Capsule reviews of films currently playing at area theaters by Elkhart Truth movie columnist Ben Ford (BF), the Associated Press (AP) and the Los Angeles Times (LAT).

All About Steve: It's bad enough that Sandra Bullock has found a way to star in not one but two flat romantic comedies this summer, between "The Proposal" in June and now this. Bullock's character, Mary, is a goofy, clingy, hyperactive chatterbox who bores people everywhere she goes with her arcane bits of trivia and long-winded anecdotes. She lives at home with her parents and needs to be fixed up on a blind date to have even a remote chance at intimate contact with a man. When she finally meets handsome cable-news cameraman Steve (Bradley Cooper, all blue eyes and blinding teeth), she immediately throws herself at him. Then she misinterprets a comment he makes in the frenzy of scurrying away from her as an invitation to join him on the road covering breaking news, and ends up stalking him across the country. There is nothing about Mary that's even vaguely appealing, but the feature debut from director Phil Traill makes it obvious we're meant to find her weirdness endearing. (AP) One star

Capitalism: A Love Story: How do you make a movie about the country's current economic crisis and actually get people to see it? Two obstacles most obviously arise: illustrating such a potentially dry subject in a compelling way, and persuading audiences to pay money for information they can get at home -- and feel depressed about -- for free. Having Michael Moore as our guide certainly helps. Twenty years after he took on General Motors with his powerful debut "Roger & Me," the proud provocateur is taking aim at the same sorts of targets with his latest documentary. It's vintage Moore, reflecting both the filmmaker's fondness for manipulation and his strengths as a showman. As he did with "Sicko" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," he typically oversimplifies a complicated topic to make it accessible for the broadest possible audience, but he also tells moving stories of specific families who've lost their homes to foreclosure. (AP) Three stars

Chop Shop: Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, N.Y., in writer-director Ramin Bahrani's 2008 drama. "Chop Shop" exudes a sense of joyousness amid harshness. Bahrani celebrates those who never give up, no matter how badly their dreams are shattered. Saturday only at Notre Dame's Browning Cinema. Bahrani is scheduled to attend the screening. (LAT)

Fame: This "reinvention" of the 1980 high school musical -- please, people, don't call it a remake -- stays faithful to the spirit and structure of Alan Parker's original while sucking out all the raciness. There's no nudity in the new "Fame," no one gets an abortion. No one even lights a single cigarette. But at the same time, dancer and choreographer Kevin Tancharoen, making his feature directing debut, doesn't turn "Fame" into the kind of slick, overly edited eye candy you might expect. It's stylized, yes, and it moves really fluidly while still maintaining some urban grittiness. And in a world where people aspire for instant recognition by making idiots of themselves on reality TV, there's something sort of quaint about the idea of working hard for artistic glory. Starting with Debbie Allen's famous "You got big dreams, you want fame" speech over the opening titles, "Fame" follows a group of aspiring singers, dancers, actors and musicians from their auditions for New York's High School of Performing Arts until their graduation four years later. (AP) Two and a half stars

The Final Destination: It doesn't take 3-D trickery to see everything coming at you from a mile away in the silly and predictable fourth installment in the lucrative thriller series about pretty young people attempting to cheat death. Director David R. Ellis and writer Eric Bress, who previously collaborated on "Final Destination 2," unimaginatively rehash the earlier films' basic premise: Someone foresees a gruesome group death that may or may not play out in reality if the order of the originally envisioned victims can be disrupted. Though this latest entry has an OK sense of humor, moves swiftly enough and sports an effective opening sequence of racetrack destruction that puts its Fusion 3-D technology to good use, it mostly comes off as a particularly flimsy excuse to string together a bunch of gory killings. (LAT)

Goodbye Solo: An old man and a cab driver from Senegal forge an unlikely friendship in Winston-Salem, N.C., in this drama from director Ramin Bahrani. "Goodbye Solo," co-written by Bahareh Azimi and Bahrani, who recently won a Guggenheim fellowship, explores the provocative issues this relationship raises. Carefully directed and convincingly acted, it looks into the importance of families, both the ones we make and the ones we are born into. It also ruminates powerfully on what the obligations of friendship and fellow feeling finally are, positing that what you are obligated to do may not be anything like what you imagine. This film's unsettling conclusions will likely haunt you long after other, slicker films have faded from view. Friday only at Notre Dame's Browning Cinema. (LAT)

The Hangover: Three groomsmen must find the groom after a hangover-inducing bachelor party in Las Vegas and get him back to L.A. in time for his wedding. Amid all the debris of "The Hangover," and it is considerable -- the tooth, the Taser, the tiger, the puke, the police, the stripper, the shots and so very much more -- there is a sort of perverse brilliance or brilliant perverseness to be found in this story of a bachelor party gone terribly wrong. Director Todd Phillips and the screenwriting team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have created a heart-of-darkness comedy running naked and wild through the streets. A comedy that is hysterically and embarrassingly black, "The Hangover" nevertheless is filled with moments as softhearted as they are crude, as forgiving as unforgivable. (LAT)

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: There's more action and cuddly creatures for kids to love in "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" than in the animated franchise's first two installments. For their parents, it's more of the same, a "Yawn of the Dinosaurs" adventure with some new faces and places but the same central characters rehashing the themes of the first two movies. The worn-out idea the filmmakers have yet another crack at: Families can be found objects, stitched together from all sorts of misfits who bond to form their own loving little clan. But the dialogue is mostly simple jawboning that doesn't provide many laughs. Unlike such wise, witty Pixar Animation tales as "Up" and "WALL*E," this one's strictly a slapstick tale for the young ones, who will ooh and aah over all the adorable beasties, new and old. (AP) Two stars

The Informant!: Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a rising star at an agri-industry giant, turns whistleblower but his efforts mislead the FBI as much as they help. Director Steven Soderbergh isn't that interested in telling the serious side of what was actually a pretty big case of greed and corruption in the business world. Instead, he and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, who adapted Kurt Eichenwald's book "The Informant: A True Story," are more transfixed by Whitacre, the strange guy in the middle of it all, and their off-center take on the material turns what might have been a straightforward, forgettable thriller into something far more appealing. (BF) Three and a half stars

Inglourious Basterds: In Nazi-occupied France, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by engaging in brutal acts of retribution. "Inglourious Basterds" is the movie that proves that top-notch Quentin Tarantino film dialogue just works, no matter what time or place it's uttered in. In fact, even though the movie is punctuated by sudden, often gleeful bursts of violence -- another Tarantino trademark -- one of its best qualities is its willingness to take its time to get where its going and luxuriate in its language. In a war movie, especially one directed by Tarantino, you expect the blood to flow, spurt and gush, and it does, but that's far from the only thing "Inglourious Basterds" has going for it. (BF) Four stars

The Invention of Lying: It would be such a joy to bend the truth and say that "The Invention of Lying" lives up to the potential of its inspired premise. The conceit -- that an alternate universe exists where everyone tells the truth all the time -- sets up an uproarious beginning, but then the movie plummets precipitously. It's not just that the high-concept gag wears thin, which it does. The bigger problem is that Ricky Gervais, in his directorial debut (alongside co-director and co-writer Matthew Robinson), zig-zags awkwardly between dark humor and heavy melodrama. Gervais deserves credit for approaching the idea that God and heaven are part of an elaborate lie meant to assuage the masses -- a bold move for a big-studio comedy with lots of stars -- but then backs off, as if he and Robinson hadn't thought it through all the way. (AP) One and a half stars

Jennifer's Body: The second screenplay from Diablo Cody following her debut smash "Juno" is so chock full of her quirky trademarks, it almost plays like a parody of something she'd write. The self-consciously clever dialogue, the gratuitous pop-culture references, the made-up phrases intended to convey a specific high school ethos -- they're all there. Even though fembot Megan Fox is an excellent fit to spit out these witty quips, it's all so familiar, it makes you wonder whether Cody has any other weapons in her arsenal. Part of the allure of the Showtime series Cody created, "The United States of Tara" -- beyond the versatility of star Toni Collette -- is the humor she finds in everyday suburbia, the reality and the absurdity. And that's the best part of "Jennifer's Body," too. Never mind that it's a mash-up of horror flick and teen comedy: When her characters talk about regular stuff like awkward adolescent sex and high-school dances, it's funny in a relatable way. It's when Cody tries too hard to dazzle us that she loses her footing; meanwhile, director Karyn Kusama struggles in her own way to find the right tone. The result: "Jennifer's Body" is never scary and only sporadically amusing. (AP) Two stars

King Lear: Russian director Grigori Kozintsev's 1970 adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy. Tonight only at Notre Dame's Browning Cinema.

Love Happens: Love supposedly happens here. We'll have to take their word for it. Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston are so utterly lacking in chemistry with each other (and they're both pretty bland individually) that it's hard to discern any genuine emotion. What first-time director Brandon Camp gives us instead is a cliché-addled romantic drama that's short on both romance and drama, one that's filled with soggy platitudes and contrived catharsis. Camp also wrote the script with Mike Thompson, which contains such unimaginative, heavy-handed metaphors as walking across hot coals, shopping at Home Depot as a means of rebuilding a life and setting a bird free in the woods. It's a painfully earnest slog reminiscent of such gooey fare as "Pay It Forward," one that belongs on cable, if anywhere, and probably wouldn't even have seen the light of day theatrically if not for the involvement of its two main stars. (AP) Zero stars

Man Push Cart: Every frame of the beautiful "Man Push Cart" expresses writer-director Ramin Bahrani's compassion for a street vendor (Ahmad Razvi), who before sunrise leaves his tiny Brooklyn apartment and heads for a warehouse from which he will pull his large, shiny cart blocks to a corner in midtown Manhattan and set up for business, selling coffee, tea, doughnuts and bagels to passersby. A mix of grit and grandeur, the New York captured by impeccable cinematographer Michael Simmonds becomes integral to Ahmad's story and is not just backdrop. "Man Push Cart," largely the work of newcomers and near-newcomers, is a remarkably disciplined, subtle film that avoids striking a "triumph of the human spirit" note or any other cliché. Saturday only at Notre Dame's Browning Cinema. (LAT)

9: Despite their roughhewn appearance, the resourceful rag dolls in "9" obviously were crafted with great love and care, both by the scientist who made them in the film and the mastermind behind them in real life, director Shane Acker. If only as much complex thought had gone into the script. The animation is so breathtaking in its originality, so weird and wondrous in its detail, you wish there were more meat to the screenplay from Pamela Pettler, who previously wrote "Monster House." Based on Acker's 2004 animated short of the same name, which was nominated for an Oscar, "9" follows a group of creatures who represent the last vestige of humanity in a post-apocalyptic world. 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) awakens to find no people are left, but there are a few others like him: tiny, fabric dolls stitched together coarsely but sturdily, with lenses for eyes. (As in "WALL-E," the eyes convey a lot more emotion than you might imagine.) (AP) Three stars

Pandorum: Stranded on a spacecraft, two astronauts awaken from a hyper-sleep and realize they are not alone. This sci-fi-horror hybrid keeps its audience in the dark -- literally and figuratively -- far too long to be of much use besides as a patience-trying exercise in reference spotting. The movie owns a few interesting ideas, as well as an obvious devotion to the "Alien" franchise, but director Christian Alvart dishes out the dystopia in such bite-sized increments that you'll experience the titular cabin-fever sensation long before the film's characters do. (LAT)

The Proposal: A high-powered book editor (Sandra Bullock) facing deportation hastily decides to marry her tormented assistant (Ryan Reynolds). It's a recycled plot, but that doesn't mean Bullock and Reynolds haven't been given a lot to work with -- they have, and the film plays to their strengths. Bullock's deft physical comedy, one of her most endearing qualities, is given a full run. And Reynolds' ability to deliver a line, or a look, with withering, surgical precision is there at every turn. There are mistakes, especially when the alpha-male bully in Reynolds' character is allowed to surface but not enough to ruin the party. In the end, "The Proposal" is just a good old-fashioned romance, one in which people actually bring out the best in one another rather than the worst. How novel is that? (LAT)

Surrogates: Itself a kind of surrogate, "Surrogates" is a stand-in for many of the sci-fi movies of the recent past: In it, you'll recognize the ideas of "Blade Runner," "Minority Report" and even "WALL*E." In a quasi-present day Boston, nearly everyone has a surrogate -- a younger, thinner, cosmetically perfect robotic version of themselves. They're controlled while you're reclining at home and plugged into a machine. This means, most importantly, that we have a blond Bruce Willis on our hands. Willis is an FBI agent who, along with his partner (Radha Mitchell), is trying to solve two murders which, though committed on surrogates, also "liquefied" the brains of their human operators. "Surrogates," directed by Jonathan Mostow, is adapted from a graphic novel by Robert Venditti. Graphic novels are -- for better or worse -- the new pulp fiction. Like those hard-boiled novels of the '40s that Hollywood couldn't get enough of, graphic novels are fueling what once would have been called B-movies. At its best, that's what "Surrogates" is: a quality B-movie, pulpy and reflective of its times. (AP) Two stars

Suspicion: A rich woman (Oscar winner Joan Fontaine) marries a playboy (Cary Grant) and begins to suspect that he's trying to murder her in Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 thriller based on a novel by Francis Iles. "Suspicion" is a suspenseful film with an unsatisfying ending -- one insisted upon by the studio, which wouldn't allow Grant to be portrayed as a killer. Sunday only at Notre Dame's Browning Cinema. (BF) Three and a half stars

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Sam Witwicky again joins with the Autobots against their sworn enemies, the Decepticons. The second installment in the series tones down what was enjoyable about the first movie -- namely, the family-friendly fun and the interesting human characters, who have been essentially lobotomized and relegated to the role of witnesses to the robot battles -- and jacks up the sleaze and volume, renders the visuals even more incomprehensible and drags on interminably for 2 1/2 hours. Here is a by no means complete list of scenes that could have been cut: the one with the dogs having sex, the one where the middle-aged woman gets hopped up on pot brownies, the one where the robot curses nonstop, and the ones where anyone tried to explain what was going on, because it didn't matter anyway. (BF) One star

Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself: When Madea catches 16-year-old Jennifer and her two younger brothers looting her home, she delivers the delinquents to their aunt, a heavy-drinking nightclub singer. Unashamedly fond of mixing messages of vengeance and piety, Perry nevertheless manages to reduce the tonal whiplash, so that this newest entry glides a little more easily from broad laughs (courtesy Perry's iron-fist-of-compassion character Madea) to teary anguish and finally sweeping uplift. What works best, though, is that it's practically an R&B/gospel musical, with stirring performances by Mary J. Blige, Gladys Knight and real-life pastor Marvin L. Winans -- who are all on double duty as actors too -- that in some cases do a better job of selling Perry's themes of sin, fortitude and redemption than the rest of the movie. (LAT)

The Ugly Truth: At the end of this drearily formulaic romantic comedy, as our two leads are finally admitting they've fallen for each other (no spoilers here, folks), Katherine Heigl's character asks Gerard Butler's why he's in love with her. Basically he says he has no idea, only he phrases it with a word we can't reprint here. Our sentiments exactly. Obviously, in a battle-of-the-sexes comedy like this, the guy and the girl who hate each other at the beginning realize they're meant for each other by the end. But there's nothing even remotely likable, much less lovable, about Heigl's Abby Richter. She's a control freak who runs a tight ship at a Sacramento TV station, producing the morning news with unflappable efficiency and zero creativity. She uses the same approach in her personal life, which is why she's hopelessly single, despite the fact that she looks like Katherine Heigl. Sure, it's meant as a joke, but come on. (AP) One and a half stars

Up: A 78-year-old balloon salesman named Carl fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America -- unbeknownst to the 8-year-old on his porch. The most recent masterpiece from Pixar is exciting without being exhausting, remarkably funny and simply a joy to look at. (You can watch it through black, plastic 3-D glasses that look a lot like the ones Carl wears, or not. It doesn't make much difference.) But the really amazing thing about "Up" is just how deeply it resonates on the emotional scale, whether it's watching Carl page through the scrapbook of his life with his wife, groaning with sadness, or seeing him finally come to terms with her death. Of course, if all that's just too much for you, there's still the wondrous sight of an entire house held aloft by balloons. (BF) Four stars

Zombieland: You'd be justified in thinking you've visited "Zombieland" before. There's been no shortage of zombies at the movies in recent years, just as there's been no shortage of vampires. And within that genre, a crop of zombie comedies has arisen, from "Shaun of the Dead" to "Zombie Strippers" to "Dead Snow." Like "Shaun" before it, though, "Zombieland" mostly finds that tricky balance of the laugh-out-loud funny and the make-you-jump scary, of deadpan laughs and intense energy. It's a total blast even if the story is a bit thin, and it does run out of steam toward the end, but thankfully our trip to "Zombieland" is appropriately quick. First-time director Ruben Fleischer grabs you from the get-go with stylized visuals, and the script from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is hilariously bizarre while still remaining rooted in contemporary reality. (AP) Three stars