Duplicity (2009) **

Fairly enjoyable mix of rom-com and spy genres, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen as two sexy and debonaire ex-spooks trying to steal a secret shampoo formula.

Fish Tank (2009) **

9 (2009) **

Visually impressive animated film about little rag dolls fighting huge mechanical beasts in a post-apocalyptic universe.

He's Just Not That Into You (2009) **

Charming soap opera about dating rites and rituals, marital infidelity and romantic commitment. Great actors (Ginnifer Goodwin is particularly charming) in a sweet, but predictable film.

It's Complicated (2009) **

Intriguing film starring Meryl Streep as a divorcée courted again by her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin).

Under the Sea 3D (2009) **

The beauty of the marine life, in IMAX 3D. Filmed off the coasts of New Guinea and Australia. Narrated by Jim Carrey. Length: 40 minutes.

Invictus (2009) **

True story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) united black and white South Africa by promoting a rugby team. A PC cinema at its best.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) **

A modern adaptation of "A Christmas Carol", about a heartless playboy (Matthew McConaughey) who gets visited by ghosts of his former one-night stands, and realizes that he will end up alone and miserable, unless he allows himself to fall in love. Directed by Mark Waters, the film uneasily combines the witty sophistication of his best works ("The House Of Yes", "Mean Girls") with the saccharine sentimentality of his worst endeavors (like "Just Like Heaven").

(500) Days of Summer (2009) **

An analytical deconstruction of the concepts of love, romantic bliss and breakup. Brilliant narrative structure, but a bit too cerebral for its own good. Zooey Deschanel ("Gigantic") gives a truly luminous performance.

Knowing (2009) **

Ingenious mix of horror and science-fiction, staring Nicholas Cage as an MIT astrophysician who comes across a mysterious piece of paper that predicts the greatest human tragedies. The film has a great concept, many surprises, and a daring ending, but it's dragged down by very clumsy treatement of human relationships. Like all Alex Proyas films ("Dark City", "I Robot"), it works far better on a cinematic level than on a human level.

Brothers (2009) **

Rather predictable drama about an Afghan war veteran returning home to his wife and daughters.

Taken (2009) **

Very effective chase thriller about an ex-CIA operative (Liam Neeson) going after Albanian pimps who have kidnapped his daughter. As Roger Ebert correctly points out, our hero is "a one-man rescue squad, a master of every skill, a laser-eyed, sharpshooting, pursuit-driving, pocket-picking, impersonating, knife-fighting, torturing, karate-fighting killing machine who can cleverly turn over a petrol tank with one pass in his car and strategically ignite it with another (...) It's the set-up for a completely unbelievable action picture where Mills is given the opportunity to use one element of CIA spycraft after another, read his enemies' minds, eavesdrop on their telephones, spy on their meetings and, when necessary, defeat roomfuls of them in armed combat." But what Eberts fails to notice is that the film is also racist like hell, and it takes a neocon like John Podhoretz in the "Weekly Standard" to be outraged that the film's villains "are not just white slavers, not just bad guys, not just slave-keepers. They're Muslims. (...) It's about an American who goes to rescue his innocent daughter, slaughters dozens of evil Muslims in the process, and doesn't give it a second's thought. Taken is a 9/11 revenge fantasy, even if audiences don't quite know it, and its success reveals that even now, more than eight years after the attacks, a somewhat well-wrought version of such a fantasy has the power to seize the American imagination." All this is true, of course, but it must also be pointed out that Taken is a major disappointement because, despite its subject matter, is has no nudes scenes at all. And that's even worse than being "completely unbelievable" and racist.