Will Ferrell in Semi-ProSEMI-PRO

In the '70s-era sports comedy Semi-Pro, Will Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit-wonder pop star who becomes the owner of the American Basketball Association's Flint Tropics, a struggling Michigan team for which he also serves as coach, promoter, and star player. And forgive me for asking, but shouldn't any one of these five roles have been enough for Will Ferrell?

Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Owen Wilson in The Darjeeling LimitedTHE DARJEELING LIMITED

Regarding Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room right away: Watching Owen Wilson play a damaged, bandaged dreamer who recently survived a suicide attempt and masks his sadness with optimism and good cheer is almost painfully poignant, and at times, more than a little tough to watch. Happily, though, you can easily imagine being just as moved by him without awareness of the actor's off-screen troubles.

Ryan Gosling in Half NelsonI consider myself an Academy Awards completist: Prior to the annual Oscar telecast, I want to see as many of the nominated films as I can. But I'm also a lazy completist - I want to see these movies so long as I don't have to drive really far. (This is why, to my disappointment and discredit, I'll be watching Sunday's telecast without having viewed Little Children, Venus, and The Good German.)

Thank goodness, then, for DVD.

Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen in DerailedDERAILED

There's nothing all that wrong with director Mikael Hafstrom's thriller Derailed, until, that is, it turns into a thriller. Chicagoan Charles Schine (Clive Owen) is a harried family man with a wife (Melissa George) and a young, diabetic daughter. While commuting to work one morning, he meets a stranger on the train: the beguiling, flirtatious - and similarly married - Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston). Over the course of a few days, the two enjoy snappy conversation, meet for drinks, and eventually find themselves a hotel. But before their affair can be consummated, LaRoche (Vincent Cassel), a scruffy-looking nightmare with a gun and a thick French accent, breaks into their room, takes their wallets, beats Charles within an inch of his life, and rapes Lucinda. Then everything goes to hell, both for the characters and, unfortunately, for the movie.

Gilbert Gottfried in The AristocratsTHE ARISTOCRATS

For those who don't yet know, The Aristocrats is a literal one-joke movie. In Paul Provenza's documentary, nearly a hundred comedians re-tell an old vaudeville gag about a group of performers whose act consists of them performing the filthiest, most repellant stage atrocities imaginable - some immoral, most illegal, all unimaginable (or so it would seem). The performers' stage moniker? The Aristocrats.

Leonardo DiCaprio in The AviatorTHE AVIATOR

Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, which covers two decades in the life of entrepreneur Howard Hughes, is a skillful, beautifully designed bio-pic, engaging and occasionally thrilling, and, despite a two-and-three-quarter-hour running time, it's remarkably easy to sit through.

HulkHULK

There are scenes of sublime directorial craftsmanship and exquisite beauty in the latest Ang Lee film, which should surprise no one familiar with Lee's oeuvre but might shock the masses lining up to see a Summer Blockbuster entitled Hulk.

Henry Cavill, Dagmara Dominczyk, James Caviezel, and Luis Guzman in The Count of Monte CristoTHE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

The best reason to see the latest remake of The Count of Monte Cristo is the source material. You can easily shrug off the movie's unimaginative staging, corny laugh lines, and obtrusive score for the chance to enjoy an opulently designed adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' audience-grabbing tale; it's the sort of story that was once called "a ripping good yarn."

Gosford ParkGOSFORD PARK

In Robert Altman's Gosford Park, set in 1932 England, a group of well-to-do guests is invited to a country estate for a shooting party, with their numerous servants in tow, and find their weekend disrupted by the murder of their host.