Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, ... Review: Bummer. The vampires have no fangs. The humans are humdrum. The special effects and makeup define cheeseball. And the movie crowds in so many characters from Stephenie Meyer?s book that Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) is less a director than a traffic cop. But there?s a reason that Twilight has already become the movie equivalent of a bestseller: The love story has teeth. Props to Kristen Stewart, 18, and Robert Pattinson, 22, for playing this uncool-girl-meets-undead-boy story with genuine romantic ardor. They?re both terrific. Even when the movie gets really silly, they never do. Stewart (Panic Room, Into the Wild) brings just the right blend of ferocity and feeling to the role of Bella Swan, the loner from Phoenix who leaves her mom to live with her police-chief dad in rarely sunny... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Chazz Palminteri, Robert Davi, Peter Bogdanovich, Miriam Margolye... Review: Here's the little movie that could, a potent directing debut for actor Robert Davi, an immortal Bond villain in License to Kill. Davi plays Danny DePasquale, a star in his 20s when he and his chubby-chaser pal George Zucco (Chazz Palminteri, in top form) lead a doo-wop group called the Dukes. Cut ahead a few decades, and the guys are struggling in California, working in an Italian restaurant run by their Aunt Vee (Miriam Margolyes) and hassling their manager (a terrific Peter Bogdanovich) to repackage them as an oldies group. Danny and George dream of turning Aunt Vee's trattoria into a doo-wop club. But who has the bucks? So they cook up a heist that defines the term "fool's gold." For all the kickass fun, Davi offers a moving portrait of a man caught in the process of trying to... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Catherine Deneuve Review: Holiday films in the hands of Hollywood make me puke. Mom is usually expiring from something terminal while the family dresses the Christmas tree with brave smiles. This French knockout, tough-minded and all the more affecting for it, turned my head around. It hits hard — even the laughs are killers. I should say that Mom (Catherine Deneuve, still an actress and beauty to die for) is slipping away from liver cancer. So what makes this one magic? Start with director Arnaud Desplechin, who co-wrote the deft script with Emmanuel Bourdieu. Desplechin (Kings and Queen, How I Got Into an Argument) is a world-class filmmaker, not some studio hack. He can maintain a light touch even in the face of tragedy. He can layer a film so that it's always springing surprises. He can reference... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Mathieu Amalric, Ju... Review: So shoot me. I left the action rush of this follow-up to the terrific 2006 Casino Royale feeling bummed out by James Bond. Well, not by the Bond of Daniel Craig — he's still one nasty-ass dude, with the kind of rough-edged style that the 007 franchise hasn't seen since the glory days of Sean Connery. But the character fun seems to have gone out the window in Quantum of Solace, a fancy-shmancy title (the only thing borrowed from Ian Fleming's short story) for a movie that pours crude oil all over the subtle pleasures and sexy beats that came before. The new movie picks up a few minutes after the last one. Big car chase (all together now: eww!) as Bond, barely recovered from the death of his lady love Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), burns rubber all over Italy with the wiggling body of... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Review: Does everything work in this mind-bender from Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? No way. Synecdoche, New York is exhilarating and exasperating in equal doses. But Kaufman, making his directing debut, is focused on something you don't find at multiplexes overrun with chihuahuas and violent escapism: That would be a life of the mind. Kaufman wants to prove that intellectual ambition isn't dead at the movies. Godspeed. Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a young, old and middle-aged man. He plays Caden Cotard, a stage director struggling on the fringes in Schenectady, New York. Ailments attack his body in ways that would appall Dennis Potter. His shrink (Hope Davis) despairs of... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Traci Lords, Jason Mewes, Jennifer S... Review: If there is such a thing as a stroke flick for your funnybone, then Zack and Miri is it. Writer-director Kevin Smith is back on comedy terra firma, after Jersey Girl drowned in goo and Clerks II defined backsliding. For those who wonder what happened to the Smith of the first Clerks and Chasing Amy, here's your answer. Seth Rogen, on loan from the Judd Apatow hit factory, is Zack, the scruffy chubmeister slacking his life away as a barista at Bean-N-Gone in a corner of Pittsburgh. Zack shares a funky dump of an apartment with his best friend, Miri (Elizabeth Banks trying futilely not to look like a blond goddess). These platonic BFFs don't have sex, except for money. Let me explain: Zack and Miri can't pay the rent. At their high school reunion, Miri runs into her football-hero crush,... Rating: 3 Stars