Seeing as it has been a few weeks and a number of anticipated releases since my last review, I thought I would do the honorable thing and provide you with a lightning-round of quick reviews. Ready…go.

Perhaps this year’s most critically divisive movie (and certainly the most obviously, if not long-windedly titled), “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is also this year’s best film to date. Brad Pitt delivers his best performance since 1995’s “12 Monkeys,” and certainly deserves the Oscar buzz his performance is generating. While a lesser actor may have wanted to go over-the-top in this kind of role, Pitt clearly understands the importance of his subtle portrayal of the paranoid and moody Jesse James as he perfectly contains the neuroses of James to the benefit of the film.

However, as great as Pitt is, he is matched step for step, and is actually outdone by relative newcomer Casey Affleck, the younger brother of Ben, as the titular Robert Ford. He does something very rare and entirely affecting in this film; he refuses to interpret his character. This may sound like a negative, but Affleck’s decision to neither vilify his character nor to render him sympathetic results in what should be a Best Supporting Actor nod in this spring’s Academy Awards.

The subtlety in these performances seen through the actors’ refusals to imbue their characters with any outside influence or interpretation, along with the gorgeous, Oscar-worthy cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins, results in a brilliant American debut for Andrew Dominik in this philosophical western dripping with  intriguing ambiguity and the rustic mythopoeia of the Old West.

“Gone Baby Gone,” the directorial debut of Ben Affleck, solidifies Casey Affleck’s place among the best of his generation of Hollywood’s infant elite. “Gone Baby Gone,” which follows the story of two private detectives (young Affleck and the beautifully simple Michelle Monaghan) searching for a missing four-year-old girl, is a startlingly mature debut for Ben Affleck as a director. 

This moody and thought-provoking film, grounded in the local color of Boston and based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (author of “Mystic River”), features standout performances by Casey Affleck as a morally aware tough-guy, Ed Harris as a morally confused cop, and Amy Ryan as the morally corrupt mother of the missing girl. The true standout of the film, however, is the moral haziness which surrounds the city, the characters and the choices that are made. While not flawless, “Gone Baby Gone” offers promising debuts (or near-debuts) for both Afflecks and Amy Ryan.

On a lighter note, The Farrelly Brothers’ newest film, “The Heartbreak Kid,” slides nicely into their canon of crude, adult comedies. The film follows Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller), a commitment-phobe who jumps into a marriage with a seemingly perfect woman. However, everything changes when Eddie finds that his wife is becoming increasingly loony on their honeymoon as he is becoming increasingly infatuated with another girl (Michelle Monaghan).

The downside? “The Heartbreak Kid” is not one of their better films. While there are a few humorous scenes and the movie isn’t terrible, it lacks the memorable moments and quotable lines that filled the Brothers’ best films like “There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumb and Dumber” and “Me, Myself, and Irene.” Typical comedy clichés substitute for a plot in the second half, and the characters all become progressively more dislikable. Humorous supporting turns are provided; however, it is comedian Carlos Mencia who provides the movie’s funniest moments, a bad omen for a movie if there ever was one.

“Across the Universe,” Julie Taymor’s (“Titus”) newest passion project, is an interpretive look at a life of drugs, war and revolution; namely, the 60s. This musical, based entirely on Beatles’ songs, stars newcomer Jim Sturgess as Jude and Evan Rachel Wood (“Thirteen”) as Lucy (now where did Taymor come up with these names?). Long story short, these two meet through Lucy’s Ivy League-dropout brother Max (Joe Anderson) and fall into the “throes of young love,” as Max puts it. This bliss is short-lived, however, as the world begins to change, starting with Max’s conscription into the Vietnam War and the subsequent disintegration of their bohemian troupe of idealists.

The film does little in the way of stimulating the audience’s mind, but is entirely breathtaking visually. Certain scenes, such as the revamped arrangements of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” provide arresting images of both beautiful and ugly-beautiful visuals. However, the plot and dialogue are at best apt and more frequently wholly contrived. It soon becomes clear that if Taymor would have put as much effort into her script as she did with her visuals, “Across the Universe” could have been great. As is, it adds up to an ambitious, moderately successful, but ultimately exceedingly gorgeous misfire.

Sean Penn is best known and most successful as an actor, but in “Into the Wild,” his third effort from behind the camera, Penn shows that he is a multi-talented Hollywood mainstay. The film, based on Jon Krakauer’s biography of the same name, follows Christopher McCandless, a college graduate who forsakes all that he has in the world and embarks on a journey to Alaska and to personal enlightenment.

Emile Hirsch (“Alpha Dog”) stars as McCandless in a terrific performance, devoid of any ego, of an oft-labeled egotist. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden star as his ever-feuding parents who are a major motivator in Chris’ leaving, while he meets several other characters throughout his journey who influence his life in some way or another, including a hippie couple in need of emotional healing (Catherine Keener & Brian Dierker), an everyman rancher whom McCandless greatly admires (Vince Vaughn), and a lonely widower (Oscar-worthy Hal Holbrook, both broken and wise contrasted to Hirsch’s confident and unaffected voyager) whose impact on the boy seems to be reciprocated.

There are numerous complaints one could lodge against “Into the Wild,” and all of them may be valid. However, this is an accomplished film which mirrors the journey of its protagonist, resulting in some complaints of the film being long-winded. Penn’s direction reflects the wanderings presented throughout and has a clear aim, but explores McCandless’ story just as he did--at its own pace.

In the end, it is completely unclear whether McCandless existed as a reincarnation of 19th century Transcendentalists or as an arrogant, bitter product of privilege, but it also doesn’t matter. Penn has made an extremely passionate and personal film is excellent precisely because to doesn’t try to be “good.”

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