Om Puri, Manish Dayal, and Helen Mirren in The Hundred-Foot JourneyFriday, August 8, 10 a.m.-ish: I'm at The Hundred-Foot Journey, and five minutes into this lighthearted foodie dramedy, I'm already regretting my decision to only have yogurt for breakfast. With director Lasse Hallström's camera slavering over the creation of steaming, succulent pots and grills of Indian cuisine, all of it enhanced by spices and oils whose aromas are practically wafting off the screen, this is not the movie to see if you're hungry. Considering screenwriter Steven Knight's T-shirt-ready dialogue - which features such pithy bromides as "Life has its own flavor," "We cook to make ghosts," and the grammatically vexing "Food is memories" - it's not really the movie to see if your brain is hungry, either.

Jake Gyllenhaal in PrisonersPRISONERS

Prisoners, which features Jake Gyllenhaal as a feverishly driven detective, is the most exciting and emotional cop thriller we've been treated to since last fall's End of Watch, which Gyllenhaal also starred in. Beyond that, director Denis Villeneuve's effort is probably the most suspenseful, evocative, and disturbing procedural thriller since David Fincher's 2007 Zodiac ... which also boasted Gyllenhaal in a leading role. I'm generally skeptical about the effectiveness of good-luck charms, but if the actor cared to accompany me the next time I buy a lottery ticket, you wouldn't hear me complain.

Richard Ayoade, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill in The WatchTHE WATCH

A buddy and I caught a Friday-morning screening of The Watch along with roughly a dozen others, and before the end credits rolled, only four of us were still in the auditorium. Professional obligations were keeping me at director Akiva Schaffer's comedy and I was my friend's ride, but for the life of me, I can't fathom what prevented those other two patrons from bolting. Lethargy? Politeness? Morbid curiosity?

Kenny Wormald and Miles Teller in FootlooseFOOTLOOSE

It was probably inevitable that Paramount would get around to remaking Footloose, and once it did, the studio probably could've done worse than to hire director Craig Brewer for the job, despite a filmography (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) not exactly bursting with lighthearted confectionary fare. Yet considering that 27 years have passed since Kevin Bacon first screamed, "Let's da-a-a-ance!!!" to a grain mill full of eager young hoofers, shouldn't this new Footloose have been... I dunno... at least a slight improvement on the original?

Natalie Portman in Black SwanBLACK SWAN

In director Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, the first words we hear are uttered by professional ballet dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who tells her mother, "I had the craziest dream last night." And for the next 105 minutes, the movie unfurls like a crazy dream itself - a crazy, fascinating, terrifying, exhilarating dream that you have no desire to wake from. You can label the film a psychological drama, or a hallucinogenic thriller, or an art-house horror flick, and each would be appropriate. But none of those tags really hints at how much delectable fun Black Swan is. As with a dream that you want to return to the moment you wake up, you want to experience the intoxicating, rapturous weirdness of Aronofsky's vision all over again the minute the end credits start to roll.

Step Up 3DSTEP UP 3D

From its opening, outdoor melee, in which we're assaulted by soap bubbles and multi-colored balloons, to its jaw-dropping dance-off finale, which suggests a mass seizure titled Attack of the TRON Clones, Step Up 3D is proudly, even profoundly, ridiculous.

Woody Allen and Elaine May in Small Time CrooksSMALL TIME CROOKS

Woody Allen's latest offering is such a light and enjoyable work that it's bound to be underrated, to be seen as a throwback to the "early, funny" movies that Woody fans hold such a fondness for. And yes, it has some of the go-for-broke spirit that energized movies like Sleeper and Bananas, and some of the same slapstick silliness, too.