Lincoln

Rating: 3

Spielberg seems to have replaced all his scrappiness with sanctimony. I wish he'd stick to sharks & aliens and move slowly away from historical figures and ham-fisted morality plays. All around blech.

Life of Pi

Rating: 6.5

Magical realism and a beautiful look into the world of animals make the movie. I had to willfully ignore some of the heavy-handed spirituality. It was worth it for that fantastic tiger. The meerkats were pretty great too.

Silver Linings Playbook

Rating: 8.5

Another one I didn't expect to like as much as I did. Heartfelt but not sappy, quirky but not cutesy.

Savages

Rating: 7

I can't say I enjoyed it considering the amount of explicit murder and torture, but it's a pretty darn good movie.

Anna Karenina

Rating: 9

It's the perfect Thanksgiving day movie: lavish, overindulgent and enormously satisfying.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Rating: 10

I knew very little about Ai Weiwei going in, and now he is my favorite and most respected artist.  Just because of the movie!  That's saying something.

Bernie

Rating: 9

I once heard Jack Black say in an interview that he isn't really an actor, he just plays versions of himself. He's wrong. His performance in Bernie is as good as any I've seen.  The story is based on a true incident and the movie does something completely unique that I'm not going to spoil here.  If you can, please see it.