Brothers When a US Marine (Tobey Maguire) is presumed killed in action, his ex-con brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) steps up to help with his widow (Natalie Portman) and daughters. The movie jerks between scenes of military torture and domestic frolic, then becomes an emotional potboiler. (110 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
La Danse The great, tireless documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman spent a recent season with the Paris Opera Ballet and merged with the dancers, instructors, administrators, and choreographers. The result is a unique kind of magic: a film about the work in art that is itself a work of art. In French, with subtitles. (153 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)
Defamation Is modern anti-Semitism an invention of right-wing Jews intended to silence dissent? Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir wears his point of view lightly but firmly, and the results are provocative in the best ways. You’ll have some good, loud arguments on the way out of the theater. In Hebrew, English, and Polish, with subtitles. (91 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
Four Seasons Lodge Andrew Jacobs’s documentary has a great subject, a Catskills resort where Holocaust survivors spend their summers, and he has the good sense to treat it with restraint. Things do get a bit mawkish in its final third, though, with leaves falling on the lawn and residents dancing to “I Will Survive.’’ (99 min., unrated) (Mark Feeney)
The House of the Devil A college student (Jocelin Donahue) baby-sits for devil worshipers during a lunar eclipse. Bad idea. Director Ti West has made an almost fetishistic re-creation of a horror-suspense movie circa 1978, but his genuine love for the genre keeps it from being an empty stylistic stunt. With Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov. (95 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Invictus Morgan Freeman takes a break from playing God to take on Nelson Mandela, bringing his fragmented country together via the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Matt Damon is fine, if opaque, as the team captain. It’s not one of Clint Eastwood’s very greatest films, but it works just fine. (134 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
Julia A showcase for Tilda Swinton, who plays a raging LA alcoholic enmeshed in a kidnapping. Director Erick Zonca (“The Dreamlife of Angels’’) refuses to play by Hollywood rules and the film is a fascinating white-knuckle character thriller. But Swinton is a control freak playing a basket case, and that paradox barely makes it to the end credits alive. (138 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Me and Orson Welles From director Richard Linklater, of all people, a richly pleasurable bit of fabulated pop history about a young man (Zac Efron) who becomes part of Orson Welles’s legendary 1937 Broadway “Julius Caesar.’’ Efron is adequate but lacks the needed edge; the reason to see the movie is for Christian McKay’s towering Welles. (114 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
The Princess and the Frog In the year of America’s first black president, it makes sense that
The Slammin’ Salmon Ex-heavyweight boxer “Slammin’’ Cleon Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan) needs to pay off a gambling debt. So he forces the waitstaff of his trendy Miami seafood restaurant, The Slammin’ Salmon, to sell $20,000 worth of food in one night. Madcap behavior and mayhem ensue, but the ensemble comedy group Broken Lizard runs out of steam. (98 min., R) (Ethan Gilsdorf)
Strongman A sad, affecting documentary, ostensibly about Stanley Pleskun, an aspiring star in the strength entertainment business. But what emerges is a dysfunctional love story between Pleskun and his unhappy-looking girlfriend. (113 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)
Up in the Air From Jason Reitman, a warm, smoothly made movie about a man (George Clooney) who spends most of his time firing people. The movie concerns his attempt to settle down. At its very best, it invents new for old Hollywood sophistication. The sequined cocktail parties and crack banter are now happening in the Admirals Club lounge. With Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, and Anna Kendrick, who’ll rightly be labeled a discovery. (109 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
An archive of movie reviews can be found at www.boston.com/movies. Theaters are subject to change. 
