Movie Stars

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector A fascinating shambles of a documentary — fascinating because its subject, legendary record producer and convicted murderer Spector, is so influential and so deranged; a shambles because director Vikram Jayanti can’t decide which approach to take and so takes all of them. (102 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Previously released

2010 Sundance Shorts Nine short films from last year’s Sundance Film Festival. A mixed bag but the ratio of good to medium-good is high. Worth seeing for the Australian coming-of-age story “The Six Dollar Fifty Man,’’ Don Hertzfeldt’s horrifically funny “Wisdom Teeth,’’ and “Rob and Valentyna in Scotland,’’ which has the muted punch of a good short story. (104 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Another Year Ostensibly, the happiest people in Mike Leigh’s rich, brutally sharp, astutely acted movie have chosen to share their lives with someone else. The least happy characters are single. Some of them become people we feel — or fear — we know. Whether or not we like them is less important than whether we leave the film with them on our minds. And we do. With Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, and Jim Broadbent. (129 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

Blue Valentine Derek Cianfrance’s time-bomb marriage movie, with Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, aspires to high solemnity. How long until she leaves? As the film makes its way to the end of its second hour, it becomes an acutely stylized, slow-motion marital accident. You either want to call AAA or roll your eyes. That largely depends on whether you believe the filmmakers really know what they’re up to. (120 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

Casino Jack The Jack Abramoff story, courtesy of star Kevin Spacey and the late director George Hickenlooper. The movie is glib, fast-paced entertainment that barely leaves a mark — which, given the subject, is not quite right. Costarring Barry Pepper and the great Jon Lovitz as a sleazeball who gets attacked with a ballpoint pen. (108 min., R) (Ty Burr)

The Company Men A movie about white-collar entitlement and the abyss that opens up when it’s taken away. Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper are three employees fired from a Massachusetts conglomerate, decent men floundering in a cold new world. TV bigwig John Wells (“ER’’) makes his feature debut with a solid, earnest movie that could use more anger. (109 min., R) (Ty Burr)

The Dilemma It’s only January, but it’s not too early to wonder whether 2011 will provide a movie as lousy and deluded as Ron Howard’s comedy. Vince Vaughn discovers that his best friend’s wife (Winona Ryder) is having an affair. He runs around Chicago spying on her, but he can’t bring himself to tell Kevin James, the friend, because the movie would last 20 minutes and require a new title. With Jennifer Connelly as Vaughn’s girlfriend. (104 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

The Green Hornet What if a masked crimefighter was an obnoxious lout? Star Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry undermine every promise a superhero movie is supposed to make with subversive comic verve, but the parody becomes a train wreck in the final hour. Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou plays Kato, who turns out to have more talent than his boss. (111 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

The King’s Speech Colin Firth as King George VI, afflicted with a nasty stammer until a man-of-the-people speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) cures him in time for WWII. This art-house crowd pleaser may win Oscars (deservedly so in Firth’s case), but it’s complacent tosh that lacks the bite of “The Queen.’’ With Helena Bonham Carter. (118 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Little Fockers Manic, unfocused, seriously crass, and only fitfully funny, this second spinoff of “Meet the Parents’’ is the multiplex equivalent of a cash grab. The quality of the talent involved is cause for depression: De Niro, Stiller, Danner, Streisand, and Hoffman return (the latter two only briefly), and new recruits include Laura Dern, Jessica Alba, and De Niro’s long-ago sparring partner Harvey Keitel. (98 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

No Strings Attached Natalie Portman plays a commitment-phobe who sleeps with goodhearted horndog Ashton Kutcher, then suggests a friends-with-benefits arrangement rather than engaging in lovey-dovey texting and romantic gestures. As rom-com obstacles to happiness go, this one sounds characteristically contrived, but Portman and Kutcher make it work, mixing raunch and charm with surprising effectiveness. (110 min., R) (Tom Russo)

Rabbit Hole It sounds like must-miss entertainment — a story about suburban parents (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) coming to terms with the death of a child — but John Cameron Mitchell’s film is a pained, often beautiful tragicomedy of loss. Tonally, it’s just down the street from “Little Children.’’ Kidman has rarely been this good. (91 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Season of the Witch In the 14th century, Nicolas Cage carts around a young woman (Claire Foy) locked in a rolling jail. Her crime is being a witch – OK, it’s being a woman. If only the studio had been a little more upfront. But, to be fair, “Season of Misogyny’’ isn’t much of a title, either. (98 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

True Grit Less a Charles Bronson thriller than a straightforward western. It’s spiced with the sort of comedy one expects from Joel and Ethan Coen and driven by the kind of sincerity one doesn’t. Jeff Bridges plays alcoholic US marshal Reuben “Rooster’’ Cogburn, hired by a deadly serious 14-year-old (Hailee Steinfeld) to capture the man (Josh Brolin) who killed her father. This isn’t a rousing movie as much as a reassurance. (110 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory A haunting little film about a ghost on the floor of Andy Warhol’s Factory. In 1966, Danny Williams, a filmmaker in Warhol’s camp, went for a swim and never returned. Four decades later, his niece, Esther B. Robinson, tries to plumb the mystery surrounding this artist written out of his own history. (75 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

The Way Back Six men and one woman make a perilous 4,000-mile trek from a Siberian gulag to India during World War II. Grueling, inspiring, astonishing to look at, it’s not one of director Peter Weir’s greatest films but it’s still very good. (133 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

An archive of movie reviews is at www.boston.com/movies. Theaters are subject to change.