Right from its world premiere in September at the Venice Film Festival, the world's critics were gunning for Madonna's W.E., a uniquely different telling of the story of the famous affair of England's King Edward VIII and American socialite Wallis Simpson, the woman he loved and for whom he abdicated the throne. Opinions improved at the Toronto Film Festival, but following that screening Madonna went back into the editing room and tweaked. The result is an odd, very personal film that the pop star-turned-director has made with tender loving care, but the results of the final final film are mixed.

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Inspiring, real and heartwarming, Big Miracle is something of a miracle itself—a family film everyone in the family can love that doesn't talk down to its audience and makes more salient political points than Free Willy or Dolphin Tale. It's the true story of the attempted rescue in 1988 of three whales trapped beneath the ice in Barrow, Alaska, an effort that brought an international community—continually at odds with each other—temporarily together for the purpose of freeing these magnificent creatures. Box office may not be a huge splash, but word of mouth should be good for this whale of a tale that could drive decent business throughout February due to a dearth of good fare for kids and their restless parents.

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A down-on-his-luck London lawyer is sent to a remote village to wrap up a widow's estate. What he discovers is a town grappling with dark and supernatural secrets. A credible suspense story with a surprisingly bold ending, The Woman In Black is a solid step away from Harry Potter for star Daniel Radcliffe—while it, too, is British and fantastical, the tone is sinister, adult and bleak. While it won't likely do franchise numbers, Woman should play well enough to the grab-your-seatmate date-night crowds.

As soon as he arrives, everyone in the town seems to want Radcliffe's character on the next train out as soon as possible.

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This movie will not find an audience. It's got likable stars, a reliable commercial genre and a decent supporting cast, but nobody will turn out to see it, even if it was a labor of love.

But then, you've heard it before: Life isn't fair.

It isn't fair that Rashida Jones doesn't get to be Jennifer Aniston, queen of the contemporary romantic comedy. Jones is attractive and likeable, and as an actress, she's got range in the same way Karen Allen used to be able to play it funny, sexy and serious all at the same time. And like Allen, whom Jones somewhat resembles, Jones has sharp but retractable edges, which as far as the demands of contemporary romcom go means she's overqualified for all the big parts.

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High school dweeb Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) has a dying mother (Bo Peterson) and an abusive, alcoholic dad (Michael Kelly). His cooler cousin Matt Garrety (Alex Russell) tries to get Andrew to embrace the usual high school social activities of partying and drinking, but Andrew prefers to hide behind his video camera. At a rave, popular Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan)—a friend of Matt's also serving the part succinctly dubbed "token black guy" in Not Another Teen Movie—asks Andrew to take his camera and join them underground, where a barely-seen crystal glowing thing gives them bleeding noses and telekinesis.

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The Words is a movie for people who buy their novels at Starbucks, made by people who write their novels at Starbucks. Oh, sorry, make that "screenplays," which is a pivotal distinction, since screenwriters mostly dream about writing their novels at Starbucks—you know, "one day." Or, as in the cases of co-screenwriter/co-director team Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, they dream about what it might be like to be a novelist, and in this case get it all wrong.

An appealing cast, top flight technical aspects, and a storyline that agrees with its intended audience's prejudices about the creative process could turn The Words into a minor hit. But as the major statements on art and life it yearns to be, chalk this one up as a failure.

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More than twenty years after helming Belle Epoque, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, director Fernando Trueba finds his work on the Oscar short list again with Chico & Rita, his first animated feature. Trueba and co-helmers Tono Errando and Javier Mariscal have created a visually sensual and aurally unimpeachable ride through various post-war musical forms, most importantly Cuban jazz. The blistering tunes and unique animation compensate for the rather unconvincing central love story that works best as a Forrest Gump-ian device to highlight some legendary real-life musicians.

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