The make-or-break decision for many movie-goers is going to be Nicolas Cage starring as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider. Cage is one of those actors you either like, or you don’t. His main selling point is that he acts like Nicholas Cage in just about every movie you’ve seen him in. It’s not much different here. He does have a good collection of humorous zingers to deliver in his own patented style—but that’s only when he’s Johnny Blaze. Unfortunately, the CGI-character Ghost Rider is one of two things that really sink this movie for me. It doesn’t help that the only way Ghost Rider has to display emotion is by changing the color of his flame.

The Last Sin Eater is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Francine Rivers. Screenwriter Brian Bird has done an amazing job of translating the book to film and, from the comments I heard after the screening, has done an honorable job of remaining true to the writing of Ms. Rivers. Combine these talents with those of Michael Landon, Jr.—who very obviously has learned and is carrying out the legacy of his very famous father, and here finds the perfect locations in Utah and directs an ensemble class of actors from whom he draws out amazing talent (Louise Fletcher as Miz Elda and Peter Wingfield as the Sin Eater must be specifically applauded)—and this film becomes a powerhouse.

“There’s a lot of ‘bad news’ in the Good News sometimes when we preach it,” says novelist Paterson. “It’s supposed to be good news! When it’s something that frightens children, then maybe we’re not telling it the right way. I’m always so moved by the fact that every time in the Gospels you have an angel appear, the first words are always ‘Fear not!’ Why is it that when we preach the Good News that there is a lot of fear involved in what we say? And because children pick up on that very quickly, it makes them afraid of God. The God of grace and mercy gets lost in our telling of it.”

U.S. filmmakers like to negatively portray American institutions and societal mores. I don’t know the motive; perhaps it is cathartic for them. Regardless, it is good to see an uplifting, non-judgmental, un-preachy film about an actual totalitarian government—or more precisely, about the self-appointed observers of others, the unfeeling keepers of other people’s lives. The watchmen. The Lives of Others is full of grace, beauty, and human tenderness in the midst of human brutality. It is impossible in these short lines to adequately do justice to the depth of this film. As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, this picture is a terabyte of meaning, and worthy of long discussion.

Absolute Wilson is a documentary about… well, Robert Wilson, one of America’s foremost performance-art playwrights. I’ll bet that still doesn’t ring a bell. Relatively few people in the U.S. have ever even heard of him. So here we get to learn about Wilson’s seven-day play, his 24-hour play, his seven-hour plays. And we see excerpts from some of his more reasonably timed plays. I particularly came to admire him for the good he has done for two young men he has adopted. Both were considered “brain damaged.” Wilson says, “They aren’t damaged, they just communicate differently.” This is a profound realization. And there is no argument as effective as success.

Breaking and Entering is an instantly engrossing film that is also cleverly designed to say something unexpected. Without sentimentality or manipulation, we get to experience the last gasps of what used to be a good relationship. The film is intriguing, satisfying and entertaining. I was surprised at the details of life that caused catharsis in some characters and bitterness in others, the greatness of spirit in the least likely, and the weakness of character of the most “regular.” Jude Law and Robin Wright Penn have an elusive quality that inspires both sympathy and application. There is a bond between these characters that is sentimental and strong.

The central storytelling device of Factory Girl is the so-called “unreliable narrator,” used to various effects in short stories like “The Yellow Wallpaper,” short films like Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and even films like The Sixth Sense, Fight Club and Memento. The idea is that the story is told from a very strong point of view, and that the audience only knows what the narrator tells us; the problem is that, in retrospect, we’re not sure if the narrator tells us the truth. In this case, that urealiable narrator is Edie Sedgwick herself. I could buy all of George Hickenlooper’s fanciful mythologizing, though, if not for the director’s disingenuousness.

Whew! Where to start? My mother told me that if I have nothing good to say I should say nothing at all. Sadly, my editor didn’t buy that argument. Next I attempted to fall back on my innate ability to find something good about nearly anything. I confess, I feel so defeated. At first glance this is another of what have become Eddie Murphy’s bread-and-butter movies. Generally speaking, in the past I’d thought he’d done this type of thing fairly effectively. It really doesn’t work here. Norbit has a mean-spirited tone from the opening scene of the infant Norbit being thrown from a moving car, and it never lets up from there. The characters are a collection of the worst stereotypes one can imagine.

Hannibal Rising is about as suspenseful as eating a day-old warm mayonnaise sandwich: you know you’re eventually going to throw up, it’s just a matter of when. The latest Hannibal Lecter release holds no true surprises, no thrills, nothing but blood and gore at its basest and most unentertaining. And anyone with a lick of Psych 101 could figure out how the boy Hannibal became the monster cannibal in three easy steps. The series of “revealing” traumatic flashbacks to war crimes doesn’t make the character any more or less sympathetic—just pathetic. If you haven’t guessed the biggest secret before The Moment of Great Revelation, you’ve been lucky enough to have been sleeping through the first three-fourths of the film.

“Nobody joins a cult.” So say many of the witnesses and survivors featured in Stanley Nelson’s fine documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. People do join cults, of course, and plenty of them. What Nelson’s film iterates time and again, though, is that the vast majority of cult members simply get in over their heads, and a lot quicker than one might expect. Don’t go into this film, though, thinking that this is some clinical History-channel educational opportunity. Jonestown is a nightmare of the worst—and best—kind, one that might induce palpable guilt in anyone who has ever kept silent about wrongdoing in the Church. I expect that’s the vast majority of us, much to our collective shame.