The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right is a thrillingly funny and casually profound film that Lisa Cholodenko directed from a script she wrote with Stuart Blumberg. Near the beginning, a teenage brother and sister talk about whether to make a fateful phone call. They're the suburban California children of lesbian mothers, and the brother has decided to seek out the sperm donor who was instrumental in bringing them into the world...

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse; The Last Airbender

You'd never guess what the best part of the new Twilight saga turns out to be. It isn't blood-sucking monsters doing their thing, though there's some of that to feed the franchise...

Never mind that the little kid flapping his arms to whip up the waves looks like a pouty-faced version of Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, or that The Last Airbender looks no worse if you take off your 3-D glasses...

Knight and Day; Restrepo

Knight & Day is a movie of thunderous comings and goings. The pretext for it all is a little battery that the hero has to keep out of the hands of the bad guys. We're told that the battery is "the first perpetual energy source since the sun..."

Restrepo is a superb documentary by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Jugner. It's about American soldiers in one of Afghanistan's most dangerous areas, the Korengal Valley. The action is worlds away from the centers of power where generals and their presidents are currently struggling to set policy...