The true-life drama “The Boys Are Back” delicately and deftly finds a balance that’s hard to strike: It depicts death, and the way a family rebuilds and redefines itself afterward, without being excessively sentimental.  Director Scott Hicks’ film, with its dreamlike, sun-splashed landscapes of southern Australia, is visually arresting (the work of cinematographer Greig Fraser, who recently shot Jane Campion’s luminous “Bright Star”).

A surprise winner of this year’s foreign-language Oscar, beating out front-runners “Waltz With Bashir” and “The Class,“ the Japanese dramedy “Departures” has its moments but is ultimately overlong and too melodramatic. Director Yojiro Takita and writer Kundo Koyama begin with an intriguing premise, though: After the symphony orchestra he plays for disbands, cellist Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) leaves Tokyo and returns to his hometown with his sunny, supportive wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue).

You’d be justified in thinking you’ve visited “Zombieland” before. After all, there has been no shortage of zombies at the movies in recent years, just as there has been no shortage of vampires. And within that genre, a crop of zombie comedies has arisen, from “Shaun of the Dead” to “Zombie Strippers” to “Dead Snow.“ Like “Shaun” before it, though, “Zombieland” mostly finds that tricky balance of the laugh-out-loud funny and the make-you-jump scary, of deadpan laughs and intense energy. It’s a total blast, even if the story is a bit thin, and it does run out of steam toward the end, but thankfully our trip to “Zombieland” is appropriately quick.

Drew Barrymore has forged a persona as an actress and producer with movies that exude a playful sense of girl power, so it only makes sense that “Whip It,“ her first feature as a director, would share that same sort of vibe. What is surprising, though, is Barrymore’s ability to find just the right tone all the time, which would be a difficult feat for any first-time filmmaker to achieve—even one who’s spent her life on movie sets.

Surrogates” is itself a surrogate, a kind of stand-in for many of the sci-fi movies of the recent past: In it, you’ll recognize the ideas of “Blade Runner,“ “Minority Report” and even “WALL-E.“ The Bruce Willis action flick opens with two murders—the first in years in a quasi-present day Boston. Technology has advanced enough so that nearly everyone has a surrogate—or “surry” for short. While reclining at home and plugged into a machine, people control a robotic version of themselves that safely maneuvers through the world with all of its slings and arrows.

JENNIFER’S BODY Cast: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody,
At: Carmike, Commonwealth, Movieland, Short Pump, Southpark, Westchester, West Tower
FYI: Running time: 1:40. Rated R (sexuality, bloody violence).

Jennifer’s Body,“ the second screenplay from Diablo Cody after her Oscar-winning debut smash, “Juno,“ is so chock-full of her quirky trademarks, it almost plays like a parody of something she’d write. The self-consciously clever dialogue, the gratuitous pop-culture references, the made-up phrases intended to convey a specific high-school ethos—they’re all there. Even though fembot Megan Fox is an excellent fit to spit out these witty quips, it’s all so familiar. It makes you wonder whether Cody has any other weapons in her arsenal.

If only Quentin Tarantino the director weren’t so completely in love with Quentin Tarantino the writer, “Inglourious Basterds” might have been a great movie rather than just a good movie with moments of greatness.  Everything that’s thrilling and maddening about his films co-exists and co-mingles here: the visual dexterity and the interminable dialogue, the homage to cinema and the self-glorifying drive to redefine it, the compelling bursts of energy and the numbingly draggy sections.

Harry Potter has kept his fans waiting for two years, the longest school break they have had to endure for a new movie adventure about the teen wizard. It has been worth the wait. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,“ the sixth movie in the fantasy franchise based on J.K. Rowling’s books, is the best so far, blending rich drama and easy camaraderie among the actors with the visual spectacle that until now has been the real star of the series.

You put food in your mouth every day. But do you know exactly what you’re consuming when you pick up chicken breasts at the grocery store or drive though a fast-food restaurant for a cheeseburger? Or do you care?  Probably not, director Robert Kenner says in his documentary “Food, Inc.“—and you should.

Moon” does something extraordinary: It seems familiar and derivative, yet it upends your expectations about science fiction and surprises you over and over. Melancholy and mesmerizing, equal parts mystery and character drama, it keeps you guessing until the end.  The intelligent, assured debut from director Duncan Jones—David Bowie’s son, though we won’t have to describe him in terms of his famous father for much longer—harkens back to the fundamentals of the genre, in which people and provocative ideas mattered more than shiny gadgets and splashy effects.

The title of Woody Allen’s new comedy, “Whatever Works,“ might define what the filmmaker has been up to the past few years.  Allen churns out one movie a year like clockwork—some OK, some mediocre, none memorable. Sure, last year’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” drew solid audiences, won Penelope Cruz an Academy Award and was a step or two above other recent Allen flicks.

It’s easy to forget that Jennifer Aniston truly can act. It’s easy to get caught up in her sunny looks, in the tabloid frenzy of her off-screen persona, and lose sight of the fact that, when given the opportunity in small, meaty films, such as “The Good Girl” and “Friends With Money” and even the cult comedy “Office Space,“ she can reveal some real substance and depth.

Contemporary Ober-babe Jessica Biel steps into the snappy banter of Noel Coward’s roaring’20s in “Easy Virtue,“ and it’s an awkward fit. Simultaneously, director Stephan Elliott tries to make Coward’s world more accessible to today’s audiences with modern visual flourishes, and those feel uncomfortably forced, as well. The players who play it straight—Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth and Ben Barnes—make moments of “Easy Virtue” sparkle as they should.

The words “Eddie Murphy family comedy” are enough to send shivers down the spine of any selfrespecting film lover. With “Meet Dave,“ “The Haunted Mansion” and “Daddy Day Care,“ Murphy doesn’t have the greatest track record with this genre, at least in terms of quality (box-office success can be a different and often baffling phenomenon).