SEPTEMBER

UPCOMING MOVIES: Critic's

recommendations are highlighted. (Note: Dates are subject to change.)

SEPTEMBER

14 -- "Across the Universe" tells the story of Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) and their star-crossed love affair that is set against the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. From director Julie Taymor ("Titus" and Broadway's "Lion King").

14 -- "Dedication" marks the directorial debut of actor Justin Theroux, who has enlisted Billy Crudup and Mandy Moore in a romantic comedy about a misanthropic children's book author (we need more of those!) whose ideas about love and life are challenged by a cute illustrator (we need more of those, too!).

14 -- "The Hunting Party" plunges viewers into the high-stakes world of television war reporting, here against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia. When a reporter played by Richard Gere has a meltdown, he disappears, only to emerge years later with the scoop of a lifetime -- the whereabouts of a notorious war criminal. With Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg.

14 -- "Eastern Promises" re-teams director David Cronenberg with his "History of Violence" star Viggo Mortensen, here playing a London criminal who sets a harrowing plot in motion when he meets an innocent midwife (Naomi Watts).

14 -- "Mr. Woodcock" stars Seann William Scott as a self-help author whose return to his home town is ruined by the discovery that his mom (Susan Sarandon) is keeping company with his high school nemesis, a gym teacher named Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton).

14 -- "December Boys" stars Daniel Radcliffe in a rare non-Potter role as one of a group of orphans living in Australia in the 1960s who believe their chance at finding families may never come, and whose summer trip to the seaside may give them a chance to change their fate.

14 -- "Great World of Sound," from first-time director Craig Zobel, stars Pat Healy and Kene Holliday as struggling talent agents whose big break continues to elude them. Produced by David Gordon Green ("George Washington").

14 -- "In the Valley of Elah," written and directed by Paul Haggis ("Crash"), stars Tommy Lee Jones as a war veteran searching for his son, a veteran of the Iraq war who has inexplicably gone missing. Susan Sarandon plays his wife; Charlize Theron is the police detective assigned to the case.

14 -- "The Brave One" stars Jodie Foster as a New York radio host who, after a brutal attack that leaves her wounded and her fiance dead, embarks on a rampage of revenge that draws cheers from citizens and the attention of a police detective (Terrence Howard). From Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game").

14 -- The DC Shorts Film Festival gets underway at Landmark's E Street Cinema, featuring 89 films dealing with everything from urban paranoia, bipartisan passion and love for one's garbage disposal to childhood dreams, the work of Willem de Kooning and how one woman unconventionally overcomes her fear of clowns. Through Sept. 20.