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by THE INLANDER & r & & r & APPALOOSA & r & & r & The Robert B. Parker book that celebrates loyalty and friendship -- and dangerous good guys versus despicable bad guys -- in the Old West was directed by and stars Ed Harris as a lawman for hire who comes to the town of Appaloosa with his trusty deputy (Viggo Mortensen) to deal with the nasty yet classy villain (Jeremy Irons) who believes he owns everyone and everything there. There's also a love interest (Ren & eacute;e Zellweger), but the guys are more interesting. (ES) Rated R





BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA


Not much more to be gleaned from the trailer than cute lap dogs singing truly horrible songs. (LB) Rated G





BODY OF LIES


A senior CIA strategist (Russell Crowe) and a Middle East operative (Leonardo Dicaprio) are hunting down an Osama Bin Laden wannabe, and it's all good, from the perspective of entertainment: The film is clever and subtle and demands that you pay attention, and rewards you. But there are some scary think-bombs here about how terror is theater, a kind of performance on the world stage that both sides are playing on. (MJ) Rated R





CHANGELING


Clint Eastwood delivers a great study of people in distress. In late-1920s L.A., a single mom's son vanishes, and inept police insist that a different boy that they found halfway across the country is hers. Angelina Jolie gives a powerful performance as the distressed mom, while Jeffrey Donovan is terrifically cold as the police captain trying to avoid even more tarnish on the department. The film's intensity grows when it's revealed that a serial killer (of young boys) may be on the loose. Oscar nominations are in the film's future. (ES) Rated R





THE DUCHESS


Georgiana Spencer, the 18th-century Duchess of Devonshire (Keira Knightley), was a hard-drinking, politically outspoken pop hero and fashion plate of her day. But there was trouble in the bedroom, as her husband (Ralph Fiennes), who wanted her around only to produce an heir, had a live-in mistress. An intriguing premise, but the lush-looking film is underwritten and overacted, and not one of these sad, wealthy, woe-begotten people is worth giving a hoot about. (ES) Rated PG-13





EAGLE EYE


Using cell phones and GPS and whatever, some mean old lady is tracking Shia LeBeouf and Michelle Monaghan's every move! It's so creepy! And they're, like, being framed as terrorists, so now the entire country is chasing after them! They're trying so hard to be like Hitchcock and, you know, win Oscars! Which they won't. (MB) Rated PG-13





FIREPROOF


Working as a firefighter, Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron) is a hero. Although he regularly rescues people from burning buildings, his marriage is going down the drain. Cameron's character is about to give up and leave his wife when his father sends him on a "Love Dare." (TLM) Rated PG





THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY


Combine the more well-trod, fetishistic aspects of The Exorcist, Doctor Faustus, The Ring, Carrie and Catholic school uniforms, and you have The Haunting of Molly Hartley. A girl's mom offers her soul to the devil, to be turned over on her 18th birthday. In an attempt to escape that fate, Molly and her pa move to a new town and enroll her in an episode of Gossip Girl meets 90210 meets 10 Things I Hate About You. High school drama and demon possession ensue. (LB) Rated PG-13





HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR


Featuring TEN NEW SONGS, the final -- barring unforeseen transcript drama -- installment of the High School Musical franchise features... well, Zac, Ashley, Corbin, Vanessa and everyone else dancing and fighting and, you know, loving in unison. (LB) Rated PG





MAX PAYNE


You know videogame adaptations are hitting their stride when a studio is able to book Mark Wahlberg in the title role of a noir shooter about a cop who comes home from his beat to find his wife and daughter murdered. An odd twist is that the film seems to have Max fighting demons, something the videogame never tackled. Fanboys are pissed about the rating undermining the ultraviolence of the game. (LB) Rated PG-13





NIGHTS IN RODANTHE


Diane Lane is at odds with her husband, so she agrees to escape by spending a weekend house-sitting a friend's inn on the coast of North Carolina. And wouldn't you know it? In walks... Richard Gere. (Ladies, you should be so lucky.) He's tormented, of course, by personal problems of his own. Is that romance we can smell in the salty sea air? (MB) Rated PG-13





PRIDE AND GLORY


Director Gavin O'Connor, the son of an NYPD officer, has captured a down-to-earth honesty in this corruption-in-the-NYPD drama, not just in how it treats the world of its setting but in how it treats its audience. And it's a wonderful cinematic pleasure to see two of Generation X's finest actors square off against each other onscreen: Edward Norton's conflicted cop is a coolly intelligent foil to Colin Farrell's explosive one. (MJ) Rated R





ROCKnROLLA


Exactly what you want it to be, if you loved Guy Ritchie's Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels for their exuberant cartoon aggression and winking, wicked wit. You might call this a crime comedy of manners, what with all the criminals you can barely distinguish from legitimate businessmen. Being a villain ain't what it used to be: Now, it's a respectable living. It's our world -- Ritchie's just playing in it. (MJ) Rated R





SAW V


Jigsaw is dead. Maybe. Or not. His traps definitely live on however. Meagan Goode is the quasi-B-list actress they got for the fifth but probably not final installment in a series that's increasingly written like a tetanus-phobe's foray into Soap Operas. Picket Fences' Costas Mandylor reprises his roll as Hoffman. (LB) Rated R





THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES


Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning star in the film about a family of African-American sisters with a bee farm in the '60s who help an orphaned white girl with nowhere else to turn. Then the white neighbors catch wind. (LB) Rated PG-13





W.


Surely this is the greatest satire of the American presidency ever. It's like Being There, but more terrifying: Instead of a gentle idiot becoming president, it's an incurious, perpetually adolescent idiot. Surely this would be a horror story if it were true. "George W. Bush" -- a vivid yet intentionally appalling creation of Josh Brolin, director Oliver Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser -- is a shocking, swaggering caricature, but an endlessly amusing one. (MJ) Rated PG-13





ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO


Kevin Smith's newest comedy has gobs of nudity -- male and female -- and more cursing than your average Scorsese film. Still, it's a sweet, funny and raunchy tale of two broke roommates and pals (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) who decide to make a porno -- starring themselves, even though they've never kissed -- for some quick bucks. Did I mention it's raunchy? (ES) Rated R