Imagine "Clerks" director Kevin Smith with a background in poetry and painting instead of comic books and bestiality jokes, and you'll have an idea of what to expect from an exciting new filmmaker named Sean Ellis, whose terrific debut is called Cashback.

Though it does have a handful of dirty jokes meant to earn the audience-pleasing PG-13 rating and features Marge swearing, it falls short of classic status.

Instead of trying to make Austen's life entertaining by pretending it was just like her work - as in the dull recent French movie "Molière" - Becoming Jane has a more astute appreciation of how Austen, or any fiction writer, works. There's a bit of stealing from life, lots of exaggeration, some wish fulfillment, mix-and-match character assembly.

A pleasingly weird, dryly funny little indie.

Not since "300" have I seen such manly mano-a-mano-ing as the iron clash of wills in the docu mentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

Director Griffin Dunne's adaptation of Dirk Wittenborn's fiercely personal novel ambles pleasantly through coming-of-age movie territory, then takes a jarring Agatha Christie detour.

As sensuous as its title, Silk is an exquisitely felt love story that unfolds as delicately as a blooming flower. And as slowly.

A great abortion documentary might leave you guessing which side of the debate the director was on. Lake of Fire is not that film, but it comes somewhat close.

A rock bio minus the fun. The sex is guilt-stricken, the drugs are used to treat epilepsy, and the rock 'n' roll is about isolation and despair.

The anti-Ben Stiller comedy: There's humiliation aplenty but no mugging, no abuse to the crotch region, no straining to be outrageous.

Dazzling fun. Jerry is master of a new domain.

De Palma is extreme, visceral, usually in bad taste but almost always riveting. De Palma's Redacted, a no-budget fake documentary that imagines the circumstances behind a real rape and murder of a civilian girl committed by US troops in Iraq, is a piece of anti-war propaganda whose aims I don't agree with, but it jolted me nonetheless.

A scary, inventive, exciting and breathless adventure that combines the best elements of “Children of Men," “Escape from New York" and “The Road Warrior," but leaves out the worst stuff - such as the story-clogging despair and political allegory in “Children," a movie that made apocalypse look like kind of a downer.

Turns out to be formulaic and broad but also skillfully paced and big-hearted, with a sharp cast of comics that makes the most of a sunny script.

Based on the true story of the world's largest counterfeiting operation, The Counterfeiters is full of the weird details that, though unsurprising on one level, are so jarringly wrong that they seem fresh: As a reward for producing 134 million pounds sterling, the prisoners get a pingpong table.

Jason Statham, possibly the greatest B-movie leading man of this era, stars in a complicated and clever imagining of what might have happened in the mysterious 1971 London bank heist dubbed the "Walkie-Talkie Robbery" - in other words, it was unbelievably high-tech.

Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones "documentary" (i.e. concert film) is a first: the only Scorsese film that does not feature the Stones' "Gimme Shelter." Really. I think the Dalai Lama even hummed the guitar solo in "Kundun."

This isn't Mamet at his finest, though, which leaves us with a script that is merely three times as smart as the average feature.

In their refusal to be up-to-the-moment, the Narnia movies are bound to age beautifully, perhaps much more so than the two Shrek films Adamson directed.

The film could have been improved if it had been less aggressively limp. But the post-adolescent, pre-adult moodiness is spot on: Everyone's favorite author is a bitter recluse, and the soundtrack heaves with the suicide sounds of Joy Division. Trier's intent is to reproduce a sweet, hazy vision of the agony of youth. Ever so elliptically, he succeeds.

The movie is so heavily weighted toward the Simmons character that no one else really gets to breathe. And though McBride's shtick is brilliant - he could get rich by playing variations on this character for the next few years, and probably will.

Po speaks loudly and carries big shtick. Let the rest of the world cringe at our hyperconfidence, our charisma, our pure awesomeness.

Wanted is like a 12-armed heavy-metal drummer after a case of Red Bull, flailing and thundering through two hours of impossible action.

An affecting and beautifully realized documentary.

The smart indie comedy Diminished Capacity deals with three kinds of dementia: those relating to aging, concussions and being a Chicago Cubs fan. Tying those three things together is a task that the witty script does with surprising adroitness.

Your enjoyment will hinge entirely on whether you think the album is a masterpiece or a bore.

Revenge is a dish best served with bullets, high explosives and giant rolling flameballs. In Quantum of Solace, James Bond orders the revenge buffet, deluxe.

Takes a bit of "Swingers" and a bit of "Manhattan" to create a slacktacular vision of uncertain youth in today's L.A.