The Town

If testosterone were oil, Ben Affleck's hypermasculine rendering of Chuck Hogan's Prince of Thieves is a gusher. And that's not a bad thing. This story of a team of Boston bank robberies who make the mistake of taking a hostage after one job (the wonderful Rebecca Hall) is a muscular tale that's well-told through spot-on performances by a trio of men's men -- an impressively pumped-up Mr. Affleck, The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner and Mad Men's chief mad man Jon Hamm. Mr. Affleck's impressive directorial debut Gone Baby Gone was not a fluke. This is a well-crafted and affecting film. Bravo.

Salt

The central question of Salt: Is Angelina Jolie's Evelyn Salt a double- or triple-agent. While this puzzle was intriguing enough to keep me engaged, the true mystery is how a woman who weighs all of 87 pounds can perform the feats of derring-do and don't she does. Early in the film, Jolie's Salt throws herself off a br...idge onto the top of a passing truck below. That she doesn't bounce like a penny off of it and onto the highway is beyond me ... but then much of the action in this film is beyond reason. This makes it exciting and instantly forgettable fun.

Painted Pot for Nice Lady Across the Street

Step Up 3D

The intended audience for the Step Up series is suburban teens who sneak off to the city on the weekends to rub up against the hardcore ... and me. I really enjoy the film even though the casting of the leads -- Abercrombie & Fitch beauties who can't act -- is all about pulling in the Twilight crowd. Each of the films has been about a street smart white boy with black boy swagger who fights for respect in the highly competitive world of underground street dancing, where you either bring it or you get served (do they still talk that way?) Anyway, the eye-popping 3D of part 3 adds a stunning dimension, pun intended, to the already wild and wonderful proceedings.

The Kids Are All Right

I really liked Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right and not just because the title is spelled correctly (all right). That would be pedantic, and lord knows I don't want to come off as pedantic or ironic or sarcastic. This fresh and keenly observed little film is none of those things. It's unpretentious, genuine and... respectful of our flawed humanity. It's also funny and touching. It's the story of a family of four -- Joni, who's preparing to enter UCLA; her brother, Laser, who is a little clueless about his relationship with a dipshit buddy; and their moms, Nic, a doctor, and Jules, who's trying to find herself. Fifteen-year-old Laser is curious about the guy who donated the sperm for his and his sister's conception. Joni tracks down Paul, a local urban farmer and restaurant owner and they all get to know each other. Therein lies the "drama." It's a sure thing that folks who object to gays in general or gay marriage in particular will have a problem with this movie. But I'm wondering if some lesbians might have problems with the film's central conceit about the structure of gay marriages, as well.

The Other Guys

The Other Guys, directed by Adam McKay and starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, is about two New York detectives who can't seem to catch a break or a good case because they can't seem to get policing right. The movie, for what it is, gets nearly everything right. It's howlingly funny, a grotesque lampoon of evil capitalists and their stooges that is brimming with overacting from the inestimable Messrs. Ferrell and Wahlberg and the likes of Steve Coogan, Michael Keaton and Bobby Cannavale. The cherries on the top of this confection are the hilarious cameos by Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson.

Lost Creek Thursday Morning

Inception

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" was in the end disappointing. It's not that the cinematography went wild and outshone the acting because it didn't. Many of the showcace-y scenes of bent time and perspective were really quite restrained and the acting is uniformly competent. A film about entering another's subconscious is not new; I actually found The Cell (2000) quite intriguing and visually arresting. It's more that in the end I didn't care much for Inception's caper, romance, villain or threat, etc. I actually didn't understand much of the consciousness hokum, which sounded a lot like The Matrix.

Predators

Predators is bad science and bad fiction. Like every other movie of this type, it's not much more than Ten Little Indians in space. The audience gets to watch as the increasingly despicable characters are dispatched in increasingly gruesome ways by the inexplicably cranky predators of the title. Though some humor was i...njected by That 70's Show's Topher Grace, the movie is grim going all the way, leaving one to wonder why Oscar-winner Adrien Brody signed on for this dreck and why Laurence Fishburne accepted the invitation of an amazingly hammy cameo midway.

Sesqui Friday Morning

The Secret in Their Eyes

I'd not read a word about the remarkable Argentine film The Secret in Their Eyes before seeing it with a buddy last night although I think I knew it had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture this year. Though the story has some of the feel of murder mysteries and police procedurals, it's varied and intricate textures are like nothing I'd seen before. And, yes, it's conclusion is haunting and unsettling. Television director Juan Jose Campanella's film overflows with stunning visuals and intimate set pieces so stuffed with nuance I was put in mind of Ingmar Bergman's work. This film raises the bar in so many years, so many times, that for me it was like watching a film master craft a new standard of excellence. Superb.

Toy Story 3

Anyone who is not moved by the wondrously imagined final installment of the adventures of Woody, Buzz and Jessie should be stuffed in a box and shoved into a corner of the attic. I laughed, I cried. I loved this movie. What does it mean when animated features are tapping unadorned human emotion more regularly than live action films? P.S. Lotso the bear is the most brilliant character creation I've seen this year. Bravo, Pixar.

Harbison State Forest

Knight and Day

Hall and Oates make a not unwelcomed appearance in Tom Cruise's new flick, Knight and Day. The movie is entertaining but draggy in places and riddled with narrative holes and general nonsense. I wondered what Matt Damon would have made of Cruise's role as the "crazed" secret agent who is accompanied by a winsome automobile restorer played by Cameron Diaz as they track down a missing teen savant (Paul Dano) who has the key to perpetual energy. Cruise looks like he's had some body work -- fake pecs and lats.

Finlay Falls Sunday Morning

Splice

Splice is a squishy, oozy, nasty and repugnant David Cronenberg film without David Cronenberg. The squish and ooze belong mostly to the human/animal hybird created by lovers/scientists Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody, who
provide the nasty and repugnant elements, IMO. The film does take a couple of interesting turns but it telegraphs the ending fairly early on. As with Cronenberg's movies -- notably Crash (1996), Naked Lunch (1991) and The Fly (1986) -- Splice, directed by Vincent Natali, has an unsettling eroticism that transforms sex into a dance with mortal danger. The message of this motion picture of science run amok is you must always be careful who (or what) you're effing with.

How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon is at its core a familiar affair -- a senstive boy tries to find his place in his tribe and win his father's approval but his efforts are complicated when he finds a new pet. In this beautifully insightful film, the boy is a Viking, his father is the Viking chief and his pet is a fearsome (and ...misunderstood) dragon -- one of hundreds that have been pillaging the Viking village for generations. DreamWorks' animated features have been spotty, IMO, but this film is wonderfully realized, the characters enormously appealing, the action scenes cleaner than the CGI battles in The Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans (to name two of the more recent spectacles), AND the movie's message is life-affirming. The ending may be a bit shocking for very young children but overall it's a family affair.

Robin Hood

Yes, as a matter of fact, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood is quite a lot like his Gladiator. (Has it really been 10 years?) It's well-crafted, smartly scripted and boasts an enviable assortment of veteran actors and new faces. Russell Crowe as Robin Longstride is firmly at the center of this story about the origins of the legendary well-redistributor -- and there is quite a lot of action -- as he opposes Mark Strong's nefarious Lord Godfrey, who is in service to a vain and ineffectual ruler, King John, played winningly by the Guatemalan actor Oscar Isaac. But this time, Crowe, is oddly understated this time out, must share the stage with the estimable Cate Blanchett as Lady Marion Loxley. The lengendary Max von Sydow, in a small but pivotal role, gives a sure and studied performance as does William Hurt; but you would not expect less from actors of their caliber. This film has a palpable sense of time and space. My only quibble is with the prologue that sets the scene by telling us days of tyranny and oppression are no cup of tea. "England in the 12 Century was just such a time." Shouldn't that be "just such a place?" I'm just saying.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Much has been made of Jake Gyllenhaal's studliness in Mike Newell's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and for good
reason -- he looks great. He and his equallty stunning co-star Gemma Arterton are the most watchable elements in this fairly uninteresting and uninvolving but terribly busy film about magic and mystism in ancient Persia that's
based on a computer game. To be honest, I spent most of my time in the film wondering why they'd asked the L.A.-born actor to play valiant young Dastan with a British accent. Perhaps it's because Newell is a Brit, and so is Arterton, and featured players Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina. Perhaps they thought Gyllenhaal's swashbuckling adventurer would
be a distraction if he spoke in his normal voice. Trust me, nobody will be listening to anything this kid says in the film. Take the youngsters. It's got some scary moments with deadly serpents but overall the movie is harmless.

Kick-Ass

The over-the-top action picture genre is hit-or-miss with me. Hits have included most of Guy Richie's stuff, the little praised but much seen Wanted and the little seen but much praised Shoot 'Em Up. Misses include the Jason Statham collection, which is getting pretty hefty, and much of the lesser comics-to-cinema attempts starting, I think, with Daredevil (2003). Kick-Ass is a comic-to-cinema film that is as self-referential as a movie can get. A high school nobody is inspired to amateur superherodom by little more than reading comics and asking the question "Why not?" His first foray into crime fighting ends with him getting his "ass kicked" but through the intercession of modern medicine he is turned into a schmo who can take a punch better than most. The young British actor Aaron Johnson plays the youthful schlub and Nicolas Cage adds some gravitas (in a weird Christopher Walken kind of way) as a Batmanesque crusader Big Daddy. But the true star is 13-year-old Chloe Moretz who plays Hit-Girl a pre-teen badass who spits the c-word (yes, that c-word) like a pro. The movie's base vulgarity is exceeded only by the bloodletting. Do NOT take the kids.

Date Night

The laughs in Shawn Levy's Date Night, which stars Steve Carell and Tina Fey, are pretty rich and fairly frequent, and its underlying message to keep love alive in marriage is sweet, but the film is weighted down by weary cynicism. This cynicism will be familiar to those who have seen Fey's 30 Rock and Carell's The O...ffice, although Date Night is not nearly as biting as either of those programs. Still, I pulled for the poor, hapless Fosters as they climbed out of a pit of ridiculous mishaps and mistaken identities and howled at their antics.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Clash of the Titans (2010) is loud and exhausting, predictably short on exposition but long ... numbingly long ... on fight scenes led by Mr. Avatar, Sam Worthington, and directed by Louis Leterrier, who brought us the better of two Hulk movies. It's swords and sands and so everybody speaks like an earl. The Medusa is... wicked hot. The audience in screening cheered at the end. Go figure.

The Ghost Writer

No director does paranoia like Roman Polanski, and his latest film, The Ghost Writer, is a model of crackling suspense and suspicion. Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Catttrall, Olivia Williams and Tom Wilkinson swoop and swerve around one another effortlessly, guided assuredly by Polanski's masterful direction and a script that is a dream of literate intrigue and snipe. It's been ages since I've been in a film with a story so fresh, lean and tightly crafted that my attention NEVER wavered. Wonderfully entertaining.

Green Zone

Green Zone is more than a Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon vanity project but less than the latest Bourne installment. It has the kinetic madness of both Supremacy and Ultimatum and a bit of the political craziness of a Syriana but it lacks heft and intrigue mainly because we know the story -- there weren't no WMD. Greengrass's signature hand-held camera work left me especially dyspeptic this go round. Damon, long one of my favorites, delivers.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is a visual feast but it is not the cinematic wonder that Avatar is and it often feels junky and cluttered, qualities that are worsened by the 3D effects. I don't think I could have tolerated more length but the film feels disjointed and underdeveloped. Mia Wasikowska (stellar in HBO'sIn Treatment in 2008) is suitably spunky as Alice but the film overall is anemic and uninvolving. Pity.