THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON David Fincher's groveling Oscar bait is a desperate lunge by a normally exciting genre filmmaker to earn some year-end accolades by helming An Important Movie With Life-Affirming Values. But when faced with results such as this, I'll take the comparative cheap thrills of Fincher's Seven or Zodiac any day of the week. Except for one bravura sequence near the end of the picture – a beautifully staged scene of a life winding down – Button is curiously listless, with all of its passion apparently expended on its technical feats. Loosely based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this deals with Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), who's born as an 80-year-old man but becomes gradually younger as time passes. Like his cinematic soulmate Forrest Gump, Benjamin leads a rich and varied life, although his heart always belongs to Daisy (Cate Blanchett), who, like Forrest's Jenny, is a callow free spirit who doesn't realize the depths of her fondness for Benjamin until it's almost too late. Benjamin Button is primarily a passive character, and he's in turn played by Pitt in a passive manner. It's not the actor's finest work, as he's upstaged by his own makeup as well as the CGI trickery that (in old-age mode) turns him into a diminutive figure. Even Pitt is finally freed from the movie magic and allowed to look like himself, it's to no avail, largely because he and Blanchett have no chemistry together. As for the movie's themes, they're basically a series of homilies about the beauty of life and how we shouldn't waste a single precious moment of it. Point taken: I won't spend another second reflecting on this motionless motion picture. **

DEFIANCE The 1970s TV miniseries Holocaust and the 2002 theatrical release The Grey Zone touched upon the topic, but Defiance might be the first celluloid outing to focus exclusively on the efforts of Jews to violently oppose their Nazi oppressors during World War II. Certainly, it's an overdue entry in the long history of Hollywood Holocaust flicks, but it's a shame that such an intriguing story didn't receive a more distinguished rendering. Adapted by director Edward Zwick and co-scripter Clayton Frohman from Nechama Tec's nonfiction book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, this centers on three siblings who battle the German threat from within the Belarus Forest. The eldest, Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig), is the tentative leader; middle son Zus (Liev Schreiber) is far more tempestuous; and youngest lad Asael (Jamie Bell) is a greenhorn who soon gets his initiation under fire. The Bielskis soon earn a reputation for their guerilla tactics that keep the Nazis off balance, and before long, scores of other Jews join them in their forest sanctuary. Zwick's epics (Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai) have never lacked for propulsive power, but Defiance is the first to constantly stumble over itself even as it tries to get its tale in gear. Episodic in nature, it places stock characters (fresh-faced intellectual, gently questioning rabbi, vicious troublemaker, foxy lady to frolic in the forest with Tuvia) in stock situations that require characters to spout off inspirational clichés every few scenes. Still, Craig and Schreiber make for interesting contrasts in masculinity, and it's commendable that somebody finally got around to paying tribute to these woodland warriors. **1/2

DOUBT While Ron Howard transforms Frost/Nixon into a living, breathing motion picture, writer-director John Patrick Shanley never quite makes it past the curtain call with Doubt. Adapting his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Shanley doesn't possess Howard's cinematic instincts, resulting in a movie that remains resolutely stage-bound. But that's not necessarily a sign of defeat: No one could ever really argue that Mike Nichols' superb Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? managed to shuck the playhouse chains, either. Doubt is no Woolf, of course, but blessed with a quartet of strong performances, it's weighty enough to earn its bookings. Set in 1964, the film examines a battle of wills taking place at St. Nicholas in the Bronx. Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), the strict principal of the school, isn't crazy about Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), whose desire for a more progressive direction within the Catholic church flies in the face of her old-school ideology. So when timid Sister James (Amy Adams) airs her suspicions that Father Flynn is being a bit too chummy with an altar boy, Sister Aloysius works on getting him ousted. But is she truly convinced of his guilt, or is she merely using the issue as a way to force out the theological thorn in her side? Pulitzer notwithstanding, Shanley's play was disappointing in the manner in which it took the obvious way out. The movie can't overcome that hurdle, though it can be argued that Shanley adds an extra layer of ambiguity to the proceedings. Still, what really matters is the cast, and there's no doubt that Streep, Hoffman, Adams and Viola Davis (as the mother of the allegedly molested student) all do heavenly work. ***

FROST/NIXON If all high school history classes were as grandly entertaining as the historical flicks penned by Peter Morgan, no student would ever again be caught slumbering in his seat. Morgan, who previously wrote The Queen, here adapts his own play, and together he and director Ron Howard open it up so that the end result feels much more vibrant than merely a constricted stage piece plunked down in front of a camera. Blessed by an exquisite cast, the two men keep the wheels turning, offering a propulsive look at the most widely loathed U.S. president until George W. Bush stumbled into sight. Set after the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation, the picture concerns itself with the attempts of Nixon (Frank Langella) to rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of political irrelevance by holding a series of one-on-one interviews with British TV host David Frost (Michael Sheen). Nixon believes that he can easily exert control over this show biz personality, and he may be right, as Frost initially has trouble keeping up with his mentally agile interviewee. Several actors have played Tricky Dick on celluloid (Anthony Hopkins among them), but Langella bests them all with an riveting portrayal that goes beyond mimicry. He depicts the former president as a haunted man struggling to salvage his legacy, a scrappy fighter who refuses to yield even a square inch to his challengers. If many audience members don't feel the slightest bit of pity for the Nixon that Langella brings to life, that certainly isn't the fault of the actor – it's simply that too many Americans will always view Richard Milhous as monster rather than man. ***1/2

GRAN TORINO It's not necessary to be familiar with Clint Eastwood's career arc to enjoy Gran Torino, but it does amplify the appreciation for the manner in which the topic of violence is approached. From the glorified gun battles in the Dirty Harry franchise to the ruminations about the impact of taking a man's life in Unforgiven, Eastwood has clearly given much thought to the subject. To describe how he has continued to modify his beliefs would spoil the film's ending, but suffice to say that his character, Walt Kowalski, is no stranger to killing. A Korean War vet, Walt lives in a Detroit neighborhood in which he's clearly in the minority. Surrounded by Asians, African-Americans and Latinos, he's an unrepentant racist, although he doesn't have much use for his own kind, either: Caring little for his two grown sons and their families, he prefers the company of his faithful dog and his prized 1972 Gran Torino. But his shell of indifference begins to crack once he comes into reluctant contact with the two Hmong teens (appealing newcomers Bee Vang and Ahney Her) who live next door. Dismissed in some camps as merely a simplistic rift on racism, this is far more complicated than that, not only in its aforementioned exploration of violence but also in its affecting look at a rigid individual who comes to realize that the world has moved on without him. The picture does have its weak spots (for starters, Walt's family members are cartoonish in the extreme), but there's no quibbling over Eastwood's performance, which ranks as one of the finest of his career. If this marks his final acting turn (as he's hinted), he's managed to go out, appropriately enough, with a bang. ***

HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU / NEW IN TOWN With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it's no wonder that a couple of studios have opted to release what they believe will be perfect comfort cinema ideal for making couples cuddle up together in their auditorium seats. Yet given the sheer dreariness of the products at hand, they would have fared just as well luring lovebirds with, say, the latest installment in the Saw series. A romantic comedy (New in Town) and a romantic comedy-drama (He's Just Not That Into You) would seem like perfect V-Day fare to entice openhearted women and their agreeable mates, but to quote my girlfriend after she watched these duds alongside me, "These movies are where feminism goes to die." The long-on-the-shelf He's Just Not That Into You is the better of the two, simply by virtue of a couple of choice performances and a few minor twists in its multitentacled storyline. Otherwise, it's a muddled he-said-she-said yarn that, even in this supposedly enlightened age, manages to reduce most of its characters (male and female) to the most base stereotypes. Based on the bestseller by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, it centers on nine Baltimore residents all looking for love or sex or some combination thereof. Unfortunately, most of these characters are either self-centered dipshits (e.g. Justin Long's emotionless player, Bradley Cooper's philandering husband) or emotional retards (Ginnifer Goodwin's whiny nerd, Jennifer Aniston's marriage-manipulating girlfriend). Jennifer Connelly (as Cooper's patient wife) and Ben Affleck (as Aniston's devoted boyfriend) arguably fare best, though that probably has as much to do with their characters (more tolerable than the rest) as with their performances. New in Town, meanwhile, is absolute rubbish, the sort of inane rom-com drivel that Hollywood recycles on a regular basis. Basically a rip-off of every city-slicker-stuck-in-a-rural-town flick ever made (Baby Boom, Doc Hollywood, The Efficiency Expert, Sweet Home Alabama, and on and on and on), this stars Renee Zellweger as a high-powered Miami executive who's sent by her corporation to evaluate the situation at its Minnesota plant and get started on eliminating half of its work force. Naturally, this well-schooled, well-scrubbed, hot-weather gal has nothing but contempt for the friendly hayseeds dumb enough to live in such a barren land, but after spending a couple of nights with a shaggy union leader (Harry Connick Jr.) and spending half the movie being force-fed tapioca pudding by one of the local Jesus freaks (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), our girl has a change of heart and decides Red State principles are worth fighting for after all. In this age of rampant layoffs, it would seem the right time for a movie to present an inspirational, fairy-tale alternative to the real world, but New in Town is so imbecilic on so many levels that it deserves only derision. It's insulting toward small towns, large cities, Christians, nonbelievers, men, women, and – most of all – moviegoers of all stripes. He's Just Not That Into You: *1/2 / New in Town: *

LAST CHANCE HARVEY Last Chance Harvey is the sort of insipid romantic comedy that, had it starred a pair of 20-somethings or 30-somethings, would be instantly dismissed by one and all. But because it stars two seasoned performers, it will be championed in some quarters as a sweet look at how older folks can actually – are you ready? – enjoy many of the same things as the young'uns. See them flirt! See them dance! See them fall in love! Truth be told, it's all a bit insulting – a patronizing sop to an underserved movie demographic that doubtless was largely responsible for turning the equally torturous The Bucket List into a box office hit at this time last year. The 71-year-old Dustin Hoffman stars as Harvey Shine, while 49-year-old Emma Thompson plays Kate Walker. He's an American arriving in London for the marriage of his estranged daughter (Liane Balaban); cut from the same cloth as the salesmen from Glengarry Glen Ross, he's a self-absorbed loser who rubs practically everyone the wrong way. She's a Brit whose single status worries her busybody mom (Eileen Atkins) and lands her on blind dates with insensitive doofuses. Rather than "meet cute," the film has them "meet ugly" in an airport bar, and their testy banter easily marks this scene as the movie's best. Unfortunately, the rest is both forced and tired, complete with a music video-style montage, the missed date that threatens to derail the whole relationship, and even the added strain of a nonsensical subplot in which Kate's mum suspects her Polish neighbor of burying bodies in his backyard. While he's at it, maybe he can shovel a few scoops of dirt onto this film's prints as well. *1/2

MARLEY & ME Even given my status as a big dog lover (and whether you take that to mean a big lover of dogs or a lover of big dogs, either interpretation works), the notion of spending two hours watching puppies frolic during the course of Marley & Me seemed like a pretty one-note way to spend a matinee. Welcome, then, to one of the season's most pleasant surprises, as this family film proves to be far more thematically rich than its simplistic trailer reveals. Major-league screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, Get Shorty) and middle-league screenwriter Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex) adapt John Grogan's fact-based novel about his family's pet, a Labrador retriever named Marley. Both journalists, John (Owen Wilson) and wife Jennifer (Jennifer Aniston) agree that Marley is "the world's worst dog," given his penchant for always getting into trouble. But thankfully, the movie doesn't devolve into a series of comic scenes revolving around leg humpings and yard droppings. Instead, as John and Jennifer add some children to the equation, it becomes a clear-eyed look at the difficulties in raising a family, all the more so when there's a lumbering beast driving everyone mad. Ultimately, though, the film makes a point that every dog owner – indeed, every pet owner – long ago took as gospel: A family doesn't begin and end with merely its two-legged members. Alternately sweet, sad and sentimental, Marley & Me represents cinema as dog's best friend. ***

MILK The China Syndrome, Wall Street and even Casablanca are examples of movies that happened to be in the right place at the right time – that is to say, life imitated art (or vice versa) as each picture's release neatly dovetailed with real-life incidents that in one way or another mirrored what was happening on-screen. Milk follows suit: Although it's set in the 1970s, it couldn't possibly be more relevant; for that, we have to blame those hideous anti-gay measures that recently passed in California, Florida, Arkansas and Arizona. Back in the '70s, Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn) fought against similar hysteria: Tired of homosexuals such as himself being treated as second-class citizens, he found himself drawn to political office as a way in which to fight for equality. Eventually elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he continued to grow in stature and influence, a career ascendancy which did not sit well with Dan White (Josh Brolin), the board's most conservative member – and, as it turned out, its most trigger-happy. The Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk offered a flawless look at the career of this passionate progressive, so it's a testament to the richness of Gus Van Sant's direction and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay that this fictionalized version feels authentic in its every movement. As Milk, Penn delivers the performance of his career, and he's backed by a superlative cast containing only one weak link: Diego Luna as Milk's insecure lover, Jack Lira (James Franco fares much better as Harvey's previous lover, Scott Smith). But this is a small misstep in an otherwise excellent production full of passion and purpose. ****

THE READER The Reader, adapted from Bernhard Schlink's bestseller, arrives with all the obvious trappings of a year-end "prestige" picture. But since more time is spent exposing the milky white breasts of Kate Winslet than exposing the horrors of the Holocaust, viewers might be forgiven for thinking they stumbled into a big-budget remake of Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Winslet's Hannah Schmitz is a streetcar conductor in post-WWII Germany who enters into an affair with 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross); as a form of sexual foreplay, she likes him to read to her from the classics. She soon drops out of his life, and it isn't until a few years later, while he's attending college, that she reappears – as a former Nazi guard on trial for the atrocities she allegedly committed during the war. The Reader is a thorny story, and its failing isn't because it elects to answer key questions about its characters in shocking fashion – after all, many great movies are about less-than-admirable figures – but because it waves off these revelations with all the impatience of a restaurant patron shooing away a waiter attempting to remove the soup bowl before it's drained. At first glance, the movie's shifts through time periods (Ralph Fiennes is suitably moody as the older, troubled Michael) keeps us on our toes, but they eventually reveal themselves to be gimmicky to the point of distraction. The picture does head toward a major secret, but I wasn't sure if the answer to this mystery was supposed to provide insight or shift our sympathies or what exactly. All it does is reveal that, despite Winslet's strong performance, Hannah isn't really worthy of our attention – or perhaps even this movie. **1/2

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD This reunites Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and they're both exceptional in this adaptation of Richard Yates' novel. Whether the film itself will satisfy moviegoers expecting to see the pair again in the throes of starry-eyed passion is another matter, since romance is kept at a minimum in this edgy drama, a must-see for adults who don't mind getting their hands dirty on messy emotions. Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty, has made another American beauty, this one a powerful examination of a young couple trying to deal with the plasticity of 1950s suburbia. Set in Connecticut, the story (adapted by Justin Haythe) concerns itself with Frank and April Wheeler, who view themselves as being different from everyone else in their pristine neighborhood. But time spent toiling away within the boundaries of the so-called American dream quickly takes its toll, so in an effort to revitalize their dreams as well as salvage their marriage, April suggests that they move to Paris and start a new life. Flush with excitement, the couple start to make plans, only to find that old routines – no matter how detested – die hard. Those with a willingness for navel-gazing will be receptive to this material far more than those who prefer to keep blinders fully attached, but there's no denying that Mendes and company have created an unsettling piece that gets under the skin. "You jump, I jump," the lovers in Titanic told each other. Here, the two aren't as united, each standing on the brink of uncertainty, peering into the dark abyss of an unknown future, and trying not to tumble into the chilly depths of American ennui. ***1/2

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE I'm not sure how a film in which a small boy gets blinded by someone deliberately pouring hot liquid onto his eyeballs while he's unconscious ends up being hyped as the "feel-good" movie of the year, but that's the story with Slumdog Millionaire. The modern-day sequences find lanky, likable Jamal (Dev Patel) working his way through the questions on India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Jamal has coped with poverty all of his life, and it's his unlikely ascension that has the entire nation rooting for him. But Jamal isn't doing this for money; he's doing it for the love of beautiful Latika (Freida Pinto), who, as we see in ample flashbacks, grew up on the streets alongside Jamal and his hotheaded brother Salim (Madhur Mittal). Initially, the movie's structure is ingenious in how it feeds on incidents from Jamal's past to allow him to get the right answers on the TV game show, in effect suggesting that what's most important in this life is what we learn firsthand. As for the sequences revolving around the characters' rough childhoods, they're refreshingly raw and uncompromising, a cross between Charles Dickens and City of God. It's a shame, then, that director Danny Boyle and scripter Simon Beaufoy toss aside all innovation in order to bind the final half-hour into a straightjacket of rigid formula plotting. The boy-finds-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-tries-to-save-girl angle is flaccid enough, although it's the arc involving bad bro Salim that's especially groan-worthy. Still, three-quarters of a stellar movie is nothing to sneer at, meaning that those who take a chance on Slumdog Millionaire will get their money's worth. ***

THE WRESTLER Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was quite the big deal in the wrestling world back in the 1980s. But now he's long past his glory days: Looking more like a sack of potatoes than a human being, he still manages to secure an occasional bout, but things are so tight that he has to work a second job at the local supermarket. Two decades of hard partying have wiped him out, and if he has any emotional reservoirs to tap, he wants to save them for the two women in his life: a sympathetic stripper (an excellent Marisa Tomei) and his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). On paper, The Wrestler sounds like nothing more than yet another inspirational sports saga – a Rocky reconfigured for the wrestling rather than boxing arena. But Robert Siegel's screenplay fleshes out the basic storylines in unique ways, and director Darren Aronofsky and Rourke add a rich palette to the proceedings, resulting in a movie that's frequently as colorful as it is meaningful. For despite the constant hype about Rourke's tremendous performance, it would be wrong to think that this is simply a one-man show. On the contrary, The Wrestler examines not just one individual's life but also the presence of the sort of hazy nostalgia that keeps our celebrities propped up long after their achievements have given out from under them. Beyond that, it also lines up nicely with my only other four-star pictures of 2008, collectively presenting a portrait of the uncertain, often unhappy America in which we presently reside. If Milk touches on America's prejudices and The Dark Knight examines America's fears, then The Wrestler explores America's regrets, offering a rueful look at society on the fringe. ****