Imagine you have a friend who, at the age of 25, has an imaginary friend. Now imagine that she is in love with said imaginary friend. Now add in a real, live love interest for your friend. Watch your friend make this flesh-and-blood person compete with the imaginary friend for her affection. This is essentially the plot of Everything You Want, a movie starring Shiri Appleby and Nick Zano.

That is pretty much the entire plot to Everything You Want. While I can't comment too much on the acting, since it's hard to work with such an unimagined script, the story here definitely drops the ball for the entire movie. In Everything You Want, the "interesting" plot twist is when guy b discovers guy a is imaginary, even though everyone else already knows it. Otherwise, this is sub-standard romancedy fare. Your time would be better spent making up your own imaginary friend and falling in love with him.

W., directed by Oliver Stone and starring Josh Brolin, James Cromwell, and Richard Dreyfus, is a movie that will leave you dumbfounded. Not for the fact that we've elected the worst president ever to office not once, but twice, but because you'll be left wondering why you ever went to see it in the first place.

First off, there isn't much new material in the movie. We know about the DUI, the fact that there were never WMDs in Iraq and it was all a scheme, the fact that Bush redux was in a frat at Yale. We learn very little from the movie, even if you have no great knowledge of our president.

What confounds me even more is the fact that this movie was made before George W. Bush has even finished his second term, which makes it almost useless as a historical piece. There is absolutely no mention in the movie of the past 4 years of his presidency, of the presidential races with Kerry or Gore. Instead the movie cuts in and out of the pre-presidency and first-term presidency eras of George W. Bush's life.

Perhaps a better title for the movie would have been "Bush," since there seems to be more time devoted to Bush senior's political life than junior's. While I understand the need to lay the foundation for the rest of his life, the movie seems to revolve around the distant past, and does so by jumping back and forth through time, sometimes giving you cues into what year you've leapt, and sometimes leaving it up to you to figure out for yourself.

The comedy in the film falls flat right out of the gate. The jokes are poorly-timed, in such convoluted humor, or just plain bad. The only highlight from the movie may be the possible history lesson and the instilling of the fact that we made the wrong decision, but who needs to waste $10 and two and a half hours to learn that?

Death Race, starring Jason Statham, Joan Allen, and Tyrese, is a "remake" of the film Death Race 2000 (1975). However, the 2008 version takes place on a prison island, pitting prisoners against each other in machine-gun equipped sports cars and pickup trucks in an attempt to earn ratings for the corporation (headed by Allen's character, Hennessey).

Death Race is an action film, which means it places a lot of the key features of story-telling to the side, including realism, continuity, story development, and just about anything that isn't explosions or car chases. It is not the next Oscar winner for best film, but it is an enjoyable experience if you know what you are getting into.

Where Death Race excels is in the explosions and crazy stunts performed by the drivers, each looking to kill each other and gain position in the hopes of winning their freedom. The plot twists are to be expected, including Stratham being framed for his wife's murder and then mysteriously being chosen to become the next death race driver, only to find out he was a former racing champion. The action sequences make up for the lack of intellectual points in the movie. The races are interesting and the explosions, crashes, and deaths are all unique, and a few even made me cringe. There is just enough of a break between the races to make you want more.

Death Race is enjoyable for what it is, no matter its flaws. If you like speed, explosions, guns, a few girls, and lots of gore, then Death Race is for you.

If you're expecting a variation of Polar Express, I hate to break it to you, but Pineapple Express is not a movie about a train to Hawaii. It is however, a comedy worth your theatre dollar, including popcorn.

The premise behind the movie is that Seth Rogen witnesses a murder committed by cop and a drug lord, and thus is on the run. Along the way Rogen is joined by his pot dealer, played by James Franco, and they enter a number of humorous situations, from living in the woods to a cop-car chase, and an epic fight in a secret abandoned government testing facility.

The mix of action-comedy in Pineapple Express is similar to that in spoof movies and comedy franchises such as Austin Powers, where it mocks the genre, but is also compelling in its own right. The scenes were well-choreographed and even brought some empathetic pain to the audience, and the requisite car-chase scene was filled with laughs and stunts.

If there was one downside to the movie it was probably the semi-romance storyline introduced with Rogen's teenage girlfriend (she is 18, at least). After Rogen forces her family to flee their household, they are forgotten, leaving you wondering just where they went and what they did. Except for the comedy it brought in, Pineapple Express would be better-off without the added storyline. Also, if you're not wild about drug references then you should definitely skip this movie, since it's really only about two things: comedy and weed (the title of the movie gets its moniker from a "strain" of weed named Pineapple Express).

However, those are only minor glitches in the otherwise enjoyable Pineapple Express. While it is probably not going to win any Oscars, and with all the great movies that came out this summer it may get lost in the shuffle, Pineapple Expres is satisfactorily funny that you won't feel as though you've wasted your money. If you have the extra 2 hours to spare, I'd recommend you see it.

Not a new lament, the price of movie tickets has steadily increased since the 1990s and doesn't show any signs of stopping. Movie theatres raked in their largest sum ever in 2007, almost $9.7 Billion according to a Media By Numbers report. [PDF]. How is it then, that movie companies can still make movies like M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening and charge $10 a ticket and $15 for a soda and popcorn?

The Happening, the newest movie by Shyamalan, is supposed to be his return to glory. One of his best films. Please, that's like saying the Mariners played one of their best games ever last night: when everything else you've done looks like shit, it's not hard to look good sometimes. But even The Happening doesn't look good. Not even if you consider it as a B-movie going in.

The premise behind the movie is this: People are overpopulating the Earth, and Mother Nature wants to get back, so she sets loose the super-quick evolving hive mind of the plants in the Northeastern United States. The chemicals given off by these super-plants cause people to kill themselves in whatever weird way Shyamalan can come up with. That's right, the plants kill people (in a really roundabout way). In truth, I believe everyone in the movie saw The Happening and decided they had to kill themselves. This is way more plausible.

The problems with The Happening only start with the premise. The script must never have gone through anyone else's hands but Shyamalan's. Not even Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel can save it. And they don't even appear to try. The awkward dialogue feels like it was written by a third grader with a timing problem. To quote: "What color was love?" - Deschanel. "I don't remember." -Wahlberg. Are we supposed to feel for these characters? Then maybe there should be some character development. Throughout the movie you feel absolutely nothing for any character in the movie, if they were to die, then oh well. Your only hope is that they do die so the movie will end.

A thriller The Happening is not. Nor a scary movie. If some guy came up behind you whilst you were working and set off an air horn in your ear, would you call it scary or just really annoying? Apparently Shyamalan believes the former, because the only way Shyamalan can make The Happening scary is by having the soundtrack go from complete silence to playing a single note at volume 11.

The one positive piece to The Happening is the comedic moments. There are some truly funny parts, but only because Shyamalan appears to be making fun of himself. Had the movie been a comedy/parody throughout, I believe I would have truly enjoyed it. However, the awkward timing and horribly-written script combined with complete lack of character development and completely ludicrous plot make The Happening something that shouldn't have ever happened.