Lawless (2012)

The Bondurant brothers are bootleggers with the cops in their pocket. One's the stoic brains, one's a monosyllabic enforcer, and the youngest is trying to prove himself. When a new special deputy is assigned to the area, the brothers' lives get quite a bit harder.

It's an ugly story in need of more moments of joy (and no, the young love storyline isn't enough). Guy Pearce as the deputy is one of those gleefully sadistic characters that don't actually exist while the brothers don't put a toe outside of their prescribed character sketches. Just boring as hell.

D+

Safe House (2012)

An unproven CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds) has been posted at a Cape Town safe house with no activity for about a year. When a "guest" (Denzel Washington) finally comes, so does a whole lot of trouble. Soon the agent is on his own dealing with the guest and trying to figure out who he can trust.

The breathers are pretty short here: it's mostly run, chase, fight, shoot in various locations. A really terrific action film that never had me rolling my eyes. The characters behave in believable ways and show intelligence but without superhuman smarts or abilities.

B

Hitchcock (2012)

Covers the time period when Hitchcock was making Psycho. Not only was he at odds with the studio, he and his wife were going through a rough patch as well. 

Everyone's quite good in their parts and the story is interesting, but there's not a whole lot of oomph to the proceedings. This was like reading a pretty decent book: I wanted to finish it, but I wouldn't have minded too much if the recording had been corrupted and it wasn't available to stream elsewhere.

B-

Lola Versus (2012)

We spend a year with Lola, starting on her 29th birthday. Her longtime boyfriend proposes and then breaks up with her just a few weeks before the wedding, which throws her life completely off-kilter. Her messy journey is believable and funny and heartbreaking. I could relate with the fact that removing a single bit of your life can make the rest of it so unstable -- the fact that one's life is just a jenga tower waiting to topple isn't clear until you're mid-wobble.

The film's success rests on Greta Gerwig's shoulders and she is, as ever, wonderful. I'd like to hang out with her.

B+

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012)

Jiro has been in the business of sushi for 70 years and, at the time this film was made anyway, he was the oldest man awarded 3 Michelin stars.

This is a thoughtful look at his restaurant and what it takes to be the best in this field. Hint: it takes everything. All the time, energy, and all the space in one's head. Both of his sons have followed him into the business as well. It falls short of being inspiring just because -- unless one is an artist (and I believe that Jiro is) -- it's not worth devoting yourself to your job like that.

Really interesting regardless.

B

A Mother's Son (2012)

A 15-year-old girl is murdered, and a mother suspects her teenage son is the culprit. Full of hand-wringing angst complicated by a newly-blended family. Not bad for a TV movie -- on par with PBS detective shows.

B-

The Dark Matter of Love (2012)

Interesting doc following a late-forties couple and their teenage daughter’s adjustment as they adopt a pre-teen daughter and young twin boys from Russia. It was excruciating to watch them struggle through the first several months -- I found myself angry at them for their obvious lack of preparation. I mean, they didn’t learn a lick of Russian and they changed their new kids' names without, apparently, informing or asking them. One of the boys wound up with the name "Cole" which apparently is the Russian word for a shot in the rump. The parents seem nice enough, but they're also over-privileged Americans who are, quite literally, Disneyfied in their view of the world.

But still. They somehow get through that very hard first year and form a family. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to do it all at once, but I couldn’t help but be inspired regardless.

B

Take Me Home (2012)

I generally trust Netflix's rating predictions for me. They've got 3000+ titles worth of data on me at this point and get darn close -- within half a star of my thoughts -- 90% of the time. So when this popped up as a 4-star recommendation and I saw it starred Sam Jaeger from Parenthood (a show I still miss more than a year after it left the air), I was on-board. Well, Jaeger not only stars, he wrote, produced, directed, and cast his wife as his co-star. And though I readily admit that I have very little to judge him on, my impression is that he's only got a talent for one of those five jobs.

The set-up: Thom is a struggling photographer in NYC who can't land a job and is getting evicted from his apartment. He owns a unregistered cab which he uses to grab some illegal fares when he's short, which is what he's doing when Claire flags him down. Claire has just walked in on her husband having a conversation with a woman in their home, which upsets her and lands her in Thom's taxi demanding that he just shut up and drive her wherever... which eventually turns into driving her to California where her estranged father has just had a heart-attack.

This was obviously shot on a shoestring budget, but that's not the problem. The problem is that these two are written as, basically, garbage people. She's the type that screams at a cab driver (before she has real cause to do so) and doesn't let her husband know where she is for several days. He's the type that thinks it's fine to indulge in a little upskirt voyeurism, liberate the continental breakfast food from hotels he's not staying in, and steal cash from his midwestern parents. Each takes their turn falling asleep at the wheel, endangering a highway's worth of travelers. So of course they're meant to be in love, right?

I was not amused nor was my heart warmed. Stick to acting, Jaeger.

D

Middle of Nowhere (2012)

A woman puts her medical school plans on hold so that she can work and still visit her husband in prison on the weekends, knowing that she can handle it for the four years or so until he's released on good behavior. When his sentence gets extended for a violent infraction and his parole hearing exposes consensual sexual contact with a female guard, she has to evaluate whether she’s willing to keep waiting around.

While I liked it, the vibe was a slightly too low-key and the soundtrack felt packed with distracting wrong choices (quite a few sexy R&B numbers). Scenes with her sister, nephew, and mother shed some light on where she came from and helped to paint a full picture of this woman, but it could’ve gone further. I wanted more.

B-

A Royal Affair (2012)

I have no idea why such a nondescript title was slapped onto this superb and deep movie.

The true-life story of Denmark's "mad" King Christian VII, his English bride Princess Caroline, and his personal physician Johann Struensee is told here -- and there's just so much to tell. It's undeniably fascinating and almost biblical in its level of angst and drama.

B+

The Imposter (2012)

The descriptor "bizarre" doesn’t begin to do this documentary justice. A 23-year old Parisian felon decides to pretend he’s a teen to be put into the relatively safe shelter of a children’s home. He gets in over his head when he claims to be an American...and then,  to be a specific child who'd been missing from San Antonio for three years. He fools the police, the embassy, and then even the family of the missing child -- even though this dark, stubbled man with brown eyes looks nothing like the blonde, blue-eyed kid. It only gets more crazy and unbelievable from there.

Compelling subject, but there was a lot left unexplained. I wanted answers that I never got. Still, fascinating.

B-

Jo Nesbo's Headhunters (2012)

Excellent little thriller: art thief whose day job as a corporate headhunter allows him to scope out potential marks finds himself a target of one of those marks. It didn’t let up once it got going and the ends all tied up satisfyingly.

B+

The Scapegoat (2012)

Laid-off teacher stumbles across his country-gentleman doppelganger in a pub and, before he knows it, the double has run off with his possessions and left him to figure out what to do. The teacher quickly learns that the gentleman was anything but and that explanations as to his actual identity won’t be believed -- but he also sees ways in which he can help to clean up the messes left behind by his predecessor.

I wouldn't call this a flawless movie, but it does a good job of keeping it on the “yeah, I could buy that” course as well as being entertaining with a low-level of intensity.

B+

The Flat (2012)

A Jewish man living in Tel Aviv begins the task of cleaning out the apartment of his recently deceased grandmother who left Germany ahead of the second World War. During the process, he finds evidence that his grandparents were close friends with a high-ranking Nazi before and after the war. His desire to uncover the whole story fuels this documentary.

It’s sort of interesting, but probably not in the way that the filmmaker intended. I found his presence to be offputting -- much like Werner Herzog’s is to me -- in that he 1) has no personality and 2) says very little that’s insightful. The absorbing bits were watching the immediate descendants of the Nazi couple and the Jewish couple try to cope with what they’re learning despite their lifelong training in disinterest on the subject.

But, even with a story this unique, it still feels very much like flipping through a stranger’s mementos.

C

The Decoy Bride (2012)

I love David Tennant almost irrationally, but this movie has taught me that there are definitely limits to that affection.

Paparazzi-hounded actress can’t find a quiet place in England to marry her novelist fiance, so she decides they’ll have to go somewhere remote: the tiny Scottish island that was also the setting of his book. When a stalker photographer tracks them down anyway, a decoy bride is brought in… and, who cares. It’s kindest to call it inept and leave it at that.

The accents, at least, are charming.

D+

The Inbetweeners Movie (2012)

The show is pretty funny, but stretching a 20-minute teen raunch-fest into movie length just doesn’t work.... probably due, in no small part, to the fact that I’m 47.

C-

The Awakening (2012)

Florence is in the business of exposing spiritualists for the charlatans preying on the bereaved that they are. She agrees to visit a boarding school to uncover what’s behind the sightings of a ghost there. It’s understated and spooky and I liked the ending -- I often feel that supernatural tales stumble in the last act, but I was satisfied here.

B

The Queen of Versailles (2012)

I truly expected to snicker my superior way through this documentary about richies being brought down several notches by the financial crisis. Instead, I found the lady of the house to be almost inspirational. Sure, she’s ignorant about how to make it without wads of cash, but she’s not angry about having to learn.

Her kids and husband on the other hand? What wastes of space.

B

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger! (2012)

I had a great time with this silly, just-go-with-it charmer. So adorable & fun! Gary was tolerant, but was not quite as into as I. We both agree that we can't wait to watch this with grandkids, though. Not only will they love it, but it will be a lot less embarrassing when there's a 6-year-old on the couch cracking up along with us.

B+

The Giant Mechanical Man (2012)

Janice isn't doing so great -- she's out of work and is forced to move in with her married little sister who, of course, can tell Janice exactly what she should be doing and whom she should be dating. Tim isn't doing much better -- he's a street performer who paints himself silver and walks on stilts to be the Giant Mechanical Man and his girlfriend has just moved out. Both wind up working at the zoo to make ends meet and, wouldn't you know it, they kinda like each other. But there are misunderstandings, of course. Thankfully they're fairly mild and are overcome by the time the credits roll. Woo.

Chris Messina and Jenna Fischer are winning as the leads, but there's just not enough here to matter.

C+