The Road In “The Road,’’ the world has ended with a bang and a whimper. Author Cormac McCarthy’s lean prose has been lifted off the printed page and laid carefully into the soundtrack like antique china in a packing crate. “The clocks stopped at 1:17,’’ says the narrator. “A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions.’’ That’s all ... (Page G5, 687 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 25, 2009

Fantastic Mr. Fox The wry stop-motion delight “Fantastic Mr. Fox’’ feels lovingly fussed over. With its papier-mâché skies, animal characters sporting glued-on tufts of fur, landscapes that seem to be cobbled together from spit and plasticine, it’s a defiantly handmade artifact - a tabletop movie. (Page G4, 759 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 25, 2009

Old Dogs It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a turkey, and in “Old Dogs,’’ we have the season’s blue-ribbon gobbler. A pitiful family comedy about two aging buddies forced to play daddy, it looks exactly like what you’d get if Robin Williams and John Travolta went out, got hammered, scrawled scenes on a bar napkin in random order, gave the napkin to “Wild ... (Page G10, 491 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 25, 2009

Planet 51 As a wise frog once remarked, it’s not easy being green. Not only are the emerald-colored extraterrestrials in “Planet 51’’ terrified by the appearance of a human astronaut on their home turf, they’re imprisoned in a cruddy, reductive version of “Happy Days’’ and forced to spout inane dialogue. Young children and adults with high pain thresholds will enjoy the movie ... (Page G8, 436 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 20, 2009

Bronson ‘Bronson’’ bills itself as the story of Britain’s most notorious living prisoner, Michael Peterson, who early on in his 35 years in jail - 30 of them in solitary confinement - gave himself the “fighting name’’ of Charles Bronson, after the Hollywood star of “Death Wish.’’ Really, though, “Bronson’’ isn’t a story in the traditional sense at all. It’s a ... (Page G14, 613 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 20, 2009

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Sorry, girls: The thrill is gone. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,’’ the second installment in Hollywood’s adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s mega-selling vampire romance series, is an anemic comedown after the full-blooded swoon of last year’s “Twilight.’’ Where the first film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke, plugged into Meyer’s vision of supernatural teenage lust with abandon, Chris Weitz is stuck with a sequel ... (Page B16, 756 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 19, 2009

Pirate Radio Sometimes history just isn’t as much fun as it should be. “Pirate Radio,’’ a rowdy, mostly hilarious British comedy-drama about the offshore radio stations that blared rock ’n’ roll to a desperate young UK audience in the 1960s, would much rather show us a good time than stick to the facts. Writer-director Richard Curtis (“Love Actually’’) has made a party, ... (Page G12, 723 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 13, 2009

Ten9Eight The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship was founded 22 years ago by Bronx high-school teacher Steve Mariotti upon a few basic notions. Why do so many kids drop out of high school? Because they’re not learning what they need to know. What do they need to know? Business skills. NFTE thus teaches the fundamentals of entrepreneurship through a variety of programs ... (Page G14, 433 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 13, 2009

2012 I like to imagine that the director Roland Emmerich had a key transformative experience at the age of 7, when a relative visiting from Bavaria accidentally trampled his scale model of the Reichstag. Suddenly a light bulb went on over our young Teuton’s head as he realized: People will pay for this . (Page G6, 994 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 13, 2009

The Maid The unsettling Chilean drama “The Maid’’ opens with deceptive simplicity. In an upper-class kitchen in the suburbs of Santiago, a blank-faced, middle-aged maid (Catalina Saavedra) sits down to dinner. On the soundtrack we hear the family for whom she works bicker and snipe at each other in the adjoining dining room. The maid looks up, meets the camera’s gaze for ... (Page G10, 569 words)By: Ty Burr|Date: Nov 13, 2009