15 Minutes Or Less, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Another Earth, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, The Devil's Double, Final Destination 5, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, Jaws, The Last Picture Show, Let Me In, Cloverfield, Let Me In, Nine

30 MINUTES OR LESS

Zombieland

director Ruben Fleischer and star Jesse Eisenberg reteam for a comedy about a pizza-delivery guy (Eisenberg) fitted with an explosives-packed vest and forced to rob a bank.

Opens Aug. 12.

ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE

This low-expectations 1994 comedy gave us the ’90s idiot-comedy boom (see also:

There's Something About Mary

) and Jim Carrey (and his talking ass) as the most bankable star in Hollywood for a while there.

ANOTHER EARTH

An ostensible indie mind-blower featuring a bright young student (co-writer Brit Marling), a tragic accident, and, yes, a whole other Earth suddenly appearing.

Opens Aug. 12.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

Steven Spielberg has a rep as an unthreatening family entertainer that even

Saving Private Ryan

and

Schindler's List

—even

Munich

—can’t quite dispel. But look beneath the surface of his early blockbusters and some sick shit stares out. The director followed up

Jaws

with this sweeping 1977 story of human contact with visiting extraterrestrials, a subject given human scale by the transformation of Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) from manboy working schlub into pangalactic chosen one, to the tune of “When You Wish Upon a Star.” One of the more subtle reasons

CETK

is memorable, though, is the utter breakdown Dreyfuss’ character goes through after his first sighting. He scares the crap out of his teary kids and alienates his wife (Terri Garr) before he abandons them with no word of where he’s going or when he’ll be back. That’s messed up, Steve. (Lee Gardner)

THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE

Lee Tamahori (

Once Were Warriors

, various big-budget Hollywood actioners) directs this story of an Iraqi man (Dominic Cooper) recruited to serve as double/decoy for Saddam Hussein’s amok son Uday.

Opens Aug. 12.

FINAL DESTINATION 5

The surprisingly durable series of mousetrap-y teens-cheat-death-but-death-doesn’t-give-up-so-easily thrillers enters its fifth incarnation.

Opens Aug. 12.

GLEE: THE 3D CONCERT MOVIE

The TV show turned concert tour is now a concert film. In 3D, of course.

Opens Aug. 12.

JAWS

Regarded as the first summer blockbuster ever, Steven Spielberg’s

Jaws

set the precedent for releasing huge action films during the hottest season. Unfortunately, today’s summer blockbusters are a far cry from this Academy Award Best Picture nominee. Not to say everything about this movie is smart. You are guaranteed to want to scream at the Amity Island locals to get out of the water, get over the beach being shut down, and stop being sleazy politicians in aggravatingly ugly suits. You almost couldn’t care less that these jerks are going to be a buffet for a marauding great white shark, but you do want to see the trio of male leads take down the beast. The interactions between Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), kooky shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw), and young marine biologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) are the highlight of the film. And when it all comes down to it, isn’t hearing the score’s “dundun, dundun” motif for the shark at theater volume reason enough to see Jaws on a big screen? (Jessica Manzo)

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Journalist-qua-cineaste Peter Bogdanovich really proved himself the movie know-it-all with 1971’s

The Last Picture Show

, a nostalgic-looking and -feeling drama that is unmistakably modern. Part coming-of-age story involving high school football star Duane (Jeff Bridges) and his well-heeled girlfriend Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), part snapshot of the end of an era for a small Texas town,

Picture

gains a nostalgic mood from Robert Surtees’ lovely black-and-white photography, but its storyline (there are more slightly discrete affairs going on here than in soap operas) and cinematic accents (pop music, sex unavoidably lurking beneath almost every male-female relationship) telegraph its larger themes: the closing of the 1950s and the encroaching ’60s. Western vet Ben Johnson delivers a monologue that ranks up there with movies’ best, but

Picture

belongs to Timothy Bottoms as a sensitive high schooler and Cloris Leachman as his older, married lover, two people looking for something else that the town can’t offer and having to settle for each other. Still haunting. (Bret McCabe)

LET ME IN

Cloverfield

director Matt Reeves pulls off the minor miracle of remaking a beloved foreign movie and not screwing it up. Swedish director Thomas Alfredson’s 2008

Let the Right One In

hybridized a vampire story with gritty social realism and a heightened sensitivity to barely pubescent moods. Reeves almost treats the original like a readymade. Elfin 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) lives with his mother in a working-class apartment complex in wintry early-1980s New Mexico, and he often looks like an alien visitor in his own home; at school, a trio of bullies terrorize him any chance they get. One night, Abby (

Kick Ass

’ Chloë Moretz), a girl who looks about Owen’s age, moves into the complex. While she initially informs Owen that they can’t be friends, they slowly form a close bond, one that becomes nearly inseparable as Owen comes to understand just what Abby is: a creature who needs blood to live. Owen realizes he has to choose between human morality and a security that comes with an irrevocable price. And for once, an American remake sticks to its source’s spirit. (Bret McCabe)

NINE

Director Rob Marshall did the near impossible with 2002’s

Chicago

: He turned a Broadway musical into a hit Oscar-winning movie that was actually fun to watch. After a 2005 detour with the stiff

Memoirs of a Geisha

, Marshall returns to Broadway for

Nine

, a musical based on filmmaker Federico Fellini’s mostly autobiographical tour de force

8

. And as he did in

Chicago

, Marshall pulls engaging roles out of actors not exactly known for their musical skills, including Daniel Day-Lewis as beleaguered Italian filmmaker Guido and Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, and Kate Hudson as a few of the women in his life. The movie sizzles during the stylish set pieces (mostly fantasy sequences) featuring half-dressed, gyrating women, but

Nine

doesn’t have quite the razzle-dazzle of

Chicago

. Marshall takes a few more chances here, but the story and songs simply aren’t as good as

Chicago

’s (let alone

8's

). (Michael Gallucci)