instantwatcher.com

Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

1. 2 Days in New York 2012 These two days skip by in a movie that plays like early Woody Allen, with Julie Delpy as the blonder, French-accented Keaton, this time the center of the action and very much in charge of the mess she makes around her. full review
2. 360 2012 It's as interesting as a viewing exercise as it must have been as a writing exercise. But traveling 360 degrees with your story means you end up right back where you started. full review
3. Act of Valor 2012 It's a furiously macho saga scripted by the screenwriter of 300 and starring real Navy SEALS, those always-get-their-man men of mystery. full review
4. Amber Alert 2012 We've seen ghosts and Blair witches and demons and zombies in this growing "found footage" genre. But Amber Alert brings a little something new to the form - the urgency of pursuit, risks with real-world consequences. full review
5. Bernie 2012 Jack Black, in the greatest performance of his career, makes us see what the people of Carthage, Texas, saw in Bernie Tiede... full review
6. Bringing Up Bobby 2012 Famke Janssen only rarely finds her way to the lowdown and lowlife world of the characters, and never and brings "Bobby" up to the level of pathos of "A Mother's Sacrifice" that she was aiming for in the first place. full review
7. Butter 2012 About as subtle as a slab of lard served on a slice of ham. full review
8. Casa de mi padre 2012 Ferrell hurls himself into the melodramatic, heavy-breathing telenovela style of acting. And surrounded by actors who know the genre and get the joke (Efren Ramirez from Napoleon Dynamite among them), this send-up works. full review
9. Compliance 2012 A thriller that permits you to stay two or three steps ahead of it. It's a film that makes you yell at the screen, to shout "Come ON!" at many a moment that seems to defy credulity. full review
10. The Cup 2012 Dull? You don't know from dull. full review
11. The Deep Blue Sea 2012 It's a clumsy, dated and stodgy production -- ugly to look at, unromantic in the extreme. full review
12. The Devil Inside 2012 If it's January, it must be low-grade horror season. full review
13. For Greater Glory 2012 If you're making a movie aimed at people of a particular faith, you might want to cut it below an R-rating. And if you're going to attempt an epic, you need to spend more money than this. full review
14. God Bless America 2012 Attempts at being wacky and hip and flip fall flat as we're treated to lectures on the genius of Alice Cooper and the "civilization" that has ceased being civilized. full review
15. The Grey 2012 I couldn't decide if they lost track of the wolves in the editing, or if Carnahan realized how Twilight-fake the beasts looked and limited their scenes in the final edit. full review
16. Haywire 2012 Gina Carano has a face that can hold a Hollywood close-up and a fist that can hold your nose until it comes clean off. full review
17. The Imposter 2012 A mesmerizing con-artist comedy and a chilling true crime thriller... full review
18. The Innkeepers 2012 Writer-director Ti West goes where many -- especially Stephen King -- have gone before... full review
19. Intruders 2012 Horror has been so dumbed down in recent years that it's a minor miracle when a movie in this genre actually gives you something to ponder, something more than omnipotent nuts-with-knives or teenagers trapped in abandoned summer camps. full review
20. Jiro Dreams of Sushi 2012 A movie as elegant, spare and tantalizing as its subject. full review
21. L!fe Happens 2012 It's a sitcom pilot waiting for re-write. full review
22. Mansome 2012 You get a feeling of haste from this film, as if Spurlock...is onto something, but maybe doesn't have the time or patience to stick with it to widen his approach and find sharper people to sharpen his material. full review
23. Marley 2012 Every now and then, the movie comes close to placing us where the music often did - in the realm of the mystical, with a beat everybody could dance to. full review
24. Nature Calls 2012 More "Hangover" than "Moonrise Kingdom," but with elements of both. And more than a few rude and raunchy laughs. full review
25. Nobody Walks 2012 Like a lot of films in the chatty genre labeled "mumblecore," "Nobody Walks" glides by on little money, few incidents and a lot of conversations -- some of them without words. full review
26. October Baby 2012 Timed to come out in the middle of a political dogfight over birth control, when candidates tell their supporters that they'll "get rid of Planned Parenthood," October Baby could have hot-button appeal for a certain audience. full review
27. One for the Money 2012 Didn't Jennifer Aniston already do a bounty hunter movie? Talk about sloppy seconds. full review
28. Red Lights 2012 Bogs down in its middle acts, losing track of the epic struggle it sets up, but rallies for a fine finale that most won't guess until it shows up full review
29. Safety Not Guaranteed 2012 It's the film's attempt at a conventional, big budget finale, with a big prop(Think H.G. Wells)...that trips it up. full review
30. Seeking Justice 2012 No, it's not much better than the dreck Cage has been shoveling at us in recent years - a tad smarter, perhaps. But as in life, he keeps getting up off the mat and coming back for more, even if much of his audience isn't returning the favor. full review
31. Silent House 2012 A movie whose terror can be read in every silent scream on Olsen's gorgeous face, served up in more extreme close-ups than you can count. full review
32. Sleepwalk With Me 2012 It's slight. full review
33. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie 2012 "Billion Dollar Movie" is proof positive that having friends is a lot more important than having talent in Hollywood. full review
34. Tyler Perry's Good Deeds 2012 A few good scenes, a few solid messages...But he's such a dull dramatist and boring actor that the message isn't delivered. full review
35. The Adventures of Tintin 2011 The Adventures of Tintin can be a delight to look at, even if motion capture isn't your particular cup of animation tea. full review
36. The Artist 2011 "The Artist" drags, as any film telling its story with its mouth and ears tied behind its back can be expected to. But it's a lovely bit of froth, the meringue on a cinema season that is both high-minded and awards oriented. full review
37. Coriolanus 2011 The great actors, from Welles onward, want the popular audience to see what they see in Shakespeare -- that he still matters, that he still moves, thrills and teaches. With "Coriolanus," Fiennes brilliantly takes his place in their ranks. full review
38. The Flowers of War 2011 Veering from the sensational to the maudlin, this is a compromised epic that panders to the Chinese audience. full review
39. Machine Gun Preacher 2011 With all the talk of "Kony/KONY 2012" wending its way into the culture, this movie gives a vivid picture of who this villain is and why the world should be doing something about him. full review
40. The Names of Love 2011 An edgy French twist on the old Hollywood "meet cute" romance. full review
41. Trishna 2011 Pinto, stoic and stunning, demonstrates why this heroine and this tale of her woe still have power more than 150 years after it was written. full review
42. Young Adult 2011 Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman have still managed to get at a fundamental truth that screenplays traditionally ignore. People don't change. Character "arc" is one of those myths that movies perpetuate. full review