In the landscape of Hollywood comedy, there are basically two Adam Sandlers. The more recognizable one is the winsome, moronic, little boy in a man's body who always get the girl, the money, and the love of the populace by the end of the film (e.g. Billy Madison; The Waterboy). The other is the petulant, moronic, perpetually horny, teenaged boy in a man's body who always gets the girl, the money, and the love of the populace by the end of the film (e.g. You Don't Mess with Zohan; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry).

Sandler, like Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, has tried to expand his repertoire, brilliantly so in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, but his core audience of halfwits, priapic adolescents, and Jewish pot smokers who rightfully adore his "Chanukah Song" have not embraced his more cerebral efforts.

It would certainly be nice to be able to say Bryan Singer's take on the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on Die Führer is eye-popping excitement. It certainly would. But even with the glass orb the film's star, Tom Cruise, keeps installing and then detaching from his socket, the most I can rev up is eye-popping dreariness.

The main problem here is that everyone knows the ending before the film begins. Hitler survives the hit job only to commit suicide during the final hours of World War II. So how do you make the actions of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) and his buddies gripping?

Fame has never been a reliable mistress. It drives many to the point of destruction in their quest to achieve it, is sometimes bestowed on those who do not wish for nor deserve it, and may arrive long after death if it bothers to show at all. Forty years after his death at the age of 59, and nearly a century since his birth, the English comedian Freddie Frinton epitomizes fame as an after-thought in the after-life. That it rests on eleven flickering minutes of black and white footage, undercuts Warhol's fifteen minutes of the stuff by four. Those eleven minutes are called Dinner for One.

The world of BIG time wrestling is an enigmatic creature, part circus, part serious athletic prowess. A trainwreck waiting to happen. It places muscled freaks on display to satisfy the primal urges of their adorning fans, no less a spectacle than preening and prancing rock and rollers adoring stadium stages all over the land. Instead of windmill arm swings and high kicks, we get elbow smashes and body slams. It is this world that Mickey Rourke so convincingly inhabits in director Darren Aronofsky's riveting and raw feature The Wrestler that he has already been shortlisted for many year-end acting awards. To watch this hulking actor -- he put on 30 pounds of muscle and performed all of his wrestling moves and stunts -- is a truly exhilarating ride.

He plays the lonely Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a former '80s star champion whose time is just about up as he looks for glory in the ring one last time.

Nothing Like the Holidays is a generic Christmas offering that would not feel out of place on the Lifetime Network. Nonetheless, this little indie should be cheered on because it has one pequeño difference.

The dysfunctional heroes here, who will be transformed by the spirit of Santa before the end credits roll, are Hispanic, and the accomplished, mostly Latino cast apparently had a blast playing Spanish-speaking Americans who are not under immediate suspicion of sneaking over the border during the night. That the action takes place in Humboldt Park, Chicago, should even put Lou Dobbs at ease.

Quantum of Solace, the latest installment in the James Bond saga, the second starring Daniel Craig, has to carry a lot of water. It has to tie up many loose ends left over from 2006's Casino Royale, a tangled web of betrayals, psychic scars, explosions, and what appeared to be the better part of Venice foundering like the Titanic. It had to keep the new, edgier Bond going strong and speaking to a world where adult super-hero movies (including actual dark adult comic book heroes) are competing with MI6's finest (something Sir Sean Connery never had to face). Most importantly, it had to clear the decks so that a fresh, new Bond film can take place after this one. Maybe they'll resurrect Thunderball?

"Of all religions," Voltaire noted, "Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”

Playwright John Patrick Stanley, best known for his screenplay Moonstruck, would possibly soften that quote to "some Christians have been among the most intolerant." Doubt, his screen adaptation of his critically acclaimed, Pulitzer-Prize-winning Broadway show, tells of an intolerant nun with a vendetta against a priest who doesn't embrace the certainty of faith with the same unyielding hold she does.

The Other Israel Film Festival

Just as the vision of the Statue of Liberty once sent electrical shocks of joy through immigrants eying the emerald lady for the very first time, Zabar’s now exhilarates lox lovers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

This unrivaled, landmark deli, with its hypnotic selection of cheeses, bagels, imported coffees, caviar, olive oil, blenders, and potholders, not unexpectedly has a queen. And as queens are wont to do, this feisty czarina of the rugelach has projects of her own that reside outside of her expected realm.

Some movies unfurl slowly. The characters draw you in and then gradually reveal themselves, allowing the audience to see, feel, and breathe their world through their point of view, regardless of how ugly or boring it may be. The indie movie Eden (Liberation Entertainment) is one such movie.

Irish director Declan Recks expertly adapts writer Eugene O'Brien's award-winning play about a marriage teetering on the brink of extinction while exposing the tedium and underlying staleness that many couples experience after growing too comfortable with each other.

Carnival of Souls
Directed by Herk Harvey (Criterion DVD)

A small 1962 gem in crisp, clear monochrome Carnival of Souls is a noir masterpiece, a symphony in flickering greys. Deserving a finer reputation than the B Movie tag normally suggests, it is creepy and campy without ever plumbing the depths the genre implies. This low-budget exercise in masterful editing is completely stolen by the glacial remoteness of the central character, played with wide-eyed distraction by the Lee Strasberg-trained Candace Hilligoss. If ever Hitchcock missed out on a blonde, it is she. A cross between Janet Leigh and Candy Darling, she moves through the movie with supreme elegance.

It appears no one exactly knows how many Americans designate themselves as Muslims. Estimates found on the Internet run from 1.1 million to over 10 million.

But one statistic is certain. If asked, nearly 99.99% of the U.S. population would not be able to name one American Muslim comic. Allah Made Me Funny, an affable new concert film compiling the standup routines of three engaging Muslim comedians, hopes to rectify this dire situation.

The story of real people interacting with ghosts is a movie-making staple, from Ghost to Here Comes Mr. Jordan to Heaven Can Wait to Truly, Madly, Deeply to, most powerfully, It's a Wonderful Life. Since movies allow us, the viewer, to assume point of view of the main character, we get to see the ghosts too, often when nobody else on screen does. When done right, it's a uniquely sweet, yet powerful kind of fantasy that the movies do very, very well.

Ghost Town, the new movie written and directed by David Koepp, joins this company in fine style.

Humbert Humbert once notoriously reasoned that "[b]etween the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as 'nymphets.' "

Yes, the innocent have become temptresses. The victims villainesses. And this is the fate of prepubescent Lewellen (Dakota Fanning), a "white trash" Lolita in Deborah Kampmeier's semi-autobiographical ode to guiltlessness lost, Hounddog.

Cops. They're everywhere. All over my city. All over my TV set. On prime time, all over cable, syndicated reruns, at the movies. Good ones. Bad ones. Even the occasional psycho. There's the CSI franchise, the Law & Order franchise, reality cop shows, forensic shows, psychic detectives, even pet detectives. Makes a person wonder if we are truly in last days of a civilized society and whether the creative suits greenlighting this programming are so cynical about our society that they truly believe that criminals are running the asylum. I'm indifferent to most of it, save for my Tuesday night fix of FX's The Shield.

To be perfectly blunt, Ping Pong Playa is third-rate crap. Unfunny crap. Unnecessary crap. This little entertainment is also unintentionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic, poorly acted, and shapeless. Unquestionably, if P.P.P.'s director had been a white man, he would now be receiving more opprobrium than Griffith for Birth of a Nation, the film that single-handedly revived the K.K.K.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

For the avid Thompson aficionado, Gonzo will be more of a belated memorial service providing the occasional unseen photo or unheard tale. However, if you’ve only had a taste of The Good Doctor and want to get a sampling of the full range of flavors he has to offer, then this film is a great way to satisfy that strange urge.

Disclaimer: I have not seen The Dark Knight. I have not read any reviews of The Dark Knight, not even the one here on Culture Catch. (Sorry, Brandon.) I heard about it from one friend, who said he liked it, but was more interested in describing the big fight that took place in the row behind him at the Loew's theater over saving a seat. But, since it's impossible getting tickets, I'm not letting that stop me from reviewing this major motion picture release.

The Dark Knight, the latest installment in the Batman saga, starts not with the expected bang, but with an eerie whimper.

Back in 1975, in a much discussed New Yorker profile, Pauline Kael noted Cary Grant's cinematic style could be labeled "pre-Freudian, pre-psychological acting-as-entertaining." She added that the star "was cast as Cary Grant, and he gave a performance as Cary Grant. It was his one creation."

If you accept that judgment, then Heath Ledger is (or was) Grant's antithesis, which certainly does not make his films any better. While it would nearly be impossible to limit yourself to picking five Grant favorites (e.g. North by Northwest; Bringing Up Baby; His Gal Friday; Arsenic and Old Lace; Notorious), it's rather demanding to even come up with five above-par Ledger titles.

Pixar's animated movies remain the benchmark for the movie galaxy. Their latest blockbuster, WALL-E, shatters all notions of how a movie can be rated "G" and still retain dignity and adult themes that resonate for everyone; in this case, how love can conquer fear and how "corporatization" is ruining our quality of life. Just the opposite of what most naive people really believe. When was the last time -- There Will Be Blood aside -- a movie featured no dialog for the first twenty minutes. Kudos to the meticulous direction of Andrew Stanton, who previously directed Finding Nemo, for keeping our eyes riveted to the screen.

If only America made cars like Hollywood makes movies. We'd have a 600 mpg Hummer that goes 300 miles per hour, runs on solar power, is guaranteed to get you laid, but is also the ultimate family vehicle using completely recycled, Birkenstock-like materials. In other words, a Frankenstein monster: all the icing, just the good parts.

That is how Get Smart feels. There are snappy lines. Zany scenes. The requisite gross-outs. Pratfalls. Thrills. Bond-worthy action sequences. Even a tear in the eye or two.

Not unlike the instantly recognizable Woody-Allen archetype--say Alvy Singer in Annie Hall--in The Wackness, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is a secular New York Jew who has trouble getting laid and his best friend is his psychiatrist. Where the leads' personas diverge from a neurotic commonality is that Luke prefers computers games to Marshall McLuhan, and The Notorious B.I.G. to George Gershwin.

Additionally, unlike Allen's phobic characters and their more metaphysical struggles ("How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?"), Luke’s greatest quandary is whether he's the most popular of the unpopular kids at school or the least popular of the popular ones.

Although also directed by Sidney Lumet about a robbery gone terribly awry, Dog Day Afternoon (1975) this isn’t. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, from Think Films, is a brilliant, harrowing, and emotionally charged crime drama about two desperate brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as Andy and Hank respectively) who decide to rob their parents’ jewelry store, with tragic consequences. Everything that can possibly go wrong does, and just when the viewer thinks that circumstances can’t get any more dismal or left-of-center, they do.

Factory Girl
Directed by George Hickenlooper (Weinstein Co. DVD)

The court of the silver-haired pied piper of the Factory has proved a substantial source of inspiration for movie-makers, through which Andy Warhol and his dubious darlings are reaping far more than his promised fifteen minutes of fame. Valerie Solanas and her SCUM gun, Basquiat and his designer dreads, Capote and his mewling mannerisms, and the long-promised story of the divinely beautiful Candy Darling are perfect examples of the lingering allure of trash and tragedy. It is no surprise that the latest trawl through the silver memories of the largely departed Warhol cavalcade is Factory Girl.

"The Hollywood war movies were propaganda for our side, and put us in the comfortable position of identifying with the heroic anti-Nazis," New Yorker critic Pauline Kael noted when reviewing The Sorrow and the Pity.

But if every film has a paladin of sorts, with whom can we connect in Errol Morris's latest documentary, Standard Operating Procedure, an unrelenting scrutinization of the Abu Ghraib horrors?

They're a calling card, a vanity project, a graduate thesis, and a way to burn through the money of friends and family (not to mention your credit cards). And sometimes, they're great art. They're short films, and when they're done right, just like short stories, they are a breed apart. I've always mourned the fact that movies aren't preceded by short subjects any more. In our increasingly attention-span-challenged world, shorts would seem to be a great fit. And who needs to see 25 minutes of coming attractions?

How much politically incorrect, defecation-filled, blood-laced, bare-bosomed, anus-violating imbecility can one movie musical contain? Director Lloyd Kaufman, the director of Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead and the man behind Troma Entertainment, has proven there are clearly no limits.

Certainly, this will be no surprise to any of the fans of Mr. Kaufman and his Troma ventures. The creative force behind such cult classics as The Toxic Avenger series, Class of Nuke 'Em High, and Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD has clearly proven over the years that he can take on any liberal concern (e.g. nuclear waste) and KABOWEE!

Razor Blade Smile (Manga Video)

“I bet you think you know all about vampires. Believe me you know fuck all!” purrs the divinely named Lilith Silver in perversely sophisticated English tones at the start of this wonderfully funny, outrageously stagy, British horror flick. Brilliantly portrayed by Eileen Daly, like Diamanda Galas possessed by the mischievous spirit of Fenella Fielding, she vamps and camps her character's bloody way through this low-budget masterpiece, sweeping along like Marilyn Manson in shades auditioning for the lead in The Matrix.

The Museum of Modern Art is home to two theaters programmed by some of the finest curators in the business. And if you ever get to chat them up at a cocktail party or at a MENSA meeting, you'll find them as charming as they are erudite, especially the celebrated Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film.

This, by the way, is the perfect time to kvell over Mr. Kardish, who organized, in cooperation with Telefilm Canada, last week's celebration of the celluloid side of our northern neighbor, Canadian Front, 2008. Eight feature films were screened spotlighting the best and more innovative talent of that rather huge country.

I, like many of my peers, have a profound fondness for Dr. Seuss. His classic books taught us, and most of our children, not only how to read, but how to rhyme and dream in color. So I was more than skeptical about how Hollywood could expand, yet again -- think of the marginalized live action flicks The Grinch and The Cat in The Hat -- a sliver of a book into 90 minutes of family entertainment. I'm happy to report that Horton Hears A Who! is a joyous romp of a movie, one that the good Doctor would probably even approve. Using all of the computer-heavy advantages of the unlimited animation budget at 20th Century Fox, the folks who brought us the Ice Age franchise now present us with a world most Baby Boomers and Xers know very well.