My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Michelle Williams doesn’t have Marilyn Monroe’s body or smile, but she does capture the icon’s madness and insecurities during the filming of “The Prince and the Showgirl.” The best parts are Williams’ musical numbers at the beginning and end.

d: Simon Curtis | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose | Heatwave

Young Adult (2011)

Jason Reitman directs another script by Diablo Cody (“Juno”), a dark comedy about high school — 20 years later. Charlize Theron is an understated force, a desperate, alcoholic who wants her old boyfriend back, while Patton Oswalt adds truth and humanity.

d: Jason Reitman | imdb.com | trailer | Do I know you? | Adorable
Checking in | Looking for a dress | Wedding photo

The Descendants (2011)

George Clooney, looking as weathered as he can, mourns the loss of his comatose wife through ponderous voice-over and discovers her recent affair in a soapy comedy set in Hawaii. Clooney and teenager Shailene Woodley are excellent, but the film is cold.

d: Alexander Payne | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose
Mom was cheating on you. | Stalking. | We’ll surprise your sister.

Tower Heist (2011)

Eddie Murphy’s anticipated return to actual entertainment is mostly unfulfilled promise. Murphy isn’t nearly funny enough, and neither is Ben Stiller, thanks to a lackluster script. The best part is the heist, a farcical version of the “Ocean’s” movies.

d: Brett Ratner | imdb.com | trailer | Slide trains the crew.
We’re undefeatable. | Never give your wallet ... | Lunch is on me.

Margin Call (2011)

Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker and Demi Moore negotiate the end of a fictional investment bank (Lehman Brothers) during the 2008 financial crisis, and writer-director J.C. Chandor uses taunt dialogue and few sets to make a thriller.

d: J.C. Chandor | imdb.com | trailer

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

In her first feature film, Elizabeth Olsen brilliantly portrays her desperate mental state after escaping from a cult in rural New York. John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone”) is just as excellent as the cult leader. But the movie has no third act.

d: Sean Durkin | imdb.com | trailer | Elizabeth Olsen | the story

The Ides of March (2011)

George Clooney directs an elementary story of an idealized presidential candidate (played by Clooney) who turns out to be just as human as any politician, and aid Ryan Gosling realizes what everyone already knows — that politics is a cynical business.

d: George Clooney | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose
the State of the Union | Make it mandatory. | My name is Molly.

50/50 (2011)

Cancer patient Joseph Gordon-Levitt leans on best friend Seth Rogen (producing his second cancer comedy), girlfriend Bryce Dallas Howard, therapist Anna Kendrick and mother Angelica Huston with varying results in a sweet, funny, winning comedy.

d: Jonathan Levine | imdb.com | trailer | The best odds | Haircut
Skeletor | Doogie | I’m moving in. | That’s your hook. | Blanket

Moneyball (2011)

Based on the book by Michael Lewis, the baseball film asserts that the Oakland A’s won 103 games with only their “Island of Misfit Toys,” not with the best player and best pitcher in the league. But Brad Pitt is believable as general manager Billy Beane.

d: Bennett Miller | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose
Biggest fear | Player evaluations | He plays for Detroit now.

Drive (2011)

Ryan Gosling — stuntman, wheelman, real man — channels Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen, and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn provides the highly stylized Los Angeles backdrop and brutal violence. Even better, Albert Brooks exacts some of it.

d: Nicolas Winding Refn | imdb.com | trailer | Get away
He’s a good guy. | My hands are dirty. | Put him behind the wheel.

Contagion (2011)

Steven Soderbergh directs an international thriller about a pandemic that kills millions of people in a few months, capturing all the ensuing paranoia, as if Hitchcock came back to make one of those zombie apocalypse movies. But Jude Law is just awful.

d: Steven Soderbergh | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose
Don’t touch anything. | I think I’m sick. | It came from here.

30 Minutes or Less (2011)

Director Ruben Fleischer and Jesse Eisenberg — an unwilling bank robber with a bomb strapped to him — don’t deliver another “Zombieland,” but there are some cool moments, like the bank robbery and “The Heat Is On” car chase in the middle 30 minutes.

d: Ruben Fleischer | imdb.com | trailer | This time, it's personal

The Help (2011)

Based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett, director Tate Taylor makes an overwrought tear-jerker with some bathroom humor about Southern black maids in the early 1960s. But the movie is well executed, thanks to good performances, especially by Viola Davis.

d: Tate Taylor | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose
Let’s begin. | I need your help. | I got a job. | You is important.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

In this origin story and second “Planet” redux, scientist James Franco raises an ape with the help of a super drug. During Caesar’s maturation, the film does the near-impossible, humanizing the ape as it displays and elicits real emotions.

d: Rupert Wyatt | imdb.com | trailer | Ape escape | Charlie Rose

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

The best parts of this almost winning romantic comedy are Ryan Gosling teaching Steve Carell how to dress and pick up women. Gosling also romances the (Emma) Stone. But Julianne Moore is barely there, and Jonah Bobo, 13, is an annoying sitcom character.

d: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose

The Guard (2011)

Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle play mismatched buddy cops — a smart Irish Archie Bunker and an affluent American FBI agent — familiar archetypes with new chemistry, and John Michael McDonagh directs with bright colors and even brighter dialogue.

d: John Michael McDonagh | imdb.com | trailer
It hurts. | Street value | Disney World | Gaelic

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day play regular guy Three Stooges who plot to kill their bosses — Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and sexual harasser Jennifer Aniston — with deft comic timing, cocaine slapstick and murder consultant Jamie Foxx.

d: Seth Gordon | imdb.com | trailer

Bad Teacher (2011)

Cameron Diaz is a teacher in search of a boob job and game for anything, even writhing on the hood of a car, in her first R-rated comedy since There’s Something About Mary. The movie is so much fun it hardly matters that bad triumphs over good (Lucy Punch).

d: Jake Kasdan | imdb.com | Sexy car wash

Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)

This documentary is all over the place, a mish-mosh of ideas surrounding the paper’s survival, its newly formed media desk and the unlikable David Carr. If the Times wants to save money, it should move out of its post-modern palace.

d: Andrew Rossi | imdb.com | trailer | Tick-Tock | Charlie Rose

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (2011)

The documentary of Conan O’Brien’s 32-city, post-“Tonight Show” tour is a road picture full of backstage preparation and post-show whining, a portrait of Conan, circa 2010. But director Rodman Flender has edited the life out of the concert bits.

d: Rodman Flender | imdb.com | trailer

Green Lantern (2011)

The latest $150 million comic book fanboy inside joke isn’t good enough to be bad. It’s just boring — and it looks cheap. Ryan Reynolds, a maverick test pilot, finds this ring and then ... there’s this backstory, and you’ll wish you’ve never heard of planet Oa.

d: Martin Campbell | imdb.com | trailer | WonderCon 2011

Super 8 (2011)

Steven Spielberg presents and J.J. Abrams directs a crappy mash-up of Spielberg’s early work — the kids (including a fat one) on an adventure in “Goonies,” the lens glare in “Close Encounters” and an alien who wants to go home. Naturally, it’s set in 1979.

d: J.J. Abrams | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Matthew Vaughn directs the “X-Men” prequel, the sort of corny comic book movie that he satirized so well in last year’s “Kick-Ass.” This time, Vaughn provides the fodder, including hackneyed dialogue and 12 mutants who rewrite the Cuban Missile Crisis.

d: Matthew Vaughn | imdb.com | trailer | Training montage

The Tree of Life (2011)

Terrence Malick directs a beautiful piece of something about creation, life and afterlife and a love letter to hard-ass fathers from the 1950s starring Brad Pitt, who overcomes his good looks, using his square jaw to suggest and different time and man.

d: Terrence Malick | imdb.com | trailer | Creation | Hit me.
Lived it | Brahms | Help each other. | Gone to the dogs

The Hangover Part II (2011)

The second “Hangover” is darker (with more male nudity) and better than the first, thanks to Bangkok, where Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis find violent monks and a drug-dealing monkey — and Helms reworks Billy Joel’s “Allentown.”

d: Todd Phillips | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose
I think it’s happened again. | Pig! | “The Hangover”

Bridesmaids (2011)

Kristen Wiig, a comedy virtuoso on “Saturday Night Live” for years, writes and stars in a vehicle tailored to her subtle talents, the story of a maid of honor for whom everything goes wrong. It isn’t just a great comedy featuring women. It’s a great comedy.

d: Paul Feig | imdb.com | trailer | First class | About last night

Your Highness (2011)

The stoner fantasy features a sorcerer’s tale and a sorcerer’s tail (Natalie Portman’s bare ass), but director David Gordon Green, James Franco and Danny McBride can’t recapture the high times of “Pineapple Express.” You may have to be stoned to enjoy it.

d: David Gordon Green | imdb.com | trailer | Advice for Isabel

Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

Lauded as the world’s most beautiful woman (Oh, those violet eyes!) and chided for her eight marriages (two to Richard Burton), Elizabeth Taylor could also act. She proved her mettle mostly as wanting women, full of drama and so good at being bad.

imdb.com | Time | The New York Times

Limitless (2011)

Bradley Cooper takes a super drug that helps him reach his full potential (as a writer and financial genius), and while the film doesn’t quite do the same, it’s an entertaining yarn and more than believable in the cynical present when (legal) drugs are cool.

d: Neil Burger | imdb.com | trailer | Charlie Rose

Win Win (2011)

Paul Giamatti plays exasperated and put-upon like no one else, but he is calmer and more natural this time as a struggling lawyer and high school wrestling coach. Giamatti is great, and so is newcomer Alex Shaffer in comedy about trying to do the right thing.

d: Thomas McCarthy | imdb.com | trailer | Heart attack
Eminem | Beat the crap | Give me a slap. | JBJ | She’s a druggie.

Take Me Home Tonight (2011)

A cheesy love letter to the 1980s, the film doesn’t really care about the decade, except to mine the era for its one-hit wonders, skinny ties and popped collars. The worst part: Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight” wasn’t even used in the movie.

d: Michael Dowse | imdb.com | trailer | “Don’t You Want Me”

Hall Pass (2011)

The Farrelly Brothers latest effort feels dated and tame in the era of Judd Apatow, the new king of comedy via dick jokes. Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate live in sitcom world, where men are stupid and women are shrews.

d: Farrelly Brothers | imdb.com | trailer | I got a hall pass.

My favorite movies (2010)

1. The Social Network | David Fincher
2. True Grit | Coen Brothers
3. Winter’s Bone | Debra Granik
4. The Tillman Story | Amir Bar-Lev
5. Greenberg | Noah Baumbach
6. Get Him to the Greek | Nicholas Stoller
7. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World | Edgar Wright
8. Kick-Ass | Matthew Vaughn
9. The Runaways | Floria Sigismondi
10. Machete | Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis

The Mechanic (2011)

Jason Statham plays Jason Statham, the baddest man in movies, but this time he’s a hitman in a remake of a 1972 Charles Bronson film. Ben Foster ups the acting ante as Statham’s less professional protégé. The whole thing is an effective bloody mess.

d: Simon West | imdb.com | trailer | You owe me.