No Country for Old Men
Adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country for Old Men begins as a man named Llewellyn Moss, unsuccessfully hunting for antelope, comes across the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. Among the bloodied cars and dead bodies, he finds a truck filled with heroin and a not-quite-dead Mexican man asking for agua. Investigating the scene further, he finds a satchel filled with two million dollars. Of course, blood money attracts its share of complications, and Moss is soon on the run.

His main obstacle to keeping the money is the absolutely pitiless Anton Chigurh, a man for whom a pneumatic slaughterhouse tool becomes a weapon of serial murder (among other handy uses) and who decides the fates of potential victims with the flip of a coin. Their cat-and-mouse chase across the southwestern U.S. into Mexico and back attracts the attention of a variety of characters, including a bounty hunter (Woody Harrelson) who understands how dangerous Chigurh is, and a laconic, soon-to-be-retired sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) for whom the evil of Chigurh is just more evidence of how much the world has changed since he was young.

No Country for Old Men was directed by the Coen Brothers, and it's their most suspenseful movie by far. The Coens know this genre, already having made the gloomy noir Blood Simple and the black comedy Fargo -- and No Country for Old Men may well be better than either. Fargo is unbelievably great, but it ultimately lacks the heft of this film. Chigurh in particular is a mesmerizing screen villian, and his every moment on the screen is wrought with tension and unease.

August Rush
The premise of this film is so insufferable that I can't imagine actually sitting down to watch it. See if you can follow this: a classical violinist and a bar rocker -- so star-crossed! -- enjoy a tryst that results in a baby which neither one knows about. When said baby reaches adolescence, he turns out to be a musical genius who thinks that if he plays guitar well enough, it'll make his parents realize he exists and reunite together. And it works. Even if the general suckitude of this new-age parable about the power of music doesn't turn you off, there's this: Robin Williams as a friendly street musician in a cowboy hat, sideburns, and a soul patch.

Dan in Real Life
My moles are telling me that this is a good and funny movie, but I find that hard to believe. Steve Carrell plays an advice columnist with three daughters. They don't think his advice applies to them. He meets a beautiful woman who doesn't want to give up her phone number despite their mutual attraction, because, get this, her new boyfriend is Carrell's brother, and he's a lovable meathead played by Dane Cook! It sounds absolutely insufferable, but apparently they made it work. I think I'll have to see it to believe it.

Hitman
A movie based on a video game? What could go wrong? Uh... don't answer that. Still if Hitman does anything, it proves that video game property doesn't need prolific z-grade director Uwe Boll's involvement to suck. DOA, Doom, Silent Hill -- the entertainment landscape is littered with awful, awful game-to-movie adaptations, with Hitman being merely the most recent, unwatchable, example.

I still want a movie based on BioShock, though. I can't help myself.

Lake of Fire
A documentary 16 years in the making, it attempts the impossible by trying to give us an objective view of the abortion debate in America. Interview subjects include "Jane Roe," the pro-choice icon who found Jesus and now fights against the practice she helped legalize; Paul Hill, who received the death penalty for murdering an abortion provider; and Noam Chomsky, the intellectual political activist, along with many other voices on the subject.

Nancy Drew
If you know any 'tween girls, this would make a great gift. Uh, I mean as cousins, or friend's kids, that sort of thing -- I'm not responsible if you buy this and Chris Hansen pops out of a bush to shove a microphone in your face.

Outlaw
An ultra-violent vigilante fantasy set in London, Outlaw follows a group of men wronged by crime and circumstance who take the law into their own hands. The film doesn't really have a message or point behind the prurient exploitation of violence and the cathartic release of seeing bad things happen to bad people.

Sleuth
Michael Caine and Jude Law have a verbal duel that is only partly about the film's central mystery, but mostly about the acting chops of the participants and the dialog of the Pulitzer-prize winning screenwriter.

Summer Palace
A Chinese girl comes of age sexually in a time of political instability. Why is that in times of political upheaval, there is always a lot of sexing going on? Maybe it's just the movies. I know I certainly wasn't getting any extra when George Bush was stealing the U.S. presidential elections.

Tin Man
A modern sci-fi re-imagining of Wizard of Oz, starring the effervescent Zooey Deschanel. It might be good, or then again it might not be. But it still has Zooey Deschanel, so you're probably going to watch it regardless.