PHOEBE is the fantastical tale of a little girl (Elle Fanning) who won’t, or can’t, follow the rules. Confounded by her clashes with the rule-obsessed world around her, Phoebe seeks enlightenment from her unconventional drama teacher (Clarkson), even as her brilliant but anguished mother (Huffman) looks to Phoebe herself for inspiration.

Phoebe’s reviews from Sundance earlier this year ranged from good to great, with nearly every critic agreeing that Elle Fanning is as compelling as her freakishly talented sister. The potential foil here has very little to do with the film itself; will maligned distributor THINKFilm, who couldn’t turn their still-in-the-headlines Roman Polanski documentary into a success, also fumble this release?

Rated PG-13 for thematic material and brief strong language.

Director: Daniel Barnz
Stars: Elle Fanning, Patricia Clarkson, Felicity Huffman
Studio: THINKFilm
Release Date: 6 March 2009 (USA)
Genre: Drama

Aidan Breslin is a bitter detective emotionally distanced from his two young sons following the untimely death of his devoted wife. While investigating a series of murders of rare violence, he discovers a terrifying link between himself and the suspects in a chain of murders that seem to be based on the Biblical prophecies concerning the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

Jonas Åkerlund’s oft-delayed thriller, the music video director’s first feature since 2003’s Spun, looks like the recent X-Files bore and, call me lazy, but brings Se7en to mind. And despite a promising cast (including Zhang Ziyi going all Audition on us?), the trailer is anemic at best. Rumor has it the reshoots here wiped out Neal McDonough’s character entirely, but to me it sounds like he avoided career suicide. (Oh, wait: He’s in the new Street Fighter movie!) And though the studio doesn’t seem behind this one at all, gore hounds might lap up Åkerlund’s limits-pushing scenes of abuse and torture. But I thought this genre was dead?

Rated R for grisly and disturbing content, some sexual images and language.

Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci
Studio: Lionsgate
Release Date: 6 February 2009 (Italy)
Genre: Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

“Watchmen” is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity… but who is watching the Watchmen?”

With this movie and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, comic-book superheroes will continue to dominate the box office in 2009, a year after the genre truly broke as a bankable entity. And in Watchmen’s case, never has a storyline been so intricate, with arcs that span from the Cuban Missle Crisis to the Reagan Era, and out to Mars and back again. Is it fit for mass consumption? Surely, especially now that audiences are connecting with anti-heroes (or, in this case, ex-superheroes), and let’s not forget how in the 1980s are, too. Already people are talking about director Zack Snyder’s page-to-screen take on the graphic novel by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore (the latter of whom is not on board with the project, thank you very much) — has he copied the look of it too much? Not enough? Or are you, like thousands of other people, reading the book for the first time?

Rated R for strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language.

Director: Zack Snyder
Stars: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: 6 March 2009 (Indonesia)
Genre: Action | Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Crossing Over is a multi-character canvas about immigrants of different nationalities struggling to achieve legal status in Los Angeles. The film deals with the border, document fraud, the asylum and green card process, work-site enforcement, naturalization, the office of counter terrorism and the clash of cultures.

A Crash-like look at immigration is what you can expect from Wayne Kramer’s buzzing-since-2007 drama. Kramer himself is a naturalized citizen of the U.S. and he cribbed from his own experiences to create the character of a South African artist scheming to become naturalized; elsewhere, look for Kramer’s focus to hone in Ford as a Customs Enforcement agent in Los Angeles and for a particularly trying storyline concerning Penn as a Border Patrolman along the U.S./Mexico border.

Rated R for pervasive language, some strong violence and sexuality/nudity.

Director: Wayne Kramer
Stars: Harrison Ford, Sean Penn, Ashley Judd
Studio: Weinstein Company, The
Release Date: 13 March 2009 (Canada)

When Madea’s (Perry) trouble-making antics land her behind bars, among the cast of characters she meets is Candy (Pulliam), a prostitute whose life is off-track and in need of the type of tough love that only Madea can provide.At long last, Madea returns to the big screen in TYLER PERRY’S MADEA GOES TO JAIL. This time America’s favorite irreverent, pistol-packin’ grandmomma is raising hell behind bars and lobbying for her freedom!

After a high-speed freeway chase puts Madea (TYLER PERRY) in front of the judge, her reprieve is short-lived as anger management issues get the best of her and land her in jail. A gleeful Joe (TYLER PERRY) couldn’t be happier at Madea’s misfortune. But Madea’s eccentric family members the Browns (DAVID and TAMALA MANN) rally behind her, lending their special “country” brand of support.

Meanwhile, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Hardaway (DEREK LUKE) is on the fast track to career success. But Hardaway lands a case too personal to handle – defending young prostitute and former drug addict Candace Washington (KEISHA KNIGHT PULLIAM) – and asks his fiancée and fellow ADA Linda Holmes (ION OVERMAN) to fill in on his behalf. When Candace ends up in jail, Madea befriends the young woman, protecting her in a “motherly” way as only Madea can.

Though you can buy the stage version of this story on DVD at your grocery store, something tells me Tyler Perry is going to experience his biggest success here, since he’s back in hysteria-comedy mode (and in drags), with a fully grown Rudy Huxtable playing a streetwalker in the clink.

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, drug content, some violence and sexual situations.

Director: Tyler Perry
Stars: Tyler Perry, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Derek Luke
Studio: Lionsgate
Release Date: 20 February 2009 (USA)