Overview: Marine First Lieutenant Michael Scotti and his fellow soldiers, with the help of mini-cams, document the intense, often frightening experience that was their 2003 tour of duty on the front lines of the United States¡¦ Operation Iraqi Freedom. They take us along for the ride to Kuwait, Baghdad, and at last, back to New York City, hardly leaving any detail to the imagination as they go.

Review: Every civilian should see this film. It is raw, and moving, and most of all, unflinchingly honest. The experiences Scotti captures are moments that the national and global media outlets never show or tell the people watching at home. So many times, it seems, civilians take for granted the fact that someone else is overseas fighting to keep them safe. I truly believe that the underlying purpose of the film is to provide the viewer with an intimate look at what these courageous people go through on a daily basis.

Due to the nature of the film, the lighter moments are obviously few and far between, but they do exist„othey have to, in order to balance out the moments that will either make your breath catch or completely dumbfound you. The language is harsh. The soldiers use nearly every word in the book, but you end up forgiving them. The camera work is shoddy in places, mostly during sequences of intense action, which happens often. The intimate segments read from Scotti¡¦s personal journal, letters home, and notes taken down for a book give a sense of personality to the gritty footage or even more shocking still-life photographs that it is all interspersed between.

In the end, 'Severe Clear' can be boiled down to one word: Courage. It took courage for Scotti and his comrades to not only confront, but capture the turmoil they experience. And in some ways, it takes courage to sit down and watch this film. But after an hour and a half, this reviewer can safely say that I have gained a new appreciation for our men and women in uniform, as well as a sense of clarity about the conflict in the Middle East and the severity of war in general, something that no other war picture has been yet been able to provide.

Reviewed by: Ashley J. Trombley

Overview: Director Sylvain White adapts the Vertigo comic about a team of mercenaries who wage war on the CIA after they're double-crossed in the field and left to die. Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Jensen (Chris Evans), Roque (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus Short), and Cougar (Óscar Jaenada) were on a blacks-ops mission in the Bolivian jungle when rogue CIA agent Max (Jason Patric) hung them out to dry. After beating the odds and surviving their ordeal, the team decides to strike back against Max even if it means sacrificing their own lives to do so.

Overview: A single woman opts for artificial insemination after dating for years and failing to find the right guy, only to see the man of her dreams breeze into her life just as she learns she's pregnant. Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) is well aware that her biological clock is ticking, but she just can't find the type of guy she'd want to settle down and start a family with. Eventually, she makes the decision to become a single mother. The very same day that Zoe follows through on her plan, however, she meets Stan (Alex O'Loughlin), a single charmer whom she thinks would make a great father.

Overview: Platinum Dunes revives the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with this reworking of slasher film legend Freddy Krueger, a deceased child killer who torments the dreams of the teenagers of Springwood, OH. Jackie Earle Haley picks up the killer's mantle from series veteran Robert Englund with the reboot from music-video director Samuel Bayer.

Overview: Adapted from Mark Millar's hyper-violent comic book of the same name, director Matthew Vaughn's (Layer Cake) vigilante superhero film tells the tale of an average New York teenager who decides to don a costume and fight crime.

Overview: Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning star in this music-fueled story of the ground-breaking, all girl, teenage rock band of the 1970s: The Runaways.

Verdict: Less a groundbreaker girl band biopic than say, a prequel to the as yet to be conceived if ever Joan Jett story, The Runaways gets the hark rock sound right, but goes soft when tapping into those teen temperaments or taking the musical temperature of the times. Not to mention Jett herself hanging around as executive producer, usually the kiss of death when it comes to objectively fleshing yourself out as protagonist in a movie. Which may explain the wrongheaded, diversionary focus on messed up sidekick Cheri Currie instead.

Dakota Fanning as fragile Currie and Kristen Stewart's pre-punk untamed tomboy Jett are bold, edgy impersonations as they disappear into their respective out of control real life personas, casting their own self-conscious notions of celebrity aside for the duration. But the problem is that the material is pretty thin and verging on afterschool special derivative, and hopelessly paling in comparison. Though it's refreshing to savor Stewart taking time out for a bit from that clinging female unrequited codependent leaning all over male magnet vampires and werewolves, which has been progressively wearing out its welcome.

Overview: This action comedy tells the tale of mild-mannered married couple Phil (Steve Carell) and Claire (Tina Fey) who fear their relationship may be falling into a stale rut. During their weekly date night, they impetuously steal a dinner reservation, which leads to a case of mistaken identity. Turns out the reservation was for a pair of thieves, and now a number of unsavory characters want Phil and Claire killed. If they can survive a wacky life-threatening night, they may just rediscover the passion missing from their marriage.

Verdict: Steve Carell and Tina Fey bring their estimable comic chops to "Date Night," which sadly illustrates the current disparity between television and big-screen comedy. These talented performers star in two of the wittiest, most sophisticated sitcoms on the air, but for this movie pairing they're stuck with an endlessly silly plot line and overblown physical mayhem that is instantly forgettable. The fact that they make it so funny nonetheless is a testament to their abilities.

Overview: The son of a Viking chief must capture a dragon in order to mark his passage into manhood and prove his worthiness to the tribe in directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois' adaptation of Cressida Cowell's popular children's book. Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse provide voices for the DreamWorks Animation production.

Verdict: Who would have thought a fire-breathing monster could be one of the most adorable on-screen critters since Babe? But Toothless, the endearing dragon, possesses the best qualities of a playful pet dog or cat and the sense of adventure of a winged horse. Watching him in action, it's easy to forget he's not exactly cuddly.

How to Train Your Dragon fires on all cylinders. It's a thrilling action-adventure saga with exhilarating 3-D animation, a clever comedy with witty dialogue, a coming-of-age tale with surprising depth and a sweetly poignant tale of friendship between man and animal.

Overview: The 1981 mythological fantasy adventure Clash of the Titans is resurrected in this remake from Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier. The joint Legendary Films/Warner Bros. production focuses on Perseus (Sam Worthington), the mortal hero made to carry out a series of quests by the gods in order to win the hand of the imprisoned princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos).

Verdict: A few more 3-D spectacles like "Clash of the Titans" and audiences will be clamoring for 2-D!

What's wrong with this sad fiasco goes far beyond its visual deficits, but let's start there. The film, a remake of a 1981 action fantasy loosely based on Greek mythology, was shot with conventional cameras, then hastily reprocessed into an approximation of 3-D in the wake of the stunning success of "Avatar." The result is 2.5-D, a murkily virtual virtuality.

You get an ambiguous sense of depth at a steep price that includes, but isn't confined to, the box-office surcharge that the studios have begun to impose on such attractions in a sudden frenzy of delusion and greed.

Overview: Seventeen-year-old Veronica 'Ronnie' Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Tybee Island, Georgia. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father ...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer on Tybee Island with him.

Review: When most people hear others talking about the movie, 'The Last Song', I bet the first thing that comes to their mind is: Hannah Montana. But when you actually take time to watch the movie, you come to realize how much the two are different from each other. Miley has really come out of her shell in this movie, and shows how versatile her talent can be!

For those who haven't heard the plot to the movie, The Last Song- it's basically a story about a selfish/ rebellious teenager who is forced by her divorced parents to live with her father for the summer. Although the story sounds simple, who would have thought Miley Cyrus would be the one to be given a rebellious role given her past acting career.

The story line starts out with a curious church fire, during which the firemen carry out a body. The they fast forward about a year later to the beginning of the summer when Ronnie (Miley Cyrus) and Jonah (Bobby Coleman) Miller pull up to their father's, Steve Miller (Greg Kinnear), beach house. Jonah goes crazy with excitement to see his dad, while Ronnie isn't too happy. At the beginning you think she just didn't want to leave her house in New York for the summer, but later you start to realize her resentment towards her dad for many reasons.

So moving forward, you start wondering why she won't play piano after her father asks her several times to play AND after she received a scholarship to Juliard to be a pianist. Now, I can't give away who she ends up playing for first or why, but I can tell you it's surprising.

Now onto Ronnie's summer romance, Will Blakelee (Liam Hemsworth). Ronnie, being herself, pushed him away everytime Will would flirt with her. But once they found a common "hobbie," they became to get closer and closer to each other. But none of Nicholas Sparks' books can't be complete without the drama. Ronnie and Will get into many fights, the last one ending in Ronnie telling him to leave for good. Will leaves and starts college and I won't tell you if he comes back or not, but once again, it's surprising!

The story line itself has a great flow but a bit cliche with it's characters. There's the drug dealer who abuses his girlfriend, the snotty rich parent who looks down on her child's choice of girlfriend, a bitchy ex-girlfriend who tries to break the new couple up, and a wiser-than-his age younger brother. Although some minor characters should have either been included more or not at all. I expected more drama with people outside the major characters.

I saw good acting skills from Miley Cyrus, even though I still say she stays away from dramas until she matures a little! For the "newbie" Liam Hemsworth, I saw a good chemistry between Miley and him, a great body, and some pretty good acting skills. What I was really surprised about, where the acting skills by Bobby Coleman. He played his character, Jonah Miller, so well; I'm sure this won't be the last we see of him.

Putting all this into consideration, I give 'The Last Song' 3 out of 5 stars.

Overview: Tim Burton takes a stab at Lewis Carroll's timeless tale of a young girl (Mia Wasikowska) lost within a fantasyland with this 3-D production of Alice in Wonderland. The Lion King's Linda Woolverton provides the script, with Hollywood heavyweights Richard Zanuck and Joe Roth heading up the production team. Burton veteran collaborator Johnny Depp co-stars as The Mad Hatter in the Walt Disney Productions picture.

Verdict: Mr. Burton has done his best work with contemporary stories, so it’s curious if not curiouser that he’s turned his sights on another 19th-century tale. Perhaps after slitting all those throats in his adaptation of “Sweeney Todd,” he thought he would chop off a few heads. Whatever his inspiration, he has tackled this new story with his customary mix of torpor and frenzy. After a short glance back at Alice’s childhood and an equally brief look at her present, he sends the 19-year-old on her way, first down the hole and then into a dreamscape — unfortunately tricked out with 3-D that distracts more than it delights — where she meets a grinning cat and a lugubrious caterpillar, among other fantastical creatures.

Overview: Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan team up for the Warner Bros. police buddy movie Cop Out in this Kevin Smith-directed production. From a script by Robb and Mark Cullen, the picture focuses on a detective duo who investigate the disappearance of a baseball card.

Verdict: No, Smith didn't write it, but he might as well have. Because it's a Kevin Smith movie even before it's a Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan movie. And like every other Smith movie ever made, the point is not the stuff happening on screen. The point is Smith selling you his brand, and that brand is his deeply held conviction that the world really is a place where impersonating Oprah's "I loves Harpo" speech from The Color Purple is not only the funniest thing ever, but that it's something guys sitting around smoking weed do when they want to crack each other up.

Overview: Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio team up as a pair of U.S. Marshals who travel to a secluded island off the coast of Massachusetts to search for an escaped mental patient, uncovering a web of deception along the way as they battle the forces of nature and a prison riot in this Martin Scorsese-helmed period picture.

Verdict: Scorsese is a master of his craft, but Shutter Island, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, feels disappointingly like a minor work. But hey, who says every film has to be a masterpiece? Uber film nerd Scorsese seems to be having a blast with this genre exercise, a thrilling blend of noir and psychological horror that comes infused with more references and homages than most audiences will probably notice. And in Scorsese’s trademark fashion, it’s fantastically stylized, chock full of breathtaking visual flourishes and thematic clues that come together like the pieces of a puzzle once everything in its twisted plot is revealed.

Overview: Jane (Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has—after a decade of divorce—an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son’s college graduation, things start to get complicated.

Verdict: Nancy Meyers, director of 1990's What Women Want, appears to have taken that title as her mantra. Everything about her movies falls under the category of wish fulfillment, specifically pertaining to middle-aged women.

She does occasionally deliver up some clever lines, but It's Complicated is vacuous overall, although attractively packaged. Meyers' last films 2006's The Holiday and 2003's Something's Got to Give focus on thriving career women living in gorgeous homes, sans romance. This particular brand of rom-com has become Meyers' stock in trade.

Meryl Streep stars as Jane, a divorced fiftysomething with a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant. She lives in a stunning Mediterranean-style house, has three loving grown children and a circle of caring friends.

Alec Baldwin plays ex-husband Jake, an attorney who zips around in a shiny black Porsche and is married to the much younger Agnes (Lake Bell). We learn that Jake left Jane a decade earlier, but his new union is faltering. Sure, Agnes looks like a supermodel, but she lacks the grace of the charming, wise and nurturing Jane.

As anyone who has seen the billboards or ads knows, the former spouses wind up together between the sheets. Jane is conflicted about their trysts and also is drawn to Adam (Steve Martin), a genial, divorced architect.

Overview: Famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) grapples with epic crises in his personal and professional life. At the same time, he must strike a balance among the demands of the numerous women in his life, including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penélope Cruz), and his confidant (Judi Dench).

Verdict: The man at the center of the universe in Nine, the sun around which a bevy of beautiful women will circle, needs to be irresistible, radiating heat. Unfortunately, Daniel Day-Lewis is more of a cool blue moon in a distant sky type, which has its own charm, just not one that works for this adaptation of the 1982 Broadway sensation, a musical / stage riff on Fellini's classic 8½, which featured a magnetic Marcello Mastroianni as the misdirected director in the middle.

And while we're filling the suggestion box. . . . Because Nine is a musical, it would help if your leading man could sing, and I don't mean carry a tune, but actually flex some vocal muscle. Again, love Daniel Day-Lewis, excellent racing shirtless through the forest, but a song-and-dance man he is not.

So what does that leave Nine with? Well not much.

The galaxy of actresses who should bring some sizzle feel kind of chilly too. Maybe that's the fault of the fishnets and bustiers, which is what the film relies on to keep your attention rather than a story, disappointing since the script was in the hands of Michael Tolkin (The Player) and the late Anthony Minghella (The English Patient.). What makes all these fumbles surprising is that director Rob Marshall knows his way around musical theater, hitting his highest notes with Oscar best picture winner Chicago.

The story here is loosely based on director Federico Fellini's experience. At middle age, the Italian auteur found himself with a bad case of writer's block; while the words wouldn't come, a lot of memories about the women he had bedded did. No surprise, thinking about the women was easier than working on a script, but ultimately the two merged to provide the foundation for 8½, which follows a middle-aged filmmaker with writer's block and many women as he tries to find his way back to the mistress he loves the best, his work.

But what in Fellini's hands became a classic -- its black comedy deconstructing the artistic temperament -- only to survive an initial translation to the stage, now returns home to film as a fiasco.

Overview: New Yorkers Paul (Hugh Grant) and Meryl (Sarah Jessica Parker) Morgan seem to have it all -- except for the fact that their marriage is crumbling around them. But their romantic woes are small compared to the world of trouble they find themselves in after they witness a murder.

Verdict: So here's a question for the Feds, whose famed witness protection program takes care of Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, the couple on the edge of divorce in the (note the use of ironic quote marks) " romantic comedy" Did You Hear About the Morgans? What about the rest of us? We could have used some protection here too.

Grant has never been less charming and Parker never less fashionable or more grating than they are as Paul and Meryl Morgan, a hot-shot Manhattan couple split apart by Paul's one-nighter in L.A. I've got news for them -- infidelity is the least of their problems. What we allegedly have here is both a fish-out-of-water tale and a romantic comedy -- a kind of two-fer from writer-director Marc Lawrence. As to the romance half of the equation, the "Will they get together?" has been changed to "Will they get back together?," which could have been fun. Ah, if wishes were horses!

Speaking of horses, the fish part, which flops miserably, is their time in Ray, Wyo., where just about everyone rides those four-legged critters, drives trucks and carries loaded rifles they fire off a lot. In case Mary Steenburgen's obsession with guns -- she's Emma, the sheriff's plucky wife -- doesn't have you thinking Sarah Palin, there's a truly leaden line that should clear it up.

Paul and Meryl have been whisked to Wyoming because they were the sole witnesses to a murder by a professional hit man who wears a skullcap against the cold, but apparently never considered that a ski mask might have served his client's interests better.

Overview: In a dynamic new portrayal of Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous characters, Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson embark on their latest challenge.

Verdict: Sherlock Holmes has been reimagined with fighting skills as potent as his intellectual acumen. The iconic British detective has undergone a makeover in the latest Sherlock Holmes, with little resemblance to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's literary character. Only his pipe-smoking remains intact.

Holmes as a lethal action hero would seem a natural assignment for a director such as Guy Ritchie (Snatch). And having proven himself a savvy superhero in Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. would seem a wise choice for a character boasting equal parts brawn and brains.

Holmes is an even more slovenly shut-in than he was on the page. His grooming doesn't involve plaid coats or rakish caps. It also doesn't seem to include a razor. But he's an inventor and a guy who definitely pumps iron, in the dark confines of his rented rooms on Baker Street.

As for Dr. Watson (Jude Law), he's no longer a bumbler. He's a marksman, a risk-taker and a romantic gent with a fiance (Kelly Reilly). But Watson's more substantive relationship is with Holmes. Though the production design looks entrancingly authentic, neither Holmes, Watson nor others sound like they live in the 1890s. Worse, the plot is convoluted.

Holmes is on the trail of the lofty Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), whose dastardly deeds involve occult crimes and threaten the future of London. The detective is both hampered and assisted by Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams). There is more chemistry between Downey and Law than between Downey and McAdams. But there is not much point to her role except to show that woman can be action heroes, even in corsets and skirts.

Overview: AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home.

Verdict: With the game-changing, magnificent visual spectacle that is Avatar, writer/director James Cameron can be crowned king of the virtual world. But he still needs to hire a screenwriter. For all the grandeur and technical virtuosity of the mythical 3-D universe Cameron labored for years to perfect, his characters are one-dimensional, rarely saying anything unexpected.

But for much of the movie, that hardly matters. The scenes in Pandora a planet with an Earth-like environment are so breathtaking that the narrative seems almost beside the point. The first sight of this exotic paradise may rival the seminal scene in The Wizard of Oz, when the Technicolor munchkin world first comes into focus. It's a jaw-dropping introduction to the tropical world of blue-skinned, golden-eyed aliens. Their lush jungle home is vibrantly hued, with flora and fauna, fabulous winged creatures, flying spirits that look like wispy sea anemones and floating mountains.

Cameron seamlessly melds live action, computer-generated animation and 3-D technology. The motion-capture technique that dazzled in Lord of the Rings reaches a new level of proficiency, enabling more nuance in facial expressions. But why diminish all this with clunky dialogue?

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a former Marine, now in a wheelchair, recruited to Pandora. Humans are there at the behest of a powerful corporation mining a mineral that could solve the energy crisis on ravaged Earth.

Pandoran air is toxic to Earthlings. So scientists create a program in which human "drivers" are connected to avatars, bodies created in the lab that look like the natives of Pandora, called Na'vi, and can survive in the environment. Human DNA is mixed with Pandoran DNA, and these hybrid beings are sent on reconnaissance.