The Warrior’s Way

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The Story: A swordsman must flee to the Wild West from his former clan in the far East when he refuses to kill an infant, who just so happens to be the last of his clan's sworn enemies. The Lowdown: An incredibly stylized, fanciful take on the action film that's pure moviemaking.

Faster

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The Story: An ex-con sets out for revenge against the people responsible for murdering his brother. The Lowdown: A humorless take on exploitation revivalism (à la Tarantino or Rodriguez) that's simply not fun -- or consistently stylish -- enough to work.

Cool It

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The Story: A documentary examining alternatives to the popularly held solutions to global warming. The Lowdown: A worthy -- though one-sided -- voice in the global-warming debate. Your enjoyment of the film will depend on how much the topic interests you to begin with.

Skyline

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The Story: A group of vapid twentysomethings are terrorized by alien invasion on a massive scale. The Lowdown: The poor man's Micheal Bay: A movie with a small budget mixed with dumbed-down ideas from every popular sci-fi film from the last decade or so.

The Tillman Story

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The Story: The tale of Pat Tillman, a former NFL player killed by friendly fire in Iraq and his family's struggle to keep the U.S. military from turning his death into a PR campaign. The Lowdown: A documentary that's unlikely to open any eyes, but does take a different approach to criticizing our government's involvement…

Buried

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The Story: An American truck driver in Iraq is buried alive and held for ransom. The Lowdown: An interesting gimmick and a vague political message aren't enough to make up for the film's shoddy plot and lack of suspense.

Like Dandelion Dust

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The Story: A recently released ex-con and his wife must battle an affluent couple for the rights to the son they gave up for adoption. The Lowdown: Vaguely treacly, morally shaky and wrought with the worst kind of heart-tugging melodrama, the film is too overly earnest and predictable to be effective.

Chain Letter

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The Story: A group of teens are terrorized by a muscle-bound madman who murders those who don't forward his chain letters. The Lowdown: A hackneyed, incoherent attempt at horror that takes everything awful about the last decade of horror films and squeezes it all into 90 minutes of bad movie.

The Town

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The Story: A Boston bank robber must deal with pressure from the law, his loyalties to his family and friends, and romantic entanglements with a former hostage. The Lowdown: A slick, taut, solid crime thriller, with a bit of heart and intelligence thrown in, as well.

Being the Diablo

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote about how perplexed he was that anyone would choose movie-making over writing. He pointed out that where writing is a completely self-contained venture inside the head of the author, filmmaking is a time consuming act that's not only horribly complex and involved, but really, really expensive. But maybe the idea that […]

Machete

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The Story: A former Mexican federale gets tied into a violent plot to knock off a racist Texas senator. The Lowdown: An absurdly violent, over-the-top action movie that manages to be both topical and fun, making for the best pure action movie of the year.