100 minutes

In theaters December 18, 2009

Rating: PG, Drama

To the Victoria go the spoils. Or at least the throne.

She was England's youngest and oldest queen, her reign lasting from 1837, when she was 18, for 63 years, until her death at 81 in 1901.

133 minutes

In theaters December 11, 2009

Rating: PG-13, Drama

Nelson Mandela emerged from prison during the collapse of apartheid in South Africa and then became the President -- the first black president -- of South Africa in 1994 as a powerful political icon and the symbol of the nation's present and future.

The national rugby team, the Springboks, on the other hand, was a symbol of the troubled nation's past. As the face of rugby for white South Africa and the embodiment of its white-supremacist rule, the team was not exactly embraced by blacks, to say the least.

113 minutes

In theaters December 11, 2009

Rating: PG-13, Drama

The Me in Me and Orson Welles takes a back seat to the Him.

Him being Welles, that is, the temperamantal artiste whom we get a glimpse of through the eyes of a young admirer who gets to work near, with, and for him.

95 minutes

In theaters December 11, 2009

Rating: G, Animated musical

As if further proof were needed that we live in the Golden Age of Animation, along comes The Princess and the Frog.

Instant classic.

109 minutes

In theaters December 4, 2009

Rating: R, Comedy

Where Up in the Air is concerned, there's nothing to be up in the air about: this one soars.

Movies don't come much more timely and topical than this marvelous seriocomedy about corporate downsizing. The familiar economic anxiety of our current recession era is an umbilical component, the film's signature emotion, and it fits like a cinematic glove.

110 minutes

In theaters December 4, 2009

Rating:R. Drama

Brothers tweaks the proverb: all's unfair in love and war.

Brothers is a domestic melodrama based on a 2004 Danish film (Brodre) about two siblings, the wife of one of them, and the emotional toll of warfare both on soldiers and on loved ones on the home front.

100 minutes

In theaters December 4, 2009

Rating: PG-13, Comedy-drama

Everybody's Fine falls short of dandy, but it is fine-ish in an agreeable, audience-accessible way.

This lightly comedic melodrama is a remake of a 1990 film (Stanno Tutti Bene) by Italian director Guiseppe Tornatore that starred Marcello Mastroianni.

88 minutes

In theaters November 25, 2009

Rating: PG, Comedy

Guess they couldn't teach Old Dogs any new tricks. Because they're nowhere to be found in this fecklessly formulaic buddy romp. And even its old tricks stink up the joint.

Old Dogs (originally titled Old Dads), a very broadly written and acted comedy about reluctant fatherhood, is the kind of movie that gives movies a bad name. It seems manufactured by machine, thrown together without thought or plan, and constructed cynically for an undiscriminating audience.

87 minutes

In theaters November 25, 2009

Rating: PG, Animated comedy

Here's a throwback that neither you nor your children will want to throw back: it's Fantastic Mr. Fox and it's for those proverbial "kids of all ages."

Wes Anderson's got another offbeat antihero for us. And this one's even more animated than usual: he's a fox who would be fun to watch even if all he were were sly. But he's also wry, spry, and dry. My, my.

121 minutes

In theaters November 25, 2009

Rating: R, Thriller

The elusive line that separates bad from mad has always held fascination for director Werner Herzog, as it has for actor Nicolas Cage.

Now they get to walk that line together.