enjoyable than it ought to be.

This movie-within-a-movie is certainly his most ambitious production as a director and it contains some of the biggest belly laughs of his career. But while it blends comedy and action sequences far more skillfully and seamlessly than this summer’s “Pineapple Express,“ which shifted from one genre to the other, the endeavor winds up feeling overwrought and repetitive.

“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” finds Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and wife Evelyn (Maria Bello taking over for Rachel Weisz) heading East in hopes of recapturing the adrenaline of adventure.

Ledger’s performance in the Batman tale “The Dark Knight” is so remarkable that next Jan. 22, the one-year anniversary of his death, he could become just the seventh actor in Oscar history to earn a posthumous nomination

In following up the original “Hellboy” from 2004 and his Academy Award-winning 2006 masterpiece, “Pan’s Labyrinth,“ the director has outdone himself in both absurd humor and wild imagination. At times, there’s almost too much to take in all at once — everything from hulking trolls with thick tusks to tiny tooth fairies that look delicate but actually delight in feasting on human bones.

“WALL-E” is only the latest film that seeks to humanize robots. As an audience, we are meant to sit in dark theaters looking up at the big screen and FEEL for the oppressed digital beings of the future. Audiences are more than happy to be swept away by something as artful as “WALL-E,“ but there’s a notable disconnect between its premise and its emotional force.

“Get Smart,“ which began its life on TV as a classic sitcom that cleverly satirized Cold War espionage, has been transformed for the big screen into just another standard action picture.

“The Hulk got a second chance, got angry and came back with a vengeance,“ said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. “This was a big question mark going in. The film had a history or a checkered past.“

The fanboys will probably be happy with the latest incarnation of “The Incredible Hulk.“ At least we can say that much for it — and that’s something we most assuredly could not say about Ang Lee and James Schamus’ somber, introspective and largely derided take in 2003 on the beloved Marvel Comics hero.

This must be how the newest “Indiana Jones” movie was made:

Ah, the panda.
There’s no cuter member of the animal kingdom, so why has he taken so long to land a starring role in Hollywood? The truth is, we like our cartoons to be the less attractive eccentrics: mice, rats, whatever Gonzo is.