NEW THIS WEEK

ARE WE DONE YET? (Rated PG) See review C4. Grade: D

FIREHOUSE DOG (Rated PG) See review C3. Grade: B

FIRST SNOW (Rated R) See review C11. Grade: C+

GRINDHOUSE (Rated R) See review C9. Grade: B

THE HOAX (Rated R) See review C1. Grade: B+

PEACEFUL WARRIOR (Rated PG-13) See review C9. Grade: D

THE REAPING (Rated R) See review C4. Grade: D+

THE TV SET (Rated R) See mini review, below. Grade: B

STILL SHOWING

AMAZING GRACE (Rated PG) The idealist William Wilberforce maneuvers his way through Parliament in 18th century England, endeavoring to end slavery in the empire. Directed by Michael Apted and released in 2006, "Amazing Grace" stars Albert Finney, Michael Gambon and Ioan Gruffudd. No grade.

ARE WE DONE YET? (Rated PG) A newly formed family purchases a quaint fixer upper that proves to be more trouble than they could have ever anticipated in this family comedy starring Ice Cube, Nia Long, Aleisha Allen, Philip Daniel Bolden and John C. McGinley. Grade: D

BLACK SNAKE MOAN (Rated: R) "Black Snake Moan" is lurid, Southern-fried pulp fiction, a film sweaty with sex, feverish with religious passion. Set in the almost-lost rural South of seedy juke joints, in-the-spirit churches and dirt farms, at its heart it is a morality play about the eternal struggle between the flesh and the Holy Spirit. Director Craig Brewer ("Hustle & Flow") is trying to visualize the lowdown, dirty blues, with men battling temptation and weakness in the form of a woman who has "the itch." He's made a film that is laughably archaic and old fashioned, shot-through with the raunchy candor of modern-day indie cinema. Grade: C

BLADES OF GLORY (Rated: PG-13) Will Ferrell and Jon Heder's figure-skating comedy offers a few prime gags but a flimsy premise that loses its novelty quickly. The idea sounds like a great little "Saturday Night Live" sketch: Ferrell's an arrogant rebel of a men's champ, Heder's his fastidious rival, and the two end up teaming as the first men's pair after they're barred for life from solo competition. And there's about enough funny material for a great little "Saturday Night Live" sketch. The trouble is, there's an extra 80 minutes or so of down time in which Ferrell, Heder and co-stars Craig T. Nelson, Jenna Fischer, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are pretty much repeating their characters' shallow schtick again and again. Grade: C

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA (Rated PG) "Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open." It's the heroine's credo in "Bridge to Terabithia," a smart and bittersweet tale of growing up and that one friend who "gets" you, who helps you look at the world in a different way. The novel with heart, about a rural fifth-grader who loves to draw, and the imaginative, sophisticated city girl who moves across the road, becomes a fanciful, emotional and entertaining movie. Grade: B

DEAD SILENCE (Rated R) A widower (Ryan Kwanten) returns to his hometown to search for answers to his wife's murder. Also starring Amber Valletta and Donnie Wahlberg. No grade.

FIREHOUSE DOG (Rated PG) Hollywood's hottest canine commodity has gotten hopelessly lost after wandering away from his master, and now the former movie star has become the beacon of hope for a small-town firehouse on the verge of collapse. Stars Josh Hutcherson, Bruce Greenwood. Grade: B

FIRST SNOW (Rated R) A man desperately tries to keep a strange prediction from coming true in this independent psychological thriller. A traveling salesman crosses paths with a psychic who tells him he will die before the first snow of the winter. Can he escape his fate or has he been doomed by the fortune teller's words? Stars Guy Pearce, Piper Perabo. Grade: C+

GHOST RIDER (Rated PG-13) Based on the Marvel character, stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze gives up his soul to become a hellblazing vigilante, to fight against power-hungry Blackheart, the son of the devil himself. Grade: D

GRINDHOUSE (Rated R) Directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez offer a cinematic tribute to the blood-soaked exploitation epics of yesteryear with this hyper-violent coupling of two 60--minute features punctuated by a collection of outrageous trailers. Grade: B

HAPPY FEET (Rated PG) A movie of grand technical and moral ambition, it's "March of the Penguins: The Musical," with motion-captured actors animated into penguins, and featuring messages about tolerance, superstition, over-fishing and humanity's impact on the planet. All it's lacking is entertainment value, until Robin Williams' Spanish-accented voice shows up, 35 minutes in. He puts the spring in "Happy Feet's" step. It's a pity he was almost working solo. Grade: C

HILLS HAVE EYES II (Rated R) The plot is basically about a group of National Guard trainees who find themselves battling against the notorious mutated hillbillies on their last day of training in the desert. It's just them fighting back throughout the whole film, which includes a lot of violence (which is basically the whole film) as blood and guts are constantly flying around throughout the whole thing, and also yet another graphic rape scene which is pointlessly thrown in to shock the audience. Grade: No grade

THE HOAX (Rated R) A brisk account of the scam that shook the literary community with this semicomic biographical drama starring Richard Gere as the man who sold a fraudulent biography of Howard Hughes to publishing giant McGraw Hill in 1971. Grade: B+

LAST MIMZY (Rated PG) Two siblings begin to develop special talents after they find a mysterious box of toys. Soon the kids, their parents, and even their teacher are drawn into a strange and sometimes terrifying world. Grade: B

THE LOOKOUT (Rated R) This may look like just another bank heist caper, but it's actually a beautifully drawn character drama, and the rare film that manages to balance subtlety with suspense. Then again, that shouldn't seem too surprising coming from longtime screenwriter Scott Frank, an Oscar nominee for Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight" who also wrote the scripts for "Get Shorty" and "Minority Report," among many others. "The Lookout" also marks Frank's debut as a director, and he shows a keen instinct for eliciting strong performances from his talented young actors, especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Formerly of TV's "3rd Rock From the Sun," Gordon-Levitt is developing into an intriguing performer of unexpected depth. Here he plays a once-promising high school athlete who suffers a head injury in a car crash. One night, he makes some dangerous new friends (led by Matthew Goode and Isla Fisher) who talk him into serving as the lookout while they rob the bank where he works as a

janitor. Except for a couple of coincidences that feel a bit too convenient, the script is close to perfect. Grade: B+

MEET THE ROBINSONS (Rated G) An orphan who dreams of someday finding a family to call his own finds his fate taking an unexpected turn when a mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson transports him into the future in a computer-animated time-travel adventure for the entire family. The film tells the story of a boy with a lifelong wish to belong, and what happens when he meets an incredible collection of characters who just might have the power to make his wildest fantasies come true. Voices of Angela Bassett, Kelly Ripa, Tom Selleck, Adam West, Steve Zahn, Laurie Metcalf. Grade: C

MUSIC AND LYRICS (Rated PG-13) Alex Fisher (Hugh Grant) has no problem being one of the headliners in a reality show called "Battle of the '80s Has-Beens." His is a life ripe for the kind of wholesale rejuvenation that romantic comedies, such as "Music and Lyrics," provide. Enter Sophie (Drew Barrymore), a quirky younger woman who has a way with words. But before work can proceed, Sophie has baggage of her own that must be secured in the overhead compartment. There's enough wit and charm here to warm a winter evening, and that's good enough. Grade: B+

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM (Rated PG) Inspired, like the 1995 "Jumanji," by a picture book, "Night at the Museum" fleshes Milan Trenc's slender tale into a thrilling look at what happens in New York's famed Museum of Natural History when its exhibits come to life at night. The special effects are a blast -- that really does look like a T-rex skeleton clattering down the hallway. Grade: B+

NORBIT (Rated PG-13) "Norbit" is a movie at the top of the bottom rank of comedies. The film, which stars Eddie Murphy in the roles of a hapless nerd Norbit Rice and his obese, domineering wife, Rasputia, is little more than a string of crass "yo momma" jokes. It is also, in a brain-damaging way, sporadically funny. Most important, it demonstrates that even when working with low-grade material, Murphy can be a superb actor. It's a shame to see performing talent like this squandered, even on a vehicle he created himself. Grade: D+

NUMBER 23 (Rated R) One of the many mysteries about the number 23 is why Jim Carrey and director Joel Schumacher thought audiences would share their fascination over the mysteries about "The Number 23," their thriller that strains to build an engaging story around a man's conviction in the mystically diabolical power of that digit. The number's lore includes such factoids as human parents each contributing 23 chromosomes to their offspring and Shakespeare being born and dying on April 23. Frankly, the number wears out its welcome in the opening credits. Grade: C

PEACEFUL WARRIOR (Rated PG-13) A tale about the power of the human spirit. Stars Nick Nolte, Scott Mechlowicz and Amy Smart. A talented college gymnast with serious Olympic aspirations leads a charmed life of first-place trophies, fast girls and rowdy parties until a career-threatening injury and a chance meeting with a mysterious stranger show him how little he truly knows about living. Grade: D

PREMONITION (Rated PG-13) After running through her normal routine, Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) answers a knock at the door. The local sheriff tells her that husband Jim (Julian McMahon) was killed in a car accident. The next morning, she awakes to find her husband sitting in the family's kitchen ... the next morning, she finds her living room filled with black-clad mourners, waiting to accompany her to Jim's funeral. And so it goes. Everything revolves around our seeing things from Linda's perspective. You may find the ending a bit of a cheat. One thing is certain. This is a very creepy film. Grade: B

PRIDE (Rated PG) Pride is a cliché from the first frame to the end. In 1974 Jim Ellis (Terrence Howard), a former swimmer now janitor, coaches a rag-tag, sand lot group of talented minorities from the Philadelphia Department of Recreation to state-wide championships in swimming by invoking PDR (pride, determination, resilience). Been there, done that in movies. Within the last year, several films were based on true stories told of coaches and players overcoming odds to become winners: Gridiron Gang, Glory Road, Coach Carter, and Invincible come to mind. Grade: C

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (Rated PG) There is never any doubt that Will Smith's Chris Gardner will muddle through in "The Pursuit of Happyness," that he'll get a job, make some money, find a home and achieve the elusive, intentionally misspelled state of the film's title. The night Chris and his son spend on the bathroom floor of a Bay Area Rapid Transit station, because they have nowhere else to go, is especially wrenching -- and it happened, as shown in a "20/20" segment about Gardner that provided the spark for this film. Grade: C

THE REAPING (Rated R) A professor of theology moonlighting as a debunker of unexplained religious phenomena finds herself faced with an apocalyptic series of events that seem to reflect the 10 plagues of Exodus. Stars Hilary Swank. Grade: D+

REIGN OVER ME (Rated R) When a man (Adam Sandler) who has failed to recover from the grief of losing his family in the tragedy of Sept. 11 has a chance run in with an old college roommate (Don Cheadle) who has since become a doctor, the painful healing process slowly begins. Also stars Liv Tyler, Jada Pinkett Smith and Saffron Burrons. Grade: C+

SHOOTER (Rated R) A top Army sniper who previously abandoned the military after a routine mission gave way to tragedy is double-crossed by the government after reluctantly being pressured back into service.There was a time when Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) was the best trigger man in the military, but after growing disillusioned with the system, he disappeared without a trace. After being located at his remote mountain retreat by high-profile government officials, Swagger is coerced back into service in order to stop a determined assassin from taking out the president of the United States. Grade: No grade

300 (Rated R) "300" is not for the faint-hearted. A larger-than-life movie filled with action and great characters and based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, "300" tells the tale of King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and the 300 Spartan warriors who held off an overwhelming force of Persians against the better judgment of just about everyone. Director Zack Snyder masterfully meshes computer graphics with live actors to portray the brutal existence the "free men" of Sparta endured. Grade: B

TMNT (Rated PG) "TMNT," the acronymic, computer-animated big-screen return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, begins far from the Manhattan sewerscapes that spawned these goofball superheroes several decades ago. In a portentous prologue, narrator Laurence Fishburne recounts a fateful battle of Central American warlords 3,000 years in the past, an equally fateful alignment of cosmic forces, and some huggermugger about generals made immortal and monsters turned to stone. Grade: C+

THE TV SET (Rated R) Stars David Duchovny as Mike Klein, a television producer who sells a network on a story idea. The film follows Klein as he must actually put the show together, navigate the corporate minefield of the network and figure out what aspects of his show he is willing to compromise. Also stars Sigourney Weaver, Justine Bateman and Judy Greer. Grade: B

TYLER PERRY'S DADDY'S LITTLE GIRLS (Rated PG-13) A reverse-Cinderella tale centers on a successful attorney (Gabrielle Union) who falls in love with a financially challenged mechanic (Idris Elba) who is a single father of three children. The relationship hits a snag when the janitor's ex-wife comes back into his life and threatens to take away their kids. No Grade

WILD HOGS (Rated PG-13) What confines the film to the middle ground of buddy films is its lack of surprises. You've seen most of its funniest moments if you've scene the TV trailer. Director Walt Becker ("Van Gilder") doesn't develop any of these characters -- John Travolta, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence and Tim Allen -- beyond type. The road trip breaks down in the lame lane. Grade: C

ZODIAC (Rated R) "Zodiac" is solid for the first hour and a half: taut, tense, thrilling and often darkly funny. Based on the true-crime bestseller by former San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), the film keeps you guessing and makes you feel you're in the thick of the chase. As the killings subside and the official investigation lags, so does the film. And so the movie just sort of dangles out there with no sense of closure. Grade: C+