Trailers/TV spots

The otherworldly landscape of Iceland lends an appropriate touch of dark fantasy to this modern retelling of Beowulf, the oldest epic poem in the English language. Gerard Butler (The Phantom of the Opera) brings the right balance of physicality and world-weariness as the Swedish hero Beowulf, who travels to Denmark to fight the monstrous troll Grendel (Icelandic superstar Ignvar Sigurdsson), which has been plaguing the house of King Hrothgar (Stellan SkarsgÂrd, buried under a mound of prosthetic hair).

Based on the novel by Sidney Sheldon, this riveting story of love and revenge boasts dazzling portrayals by Marie-France Pisier, John Beck and Susan Sarandan in one of her career-making roles. Although American WWII pilot Larry Douglas (Beck) promises to marry French femme fatale Noelle Page (Pisier), he instead returns Stateside and marries well-to-do Catherine Alexander (Sarandon). And once Noelle takes a Greek multi-millionaire (Raf Vallone) as a lover, she plots to shame Larry by arranging for him to be the tycoon's private pilot.

Girl power (or if you prefer, woman power) gets a goofy boost in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, a breezy rom-com that's as fun as it is forgettable. As devised by former Simpsons writer Don Payne and directed by comedy veteran Ivan (Ghostbusters) Reitman, the premise is certainly promising, and much of that promise is gamely fulfilled.

There's no mistaking the 1968 mood of Play Dirty: this cynical war movie could only have been made during the disillusioned Vietnam era, despite its WWII subject. Michael Caine plays a British captain in North Africa, tapped to lead a suicidal mission across the desert to destroy a German fuel depot. He's got a scurvy band of mercenaries to help him (this was a year after The Dirty Dozen, so keep that in mind), although most of the time they seem indifferent to both the job and Caine's survival.

Bend It Like Beckham is true girl power. This glorious comedy centers on Jess (Parminder Nagra), an Indian girl born in England whose only desire is to become a football--or, as we say on this side of the Atlantic, soccer--star like her idol, David Beckham; but her traditional family refuses to even consider it. With the help of her new friend Juliet (Keira Knightley), Jess secretly joins a girls' team under the guidance of a male coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). As the team starts to gain some attention, Jess's secret can't be kept forever.

A solid and entertaining biopic, Walk the Line works less as a movie than an actors' showcase for its stars. Joaquin Phoenix's total immersion into the skin of singer Johnny Cash is startling--watching it, you can't believe this is the same guy who whined about being "vexed" in Gladiator. As he evolves from a farm boy to gospel croonin' plunker to the Man in Black, Phoenix disappears into Cash's deep baritone, his way of slinging the guitar onto his back, and his hunched-up style of strumming.

Big Night is an intimate look at the immigrant struggle to attain the American Dream, set in New Jersey in the 1950s. Tucci wrote Big Night with his cousin Joseph Tropiano, and they based the story on the experience of growing up in a large, proud Italian family. The brothers in Big Night--chef Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and businessman Secondo (Tucci)--have come to New Jersey to open a bistro named The Paradise that serves the finest in traditional, authentic Italian cuisine.

This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello's mind.

Snakes on a Plane knows exactly what kind of movie it is, knows exactly what moviegoers expect from a title like Snakes on a Plane, and delivers the exact pleasures of a movie in which poisonous snakes are unleashed on a plane to kill an eyewitness to murder. Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, The Long Kiss Goodnight) knows exactly what he's doing in this movie and knows exactly when to pull out the superbad Samuel L. Jackson stare and deliver the infuriated Samuel L. Jackson bellow.

Luscious cinematography and even more luscious stars make Tristan & Isolde a feast for the eyes. Adapted from the medieval love story, the movie begins with with young Tristan (played as a child by Thomas Sangster, Love Actually) as he sees his parents killed by the tyrannical Irish, who ruled over a fractured Britain after the Roman occupation.