But it will not be possible to ignore *Hotel Rwanda,* a mostly true tale of survival and courage– nay, of basic human decency amidst the carnage so terrible as to be inconceivable. That sounds like a stale cliche, ‘the inspiring story of a man who blah blah blah while the world blah blah blah.’ But there’s no soppy melodrama in this gut-wrenching film, no attempt to excuse or mollify the human tendency — however normal, however much a sanity-retaining mechanism it may be — to see a million deaths as merely a statistic.

As you might expect, a movie ostentatiously labeled “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s” anything isn’t going to stray too far from its theatrical source. And so, unsurprisingly, if you love the Broadway extravaganza with the crashing chandelier and the flaming gaslamps and the overpriced souvenir T-shirts and the snowglobes with the Phantom’s white mask sitting on fake black velvet, you’ll love *Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera.* For it is indeed a cheesy snowglobe of a movie, pretty and tinkly, with tinny windup music. This is a movie that raccoons will steal to weave into their nests, it’s that ooh-ahh sparkly-shiny.

For bored, stifled East German teens in the 1970s, Red Army Faction terrorists on the other side of the Berlin Wall became heroes to be cheered, much to the consternation of their good-communist elders. Inspired by an infamous RAF kidnapping of a high-profile industrialist, high-schoolers Anna (Susanne Bormann) and Marcus (Fabian Busch) hatch a plan … more…

It’s this: *The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou* is like a Bugs Bunny cartoon for grownups. Okay, yes, Bugs Bunny cartoons were for grownups anyway, but I mean like *really* for grownups, no pretending, no kidding, a giddy lark that’s hilarious in a snort-milk-out-your-nose kind of way and yet weirdly, unexpectedly poignant too.

The world has been awaiting the definitive Hanukkah comedy, and after taking a look at *The Hebrew Hammer,* I can reveal: The world is still waiting.

If Tim Burton made a Harry Potter movie, it might look something like this gothic wedding cake of a flick, all evil curlicues and black lace, gray skies and itchy taffeta, notorious villains and innocent orphans. Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) is at his misanthropic peak as Count Olaf, the hilariously vain … more…