Film capsules are written by Lawrence Toppman. If there's no star rating, he hasn't seen the movie. Grades: 4 stars = excellent, 3 stars = good, 2 stars = fair, 1 star = poor.

L.A. cops (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart) try to solve the 1940s murder of would-be actress Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner). Brian De Palma directed this version of James Ellroy's novel; the cast includes Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank.Strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and language.

A boy undertakes a thousand-mile journey to return a bat to Babe Ruth in time for the World Series. This animated movie was being directed by Christopher Reeve at his death; Colin Brady and Dan St. Pierre finished it. Voices include Jake Austin, Brian Dennehy and Whoopi Goldberg.

The Rock plays a coach who wants to instill self-respect in young men at a juvenile detention center by teaching them to compete with first-rate football teams. Look for Rock Hill native Leon Rippy as the administrator who tells him why it shouldn't be done.

A remake of the Italian movie "L'ultimo bacio," about a restless man who discovers that his long-time girlfriend is pregnant and casts his eyes on a younger woman. This version stars Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett and Rachel Bilson and was directed by Tony Goldwyn.

A high school senior (Justin Long) rejected by college after college "invents" a university online to fool his parents, then discovers students from all over the country want to attend. With Blake Lively and Jonah Hill. 90 minutes.

An idea inspired by Gary Larson's "The Far Side" meets zany humor, wild musical numbers and a very traditional story about maturing and sharing. Otis the cow (Kevin James) learns to take care of the weaker animals and live up to the teachings of his dad (Sam Elliott), keeping coyotes at bay and falling in love with Daisy (Courteney Cox). Manic, uneven fun. 90 minutes.

The comedy troupe Broken Lizard ("Club Dread," "The Dukes of Hazzard") set this movie in Germany, where brothers (Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske) realize grandpa stole a beer recipe and feel obligated to beat German beer-guzzlers at their own games. 110 minutes.

Hit man Jason Statham learns a poison injected into his body will kill him if his heart rate drops below a certain point, so he exacts revenge at top speed. Not screened for critics. 87 minutes.

The story of two talented basketball players: One (Wesley Jonathan) wants to use his UCLA basketball scholarship to go pre-med, while the other (Anthony Mackie) wants to get his GED and win an underground street ball game against his arrogant rival (Philip Champion). 95 minutes.

The latest IMAX movie at Discovery Place is an exploration of some of the planet's most unique, dangerous and colorful creatures, from the Wolf Eel to the Giant Pacific Octopus. Veteran underwater cinematographer Howard Hall ("Coral Reef Adventure") directed; Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet narrated; Danny Elfman wrote the score. The photography is sumptuous, especially when manta rays sweep up plankton by moonlight, though there's an awfully strong emphasis on the fish-eat-fish toughness of their world. 45 minutes.

Effective horror with a simple set-up -- six women go caving in the Appalachian mountains -- a gradual buildup of suspense and a gorily effective payoff. Writer-director Neil Marshall satisfies us for a while with dead ends, near-falls into deep pits, paranoia and claustrophobia. Then he introduces the crawlers, who are white, hunched, hairless, bat-eared carnivores. No plot and not enough character development, but lots of thrills. 99 minutes.

Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young and Louise Portal go to Haiti to have sex with younger men on vacation, then learn more than they'd bargained for about the country's poverty and violence. Laurent Cantet directed. 108 minutes.

This slow, atmospheric story about the rise and fall of TV's Superman mixes two genres uneasily: a '40s-style film noir about a lowly, dogged private eye (Adrien Brody) seeking truth and the '50s drama about George Reeves (Ben Affleck), an actor who seemed to be flying high but crashed in success-mad Hollywood. Diane Lane stands out as a movie mogul's wife who may have killed him, but the filmmakers are inconclusive. Shouldn't they provide some solution, however speculative, to the mystery of Reeves' alleged suicide? 125 minutes.

A fifth-grader (Luke Benward) challenges a bully and ends up accepting the dare of the title to change the balance of power at school. Writer-director Bob Dolman adapted Thomas Rockwell's novel. 98 minutes.

Debut director Bryan Barber got famous directing videos for Outkast. Now he's written and directed a Prohibition-era musical starring its members, Antwan Patton and André Benjamin, as a club manager fending off gangsters and a piano player choosing between his woman (Paula Patton) and obligations to his father (Ben Vereen).

Matt Dillon plays a character loosely based on author Charles Bukowski: a Los Angeles boozer who can't hang on to steady work or women, steady or otherwise (including Lili Taylor).

A lowborn magician in 19th-century Vienna (Edward Norton) dares to love a duchess (Jessica Biel), though she's betrothed to a mad ruler (Rufus Sewell). Norton's fine, and Paul Giamatti's in good form as a police inspector monitoring the case, but the film is all atmosphere: The long buildup yields too small a payoff, and an unbelievable one at that. 110 minutes.

In 1976, 30-year-old bartender Vince Papale walked out of the economic depression of South Philadelphia and onto the field at Veterans Stadium. His triumphant story is now a fine, conventional sports biography full of uplift, like "The Rookie" and "Miracle" (also from Disney). Director-cinematographer Ericson Core gives it grit by setting it against the depressed cityscape: Papale becomes a symbol of hope for unemployed pals. Mark Wahlberg is just right as the troubled Everyman. 105 minutes.

Six members of the dysfunctional Hoover family bond while driving from New Mexico to Redondo Beach, Calif., to take the daughter (adorable Abigail Breslin) to a beauty pageant. That description doesn't do justice to the dark comedy, bizarre situations and hard edge of this film, which satirizes unsavory preteen pageants and (unlike most Sundance favorites) doesn't get soft and gooey at the core. The ensemble cast includes Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano and Greg Kinnear; the sure-handed first-time directors are Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. 100 minutes.

Martial artist Tony Jaa ("Ong Bak") stars in this loose sequel, playing a fighter who must go to Australia to retrieve his stolen elephant. There he battles a gang led by an evil woman and two deadly bodyguards. 109 minutes.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles gets kicked out of the house by her father, who learns she's pregnant on the eve of her coming-of-age party. She goes to live with her cousin, a gay gang member, and her great-great-uncle, who sells homemade beverages and is about to lose the home he's lived in for more then three decades. This drama is well-acted by Emily Rios, Jesse Garcia and Chalo González as the outsiders who support each other emotionally, and it's an interesting look at what happens when outsiders -- in this case, gay people -- gentrify a once-humble neighborhood. 90 minutes.

A guy (Channing Tatum) trashes an arts school, is ordered to do community service by cleaning up his vandalism and falls for a ballet dancer there (Jenna Dewan). 98 minutes.

Another of Will Ferrell's sloppy, casually funny comedies about a man-boy who hits bottom before achieving his dreams, this one a NASCAR driver whose egotism alienates his trophy wife (Leslie Bibb) and longtime pal (John C. Reilly). Ferrell wrote the screenplay with director Adam McKay, who teamed with him on the equally careless "Anchorman." As before, they've interspersed laugh-out-loud segments with dry, repetitive material, but they don't seem to know the difference. 110 minutes.

A remake of the 1973 film about a British detective who goes to an island cut off from the modern world to investigate a disappearance among pagan worshippers. The policeman is now an American (Nicolas Cage) and Ellen Burstyn is the head of the pagan clan. 97 minutes.

This intimate, optimistic movie is an atypical project for director Oliver Stone. Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña play Port Authority policemen who went into the building after the Sept. 11 attacks and were trapped by collapsing concrete; the film follows their points of view as they wait for rescue and the moods of their families, which range from confusion to rage to thwarted hope. (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal play wives at home.) The effort to pull McLoughlin and Jimeno from the rubble becomes a metaphor for the nation's attempt to pull itself out of mourning afterward. 125 minutes.

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