Film

Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal are Sam and Tommy Cahill, one an upright Army captain on his way back to Afghanistan, the other a delinquent, newly paroled after a three-year sentence for robbery. But the real center of Jim Sheridan's movie isn't the brothers, but their whole teetering clan, which will collapse and rebuild itself in complicated new ways.

The Oscar-nominated 1979 film My Brilliant Career stars Judy Davis, as a young woman growing up in rural Australia at the end of the 19th century. Film critic John Powers gives Davis credit for creating the template for the Australian screen actress: bravery, incandescence, and occasional cussedness.

In an apocalyptic-movie age, The Road is the doomiest. A close translation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, the film tracks a father and son as they fight to survive in an ash-gray world haunted by death and global destruction. Critic David Edelstein says that its depiction of unbearable extremity, John Hillcoat's film achieves a kind of sublimity.

Martin Scorcese said of Sam Fuller's work, "If you don't like the films of Sam Fuller, then you just don't like cinema." The maverick screenwriter and director died in 1997, but a new 7-disc selection of his work embodies what's most enjoyable and enduring about pulp fiction.

Stephenie Meyers' four-novel Twilight saga set off a rage for lovelorn teen vampires —-one that only escalated after the release of the first hit movie. The second film, New Moon, set box-office records for advance sales, but critic David Edelstein says it's too turgid for the excitement to last.

Director Wes Anderson's first animated film is based on Roald Dahl's cheerfully wicked children's book about a wily fox who wages war on three farmers. Critic David Edelstein says the film -- with its stop-motion animation, big-name voice talent and quirky mannerisms -- achieves a degree of realism that isn't always apparent in the cult director's work.

David Edelstein reviews the quirky new comedy from Jared Hess, who co-wrote and directed Napoleon Dynamite.

What This Is It lacks in tactful timing, it makes up for with perspective on Michael Jackson's backstage life. Although Jackson's star persona stays front and center, critic David Edelstein says director Kenny Ortega makes a real effort to show us the performer's human side — a treat that makes the King of Pop all the more stellar.

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story made a splash, but critic John Powers says its critique of capitalism is "the kind of scattershot tirade I used to hear in my college dorm." Better object lessons: New documentaries, Schmatta and American Casino, that do far more to explain how grand economic forces shape our daily lives.

Director Mira Nair's Amelia attempts to capture the free-spirited life of famed pilot Amelia Earhart. But with a flat script and shallow story, says critic David Edelstein, the movie is more of a blueprint--it never breathes.