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The weirdness of actor Nicolas Cage and the weirdness of science-fiction author Philip K. Dick seem like a natural fit. The premise, taken from a short story by Dick, is a good one: A mediocre Las Vegas magician named Chris Johnson (Cage) can see into the future--but only about two minutes at the most. Just enough to pull off his act and to make some money at the gambling tables, so long as he's discreet. Unfortunately, he hasn't been discreet enough; a government agent (Julianne Moore) has sussed out his precognitive talent and wants to use him to track down terrorists.

Volver

Spanish for "Coming Back," Volver is a return to the all-female format of All About My Mother. Unlike Pedro AlmodÛvar's previous two pictures, the story revolves around a group of women in Madrid and his native La Mancha. (The cast received a collective best actress award at Cannes.) Raimunda (a zaftig PenÈlope Cruz) is the engine powering this heartfelt, yet humorous vehicle. When husband Paco (Antonio de la Torre) is murdered, Raimunda makes like Mildred Pierce to deflect attention away from daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo).

Stardust

Stardust settles over the viewer like a twinkly cloak. The film, which captures the magic and vision of author Neil Gaiman's fantasy graphic fable, is a transportive journey into a world of true enchantment, which fans of the Harry Potter books will enjoy as well as will adults looking for the perfect date movie. The tale is a not-so-simple love story and adventure, set in 19th century England--and an alternate universe of witches, spells and stars that turn human--and hold the key to eternal life.

Rocky Balboa

The sixth installment of the Rocky series picks up the story of the Italian Stallion 16 years after the morose Rocky V. And sure, at his advanced age, Sylvester Stallone now looks like one of those sides of beef his character used to pound on. No matter. Somehow you buy the premise after all these years, even if it takes forever for Rocky Balboa to stop wallowing in self-pity (Adrian is dead, his old haunts are demolished) and get down to the business of drinking raw eggs and running up staircases.

The Prestige

Award-winning actors Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson star in The Prestige, the twisting, turning story that, like all great magic tricks, stays with you. Two young, passionate magicians, Robert Angier (Jackman), a charismatic showman, and Alfred Borden (Bale), a gifted illusionist, are friends and partners until one fateful night when their biggest trick goes terribly wrong. Now the bitterest of enemies, they will stop at nothing to learn each other's secrets.

Pan's Labyrinth

Inspired by the Brothers Grimm, Jorge Luis Borges, and Guillermo del Toro's own unlimited imagination, Pan's Labyrinth is a fairytale for adults. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) may only be 12, but the worlds she inhabits, both above and below ground, are dark as anything del Toro has conjured. Set in rural Spain, circa 1944, Ofelia and her widowed mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil, Belle Epoque), have just moved into an abandoned mill with Carmen's new husband, Captain Vidal (Sergi LÛpez, With a Friend like Harry). Carmen is pregnant with his son.

Ocean's Thirteen

George Clooney is one, Brad Pitt is two, Matt Damon three... well, let's just assume there are 13 collaborators in this installment of Steven Soderbergh's profitable caper franchise. We're back in Las Vegas for Ocean's Thirteen, where the boys plot to shut down the brand-new venture of a backstabbing hotelier (Al Pacino) because the guy double-crossed the now-ailing Reuben (Elliott Gould). If you look at the plot too closely, the entire edifice collapses (hey, how about those Chunnel-digging giant drills?), but Soderbergh conjures up a visual style that swings like Bobby Darin at the Copa.

Miss Potter

Miss Potter walks that fine line between charming and cloying with pleasing sure-footedness. Apple-cheeked Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones' Diary) once again slips into a British accent to play writer/illustrator Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit. Potter, born into wealth, fought the disapproval of her high society mother to do something as crass as publish a book...and to fall in love with her publisher, Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor, previously teamed with Zellweger in Down With Love). Unfortunately, their love runs into something worse than upper-class stuffiness.

Mean Girls

A new term at high school is even more of a trauma for Cady (Lindsay Lohan) than it is for everybody else, since she is not just an out-of-towner but an out-of-Africa, her parents having raised her as a bush baby. Now she is confronted with the complexity of school loyalties and fads, which-as we are reminded by innumerable slo-mo sequences with an added roartrack-are twice as bloodlusty as the lives of African fauna.

Little Miss Sunshine

Pile together a blue-ribbon cast, a screenplay high in quirkiness, and the Sundance stamp of approval, and you've got yourself a crossover indie hit. That formula worked for Little Miss Sunshine, a frequently hilarious study of family dysfunction. Meet the Hoovers, an Albuquerque clan riddled with depression, hostility, and the tattered remnants of the American Dream; despite their flakiness, they manage to pile into a VW van for a weekend trek to L.A. in order to get moppet daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

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