"Avatar" (PG-13, 163 minutes). James Cameron silences his doubters by delivering an extraordinary film. There's still one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million wisely. Involves a mission by U. S. Armed Forces to an earth-sized moon, Pandora, in orbit around a massive star. They encounter a graceful race of towering blue-skinned forest dwellers living in harmony with their environment. Sam Worthington plays the hero, whose is befriended by a Na'va woman (Zoe Saldana), and chugs his allegiance. Awesome special effects, good storytelling. Four stars.

"Invictus" (PG-13, 134 minutes). Strange, that the first of many proposed biopics about Nelson Mandela centers on the South African rugby team. Mandela took an intense interest in the Springbok's drive to an eventual World Cup championship, and it was a famous victory for the parish apartheid state. Here it is foregrounded, and who would have expected this film to be structured around who wins the big match? Yet Clint Eastwood has crafted a strong film with many other key moments, and Freeman and Damon are well cast. Entertaining, but not a companion-piece for "Gandhi." Three and a half stars.

"Princess and the Frog" (G, 95 minutes) The Disney studios still shelter animators who know how to make a movie classic animated stories, in an age when too many animated films feel obligated to assault us with input overload. Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is a hard-working New Orleans lass who dreams of opening her own restaurant. A visiting Prince, turned into a frog, begs her to kiss him, but then they both become frogs, in a story involving voodoo, sorcery and song. spritely and high-spirited. Voices by Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Oprah Winfrey, Keith David, Terrence Howard and John Goodman. Three stars

"Me and Orson Welles" (PG-13, 109 minutes). About the best movie about the theater I've seen, seeing Orson Welles' legendary first Broadway production through the eyes of a young would-be actor. Hard to believe the famous, towering, ego-heavy Welles, who kept everyone waiting for him, was still in his early 20s. Christian McKay does uncanny work Welles, and Zac Efron and Claire Danes are the young couple who study him in fascination, while falling in love. Directed by Richard Loinklater. Four stars.

Lets play a game: pretend Im Jennifer Anistons agent. No more romantic comedies! Cue the cheers and applause. Theres a reason people keep turning out for her films, they like her. When youve got moviegoers pulling for you, theyll stick with you no matter what. Why not take some chances and diversify your repertoire a bit?

With IBenjamin ButtonIs Taraji P. Henson capably doing the dramatic heavy lifting, the movie successfully glides through some of the more ridiculous dramatic set-ups, and actually manages to carry an emotional punch if youre willing to give yourself over

Paint by numbers horror is tiresome, but horror movies should work within the genre. When they color too far outside the lines fans get lost. ISorority RowI has all of the necessary elements to make it a typical slasher flick but at the same time tries to put a fresh coat of primer on the genre in an effort to find a happy medium between those two alternatives. While the film never quite reaches that middle ground, it sure provides a damn good time while trying to find it.

IWhiteoutI could have been a silent movie. Sure theres dialogue, but most of it barely qualifies as anything better than noise. Its the kind of limp thriller where the characters only say obvious things. If someone walks inside an airplane they must, of course, say its an airplane! And if theres a corpse on the ground with a big hole in its head, the first words out of anyones mouth will invariably be hey that guy has a hole in his head.

I9I is a movie in the vein of IBioshockI, which of course, isnt a movie at all. Were it a game, like IBioshockI, it would almost certainly be one of the best story-driven video games ever made. Maybe towards an Xbox is the direction creator Shane Acker should have gone with this, when adapting his short film into a feature length movie.

Clearly everyone involved in this was embarrassed even before their careers took off this summer, and even Fox seems to be hoping that everyone is too busy grilling out for Labor Day to remember to see it. Its easily the worst comedy Ive ever seen with such normally top-shelf talent in it.

So did you see IDeath RaceI around this time last year? You know, the movie where Jason Statham is a death row inmate forced to participate in a brutal game in order earn his freedom, and is desperately trying to get back to his wife and daughter on the other side? Good. You can completely skip IGamerI

By Roger Ebert

Mark Whitacre was the highest-ranking executive in U.S. history to blow the whistle in a case of corporate fraud. He ended up with a prison sentence three times longer than any of the criminal executives he exposed. To be sure, there was the detail of the $9 million that he embezzled along the way for his personal use. What we discover toward the end of “The Informant!” may help explain that theft, although he apparently didn't want that used in his defense.

"Jennifer's Body" (R, 102 min.) The most popular girl in school (Megan Fox) is transformed into a fiend who eats the flesh of teenage boys. Not an assembly-line teen horror thriller; the film, with a script by Diablo Cody, has a gleeful relish. Three stars

When youre rebooting a film franchise you obviously run the risk of not pleasing the fans. Disappointment is one thing, but the absolute disgust I felt after seeing Rob Zombies IHalloween III is inexcusable. At one point in the film, a character is accused of profiteering off the miseries of others and that is exactly what Zombie will do to you if you see this movie.

In the first movie it was a plane crash, in a second a hair-raising car wreck, in the third a roller coaster ride gone awry. For the fourth film, they tap into our common fear of, er, attending NASCAR events.

The little bit of nostalgia that does sneak through the cracks is probably provided by the viewer, marveling at the human drama that really did happen, and all the strange coincidences that made it possible. But in its efforts not to view Woodstock through a drug-addled haze, ITaking WoodstockI fails to find a point of view at al

IInglourious BasterdsI is what would have happened if Quentin Tarantino made ICrashI. Neither the sweeping war movie nor the action film its title and its marketing suggests, IBasterdsI is more of a talky drama which just happens to have a lot of Swastikas in it.

Directed blandly and obviously by Vicky Jenson, IPost GradI is a classic turkey, the kind of movie youll look back on at the end of the year and realize youve forgotten about entirely

Had I owned a copy of Final Draft and not been obsessed with terrible poetry, iBandslami may have been the type of movie I wouldve made when I was 15. Somewhat of a fantasy, iBandslami is about an awkward, outcast kid whos somehow able to convince two ridiculously gorgeous girls that hes cool because of his dork-level knowledge of music.

IThe Time Travelers WifeI is a movie for people who arent really that into time travel. It avoids getting bogged down in the sci-fi specifics of its premise, in which a man named Henry Eric Bana spends his entire life jumping through time from one year to the next, and instead focuses on the emotional impact that has.