The cornerstone of Half-Blood Prince is familiarity. We see more of Hogwarts than we have before. We see more of Dumbledore than we have before. Most importantly, we see more of Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who’d been merely tagging along in the last few films. Even newcomer Jim Broadbent as new professor Horace Slughorn feels like an old friend. Even though there’s no Dursley family, no Voldemort (except in flashbacks when he was Tom Riddle) and no one gives any points to Gryffindor, it’s Hogwarts and the trio of Ron, Hermione and Harry that make a Potter film a Potter film.

It’s through this foundation of familiarity that Half-Blood Prince points the series in a new direction. There were hints of romance back in The Goblet of Fire, but Half-Blood Prince hits the rom-com wall at 100 miles per hour. Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry and Bonnie Wright’s Ginny Weasley finally hook up, but it’s Ron and Hermione that really steal the show. Grint is absolutely electrifying first as the big man on campus after the big quidditch match, then as an over-sexed (or over-snogged) love fool, and finally at peace with his true love. Just when it seems that Watson is too one sided as a love-lorn crybaby, Ron calls out for Hermione and she melts your heart with a smile that’s simultaneously relief, joy and embarrassment. Gold.

The whole second act is devoted to the romances and I know what you’re thinking. A Harry Potter romance sounds terrible. It works, though, because it is treated with sweetness, innocence and is uproariously funny.

Of course there are thrills, and chills as you’d expect. The special effects, cinematography and soundtrack by Nicholas Hooper are world class.

As the film reaches its somber conclusion, no surprise to those who’ve read the books, or had it spoiled (thank you very much Lolcats!) there is a truly tear-jerking moment as all of Hogwarts comes together. The film then hints that in the next two films (Deathly Hallows cut in two for the benefit of cinema goers’ bladders) our heroic trio will leave the familiar behind. If that’s true it was nice to have one last Hogwarts hurrah.

Zohan is almost two hours of pure stereotype, punctuated by incomprehensible special effects and a story discombobulated not by comedy, but by confusion. The most offensive part part is that it’s not funny.

The usual suspects are here, Sandler, Rob Schneider John Turturro and Dennis Dugan in the director’s chair, but the innocence is gone. Sandler’s earlier characters were childlike, in their simplicity. Zohan is very adult in his sexuality and his profession. Even his misguided desire to become an American hairdresser is rooted in some unresolved daddy issues. These characteristics are never utilized, and the all-star writing trio of Sandler, Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow don’t send him on any arc. He is the same lame-brained Zohan at the end of the film that he was at the beginning.

Zohan is supposed to be a bad-ass Israeli counter-terrorism agent, but the special effects used in his fighting style are so goofy and unrealistic he evokes no fear, or laughs. The Israeli-Palestinian yowl that Sandler and Turturro use to save the day might be the most ridiculous, out of left field moment in cinema history.

The film can’t decide what it wants to be. Is it about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? A fish out of water story? A love story? There’s too much going on and none of it is connected or gets resolved.

And the stereotypes. There are a few middle-eastern actors, but the big roles are Sandler and his friends in “brown-face,” eating hummus by the gallon-full. Adam Sandler is Jewish but he is not Isreali. Watching white Americans poke offensive fun at a culture they’re not a part of is uneasy at best. This isn’t Borat, it wouldn’t be funny even if it wasn’t offensive, and that makes the stereotypes even worse.

Food, Inc. ties today’s industrial food complex to fast food, specifically McDonald’s. Because fast food is the largest purchaser for most producers, the film makes the case that the entire food system has been transformed from the family farm, to industrial food processing in order to conform to fast food’s demands for cheap, fast, uniform food.

Each of the four or five mega-producers featured in the film declined to be interviewed. One wonders how they’re P.R. representatives could possibly think they’d make themselves look worse than director Robert Kenner’s graphics, overlayed on top of cryptic industrial imagery.

Organic farmer Joel Salatin is an absolute bright spot. His intelligence and insight (delivered while slaughtering and cleaning chickens!) defies his cover-all and straw hat visage. I would watch an entire movie about him and his grass fed, all natural livestock family.

The thing that drags Food, Inc. down is its lack of any new information. Most of the film’s intended audience will already be food conscious, and will no doubt have read Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In fact the authors of those books are major players in the movie. Food, Inc. seems like a regurgitation, a greatest hits of the healthy food movement.

Neither as scathing as Sicko or as dire as An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc. borrows heavily from both to make it’s point. But, there is a real sense of optimism. Despite the power and influence of the food companies, the film puts the onus of change on the consumer. Kenner equates a food purchase with a vote and gives the people the power of change. Even Wal-Mart is portrayed as willing to change, but only if it is at the behest of the paying consumer.

Without the star power of Al Gore or Michael Moore, Food, Inc. probably won’t have as much of an impact as their high profile recent documentaries, and that’s a shame.

For a moment, it seems that Wolverine will tackle the issue.  Young Logan (Hugh Jackman) and his brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber) are immortal warriors who fight in the Civil War, World War I, World War II and Viet Nam.  The military takes advantage of their mutant abilities, but when they are blamed for war crimes, the military “executes” them by firing squad.  When they don’t die, the mysterious agent Stryker (Danny Huston) shows up and enlists them in a secret unit filled with other mutants.  This is a universe that can’t decide if mutants are good or bad, open or hidden.  The inconsistencies are glaring.

The story takes us from place-to-place and person-to-person but never gets anywhere.  Logan gets a girlfriend who’s as good as dead, and befriends an elderly couple who are sniped within minutes of their first appearance.  Some other mutants show up, like Gambit and Cyclops but are really nothing more than eye candy.

The special effects are sub-par at best.  If you are making a movie called Wolverine, spend some time and effort on the lead character’s distinguishing feature.  Jackman’s CGI claw-blades have an odd, two-dimentional, cartoony feel.  Some outdoor scenes filmed on sound stages seemed like a Rambo sequel, low-budget and fake.  Most of the action, like the helicopter scene from the trailer, is laughably cheesy.

The most interesting part of the movie is past by after the first five minutes.  If you’re going to make a movie with two hundred year old characters, why gloss over the first two centuries?  We land somewhere after Nam and focus on Wolverine’s adamantium plating and revenge quest against Victor and Stryker.  The origin story is rendered absolutely, completely and totally moot when Wolverine loses his memory.  So the Wolverine we see in the other X-Men movies has no memory of anything that happened in the prequel?  Who is he, C-3PO?

Wolverine answers no questions leftover from the X-Men trilogy, and adds nothing to the Jackman character.  It is simply an excuse to blow up some helicopters and show Hugh Jackman with his shirt off.

I had some reservations going in.  First, the ticket price.  Twenty dollars is a lot, even compared to today’s high prices.  However, AMC does compensate you with a ten dollar food voucher.

Second, I thought the waitstaff would be distracting for people trying to watch the movie.  But you’re far enough away from your neighbor, a few feet, and you don’t notice them.  The aisles are wide enough for the staff to walk by without really being in your way.  Plus this makes it easy to get out and go to the bathroom without doing the “excuse me” dance.

Make sure you don’t go out to eat before the film, because Cinema Suites has a full menu, including potables, appitizers, burgers, fries, chicken, salads and desert.  Of course, standard theater food, popcorn and candy, can be had, at inflated prices.  The food is decent, about what you’d expect from an Applebee’s or a Chili’s.  The prices are reasonable, and the voucher helps.  I spent less, after the voucher, for meals for my wife and I, than we would have spent just for popcorn and sodas at a regular theater.

The movie watching experience is enhanced beyond just dinner and a comfy chair.  The theater I was in had a capacity of 64 people.  Despite the small capacity, the screen is hugenormous.  The sound big, and crisp, without distortion, and the seats even rumble when the action gets hot and heavy.

So for less than you’d spend for dinner and a movie at a nice restaurant and a regular theater, enjoy a unique experience downtown, and see the future of the cinema going experience.

Trekkers will complain that Trek is not socially conscious.  That the ship is wrong.  That Spock loving Uhura is just plain creepy.  They will have many complaints.  They will be right.  This is not Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek.  And this is not a bad thing.

Star Trek’s philosophy, its moral vision of a united humanity exploring the universe uplifts and inspires.  But it makes for uninteresting movies.  Trek has always suffered from inferior effects and has a low-budget reputation.  This was fine on television, but big-screen Trek has almost always disappointed.  Abrams’s reboot changes everything, in more ways than one.

Recast with 20 somethings, the new film acts as half prequel, half remake.  We are living in an altered universe, so the inevitable sequels will not have to conform to any canon or continuity.  The new cast flawlessly embodies the essence of each of their counterparts.

Chris Pine’s Kirk is young and brash.  He quickly becomes the leader of the rag-tag group of cadets.  Zachary Quinto is a logical choice for Spock, but he plays the role with much more conflict between his human side and his Vulcan side than Leonard Nimoy did, especially in the early days.  Karl Urban channels DeForrest Kelley’s drawl as Bones, but this McCoy is ancillary, less than the third of the Bones-Kirk-Spock trichotomy.  Uhura takes the larger role here, and Zoe Saldana is apt.  John Cho and Anton Yelchin embody Sulu and Checkov.  Simon Pegg can be too over-the-top as Scotty.

I mention each of the actors, because we will be seing them for years to come.  Collectively, they are what make this new Trek film such a joy.  Sure there’s lots of fun, and Eric Bana seeps pure vengeance as Nero, but the plot is not the point here.  The new cast is.  With Abrams’s help, they have refreshed a nearly-dead franchise, and given us the best Trek in a generation.

So damn the Trekkers’ complaints.  Star Trek soars.

Spirit of the Beehive is a supremely beautiful film.  Victor Erice fills the screen with the bleak and ancient Spanish countryside.  The little town we inhabit is ravaged by the war we never see.  The fields are dusty and the buildings crumble.  The color is muted, bleached, depressing.

Ana carries the movie.  Ana Torrent’s performance was superlative.  Acting performance isn’t usually considered when discussing narrative structure, but her character is integral to the film.  Without this stunning performance, Spirit of the Beehive is nothing more than a collection of stunning visuals.  Instead, we get to see the bleached out, war-torn town through the eyes of a young, innocent child.

Ana was probably a bit to young to see Frankenstein.  She didn’t understand it.  When her big sister lied to her about Frankenstein’s monster being real, she believes it.  This leads us to the old barn where Ana meets a wounded soldier.  He is apparently on the run.  He hides out in the barn.  Ana meets him there, and they share a moment.  He is killed that night in a firefight.

There are only a handful of locations in the film;  The house, the school, the theater, the old barn.  This creates repetition and familiarity with our surroundings.  We get to know the town.  By the end of the film, I felt like I lived there.  I knew their house, Milagros, and the rest of the town too.

The beekeeper’s poem is a humanist call to action.  The bees have no time for the sick, no time for the weary, no time for the dead.  This disgusts humans who see it.  This has to be an allegory for Francisco Franco’s fascist regime, which took power after the Spanish Civil War.  What I struggled with, is how Ana’s character related to this, if this is what the movie was supposed to be about.

Disney touted the film as the story of three animan “families.”  A quartet of polar bears, a pair of elephans, and two humpback whales.  The three families are there, but they make up only a portion of the film.  There are dozens of other animals highlighted, as well as trees, plants, forests and water.  Water plays a big role in Earth, as big as it plays on earth.  There are waterfalls, seasonal floods, and ocean.

The families are a way to dramatise the film, to keep the kids interested.  The animals are “named” (mom, dad, kids).  This is a cheap ploy to humanise the animals to kids.  It would work save for one glaring question.  I was never sure if the animals were the same.  Once, the elephants, lost on the long, dry trail to water, magically find their way back to the herd.  I had to question if the elephants we now called “mom and baby” were the same as the ones before.

Occasionally, Earth can get preachy, and all-together righteous.  James Earl Jones (Patrick Stewart voices the international version) lets us know that global warming is melting the polar bears’ hunting platforms.  This is information we could all use.  But when he says the Earth is the only planet we know of that can support life, his emphasis is on the only part, not the that we know of part.  I sensed a bit of dogma in his inflection.  This is something DisneyNature will be best suited to leave from their future releases.

Earth is one of the most visually stunning works I have ever had the pleasure to view on the big screen.  I did not get to see the film in IMAX presentation, but even on a regular projector, the movie was absolutely epic.  At just over 90 minutes, you feel like you were there all year, following the animals, and living their years with them.