Caitlin McKenna Movies

Infection director Masayuki Ochiai takes the helm for this remake of the 2004 horror hit from Thailand concerning a photographer and his girlfriend who are involved in a tragic auto accident, and subsequently begin to notice ghostly figures in the backgrounds of their pictures. Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor star in this supernatural frightener. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An American news crew travels to one of the most remote locations on the planet in hopes of capturing the savage serial killer rumored to have claimed over 300 lives in this white-knuckle horror-thriller starring Dominic Purcell and Orlando Jones, and based on actual events. As the intrepid documentarians cautiously make their way upriver, they soon find that the brutality inflicted on man by his own kind pales in comparison to the relentless viciousness of mother nature's most resilient predator. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Russell Crowe plays a desperado whose accomplices stage an ambush after he is taken into custody by a determined local sheriff in this remake of the 1957 film starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. James Mangold directs a script based on the Elmore Leonard short story and penned by Stuart Beattie, Michael Brandt, and Derek Haas. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An FBI agent whose partner and family were killed by a notorious assassin sets out for revenge as the elusive triggerman sparks a sprawling gang war between the triads and the yakuza in the feature debut from prolific music video director Phillip Atwell. FBI sgent Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) is a man driven by vengeance. After his partner, Tom Lone (Terry Chen), and his family fell to bullets fired by infamous hitman Rogue (Jet Li), Crawford makes it his life mission to ferret out the slippery killer. Complications arise when it begins to appear as if Rogue has a mission of his own to carry out, and as triad boss Chang (John Lone) prepares for all-out war against yakuza boss Shiro (Ryo Ishibashi), Crawford and Rogue also come face to face as the secrets of the past emerge in a hail of gunfire. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The glorious Hollywood institution of the romantic comedy gets raked over the coals in this broad parody of any number of boy-meets-girl flicks. Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan) is a young woman who wants nothing more than to find the man of her dreams and settle down. However, Julia has a rather serious weight problem that prevents her from making a positive impression on people. Determined to find love at all costs, Julia somehow drops the weight and meets Grant Fonckyerdoder (Adam Campbell), a handsome and charming Englishman who falls head over heels for her. Julia and Grant waste no time in setting the date, but until they make their way to the altar they have to deal with meddling parents, flaky wedding planners, fights over the right wedding dress, vertically challenged romantic advisors, and Andy (Sophie Monk), a longtime friend of Grant, who isn't so happy to hear he's getting hitched. Also featuring Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Eddie Griffin, and Tony Cox, Date Movie was written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, proudly billed as "two of the six writers of Scary Movie." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When a pair of ultra-competitive clerks at a discount super store discovers that a beautiful, newly-transferred cashier has a reputation for only dating employees who have won the coveted Employee of the Month award, their desperate efforts to earn the title and get the girl lead to a hilarious war of one-upmanship in this winner-takes-all comedy starring Dane Cook, Jessica Simpson, and Dax Shepard. Zack Bradley (Cook) and Vince Downey (Shepard) have been working at the cavernous Super Club for ten years and counting, but while the ambitious Vince has advanced to the position of head cashier and landed 17 consecutive "E of M" awards, laid-back Zack is content to simply sit back and enjoy the company of his fellow box boys. Longtime rivals whose conflicting attitudes as to what constitutes success has led to more than a few conflicts, Vince and Zack find their bitter battle for Super Club supremacy coming to a head when attractive new employee Amy (Simpson) transfers over from another store. When word quickly spreads that Amy only has eyes for the cream of the crop, slacker Zack attempts to clean up his act and break free from his box boy roots while uptight Vince tries to impress by maintaining his top dog position and keep cool in the face of competition. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

When the spirit of Christmas compels a small-town New Englander to decorate his home with enough lights to make it visible from space, much more is set to be decked than just the halls in this holiday comedy featuring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick as two warring neighbors determined to outdo each other in creating the best lighting display on the planet. Christmas is without question the most wonderful time of the year for Cloverdale, MA optometrist Steve Finch (Broderick). Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Steve's wife, Kelly (Kristin Davis), and the pair's two children, Madison (Alia Shawkat) and Carter (Dylan Blue). Despite Steve's annual holiday zeal, the rest of the Carters have grown to resent the seemingly endless family rituals leading up the Winterfest carnival over which their terminally cheerful patriarch presides. Though it seems that nothing in the world could dampen the spirits of the local "King of Christmas," Steve soon finds his royal status challenged when used-car salesman Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) moves in next door and covers his house with enough festive lights to make it visible from the deepest crater of the moon. His Yuletide thunder effectively stolen, Steve resorts to desperate measures in regaining his crown when Buddy's lavish decorations make him a local celebrity, his wife strikes up a warm friendship with the neighbor's outspoken better half, Tia (Kristin Chenoweth), and even the kids seem to warm to the car salesman's air-headed twin daughters, Ashley and Emily (Sabrina and Kelly Aldridge). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

James Mangold's Walk the Line tells the life story of country music legend Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix), focusing primarily on the long courtship he had with June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). The film is structured as an extended flashback opening with Cash readying to take the stage at his historic Folsom Prison Concert. The film touches on his childhood, relating a horrific early incident from his life and establishing the troubled relationship he would have with his father (Robert Patrick). Cash joins the military and leaves home. During his time in the armed services he begins writing songs and romances a hometown girl (Ginnifer Goodwin). After the end of his duty he settles down and attempts to begin a music career, but his wife has trouble adjusting to his dreams. Cash auditions for Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts), signs to Sun Records, and soon finds himself on tour with a roster of young soon to be legends that includes Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy Payne). On this tour he meets June Carter, the daughter of the famous Carter family, and they take a liking to each other although she refuses any serious advances from him. Cash gains world wide fame thanks in part to the inspiration he gets from June, but eventually his marriage crumbles and he develops a serious drug addiction. The film is based on Cash's autobiographies. Phoenix and Witherspoon performed all of their own singing in the movie, just as Sissy Spacek and Beverly D'Angelo did in Coal Miner's Daughter a quarter-century before. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A handful of heroes become superheroes under unlikely circumstances in this action drama adapted from the long-running Marvel comic book series. Four astronauts are on a mission aboard a new experimental spacecraft when they are unexpectedly exposed to a massive dose of gamma rays. The accident causes strange and unexpected transformations in all four. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), top scientist and leader of the mission, can now stretch his body like elastic and is dubbed Mr. Fantastic. His partner and sweetheart, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), develops the ability to become invisible at will, and becomes known as The Invisible Girl. Her younger brother, Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), is renamed The Human Torch for his new talent of being able to summon up fire from his body when he chooses. And Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), pilot for the journey, mutates into a monstrous creature with super-human strength and muscles like stone, known as The Thing. Together, the travelers become known as the Fantastic Four, and they set out to use their unusual skills to fight crime, quickly gaining a nemesis in another altered hero who uses his talents for evil, Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon). A long-gestating project that had been talked about by a number of filmmakers since the early '90s, Fantastic Four was previously the basis for a pair of animated television serials, and was made into a feature film in 1994 by producer Roger Corman, though that film was never officially released. (Fantastic Four creator Stan Lee has said the 1994 film was made only so that the producers could hold on to the rights to the characters, and that it was never intended to be distributed to the public.) ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

H.G. Bissinger's best-selling true-life account of a few months in the life of a high-school football team comes to the screen in this adaptation written and directed by Peter Berg. Odessa, TX, is an oil town in the western part of the state that's home to the Permian High School Panthers, the football team with the best winning record in the state. Odessa is a town with more than its share of problems; the decline of the oil business in Texas has set the city's economy into a tailspin, and racial tensions still erupt into violence on occasion. But football is the one thing that brings all the people of Odessa together, and on Friday nights every fall, as many as 20,000 people fill Permian's football stadium to watch Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) and his boys try to lead the team to victory. As Gaines works to build a winning team in a town where victory is prized above all else, however, his players struggle through the emotional trials common to any teenager and ponder the fact that there is little future in their hometown...and that a championship season can be as much a burden as a triumph. Friday Night Lights also stars Lucas Black, Derek Luke, Jay Hernandez, and country singer-turned-actor Tim McGraw. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Five years after achieving commercial and critical success with his film Three Kings, director and screenwriter David O. Russell returns to the more idiosyncratic territory of his earlier work with this intelligent and offbeat comedy. Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) are a married couple who run an existential detective agency where they sift through the lives of their clients in order to discover the source of their angst. The Jaffes' latest client is Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), an environmental activist who has a very large rock and a great deal on his mind; their study of Albert's problems lead Bernard and Vivian to Brad Stand (Jude Law), a public relations executive with a chain of successful variety stores, Huckabees. While publicly allying himself with Albert's environmental initiatives, behind the scenes Brad is running roughshod over responsible land management with little care for the consequences. When Brad learns he's being watched by the Jaffes, he hopes to co-opt them by hiring them himself; however, the plan has unexpected consequences when their questioning leads Brad's girlfriend, well-scrubbed model Dawn (Naomi Watts), into reassessing her life and relationships. Meanwhile, Albert finds himself joining forces with Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), a firefighter and fellow environmentalist who has been having second thoughts about Bernard and Vivian's ideas and methods after a long-term investigation and has since fallen under the spell of nihilist poet and philosopher Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Edward Zwick returned to the director's chair for the first time since 1998's The Siege with this sweeping period drama set in 19th-century Japan. After centuries of relying on hired samurai for national defense, the Japanese monarchy has decided to do away with the warriors in favor of a more contemporary military. Tom Cruise stars as Nathan Algren, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who is hired by the Emperor Meiji to train an army capable of wiping out the samurai. But when Algren is captured by the samurai and taught about their history and way of life, he finds himself conflicted over who he should be fighting alongside. Billy Connelly, Tony Goldwyn, and Ken Watanabe co-star. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The directorial debut of Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington, Antwone Fisher is an autobiographical drama written by the real-life Antwone Fisher. Played by newcomer Derek Luke, Antwone is a volatile young sailor in the Navy, getting into trouble for his constant fighting. When he gets appointed to see naval psychiatrist Dr. Jerome Davenport (Denzel Washington), he begins to reveal the emotional problems behind his rage. Through an introduction to anger management, Antwone is able to confront some secrets of his past and eventually search out his family for a confrontation. Also starring model-turned-actress Joy Bryant as Antwone's girlfriend, Cheryl, and Salli Richardson as Davenport's wife. Antwone Fisher's memoir, Finding Fish, was released to book stores right before the film's theatrical release. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide