Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro Directed by: David O. Russell Damaged goods, that's Tiffany and Pat. He's a bipolar teacher just out of eight months in a state loony bin. She's a young widow, overcompensating for the death of her cop husband by fucking, well, anyone. They're manic energy unleashed. But as played with go-for-broke intensity, humor and raw feeling by Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, they're deranged romantics you can't help rooting for. Playing the Hollywood cute game has no appeal for director David O.... | More  Keira Knightley, Jude Law Directed by: Joe Wright It could have weighed a ton. That can happen when you film an 1877 classic by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. But thanks to director Joe Wright, Anna Karenina lifts off into the wild blue of his imagination. The surging romantic tragedy of a woman who dies for love is still there in Tom Stoppard's screenplay. Anna (Keira Knightley) leaves her dull husband, Karenin (Jude Law, so good he makes virtue worth investigating), and their beloved son to experience unbridled passion with studly Cou... | More  Daniel Craig Directed by: Sam Mendes If you can forget the putrid follow-up to Casino Royale that was Quantum of Solace, then Skyfall continues James Bond's backstory with staggering style and assurance. This is Bond like you've never seen him, almost Freudian in his vulnerability. And a dynamite Daniel Craig, never better in the role, nails Bond's ferocity and feeling. Mortality lurks in the shadows as Craig digs deep into Bond's past. Citizen Kane had his Rosebud. Bond has his Skyfall. What is it? I'll... | More  Daniel Day-Lewis Directed by: Steven Spielberg In Steven Spielberg's brilliant, brawling epic about the last four months in the life of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln takes a few hits up there on his marble pedestal. Political double-dealing was not beyond this American icon, not when his country was struggling in the darkness. What Honest Abe gets back from this defiantly alive film is his humanity -- flaws, fears and personal feelings that serve to deepen his thoughts rather than distract them. The phenomenal Daniel Day-L... | More  Directed by: In September 1965, weeks after "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" hit the charts, the Rolling Stones landed in Dublin to play four manic gigs in two days. The band's manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, commissioned filmmaker Peter Whitehead to capture every moment. "Everybody had done a movie, even Gerry and the Pacemakers," says Oldham. "I wanted to get the Stones in the mood for dealing with the film business." Now that remarkable footage -- which rivals the intimate portrait of Bob D... | More  Denzel Washington Directed by: Robert Zemeckis First lesson learned from Flight: Never take Denzel Washington for granted. After making his bones with Glory, Malcolm X and The Hurricane, and winning a Best Actor Oscar for 2001's Training Day, Washington settled into a groove of action films (Safe House, Unstoppable). With the exception of 2007's incisive American Gangster, they relied more on his star power than his acting skills. Flight reminds us of what Washington can do when a role hits him with a challenge that would floor ... | More  John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch Directed by: Rich Moore There's been a rash of recent movies fired up with imaginative risk. And the 3D computer-animated Wreck-It Ralph is one of them. Big props to director Rich Moore, making the switch to features after knocking it out of the park on The Simpsons and Futurama. Moore brings a video junkie's passion to the movie game, and it's hilariously infectious. The plot pivots on a crisis of conscience for Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly), an arcade-video-game villain for 30 years. Ra... | More  Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman Directed by: Yaron Zilberman Grace notes abound in A Late Quartet, a small, shining gem of a movie that works its way into your heart with insinuating potency of music. The Fugue, a New York-based chamber quartet, is facing a crisis. At the start of their 26th season together, cellist Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken) breaks the news that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Proper sympathy is offered by his colleagues: First violinist Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir) thinks Peter should continue to play as ... | More  Tom Hanks, Halle Berry Directed by: Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski It's elating to watch filmmakers you admire take on the impossible. David Mitchell's 2004 novel Cloud Atlas is an uphill battle incarnate. And nobody makes it to the top. A sprawling literary opus that tells six stories that range across continents from the 19th century to the post-apocalyptic future is a killer to squeeze into one movie, even a movie that runs nearly three hours. So naturally the Wachowski siblings, Andy and Lana (the former Larry, now identifying as female), took ... | More