Boardwalk Empire: Season 3 (2012) ***

Chimpanzee (2012) **

A young orphan chimp is adopted by a fully-grown male. A nature documentary edited like a fictional film, using footage of real-life chimpanzees living in the jungle.

Lincoln (2012) **

Conventional, classical and academic film about the legendary president.

Room 237 (2012) **

Various interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980).

Safe House (2012) **

Non-stop chases, exciting gunfights and plenty of other fireworks in this competently directed spy/action/thriller starring Denzel Washington as an ex-CIA agent trying to stay alive. Never boring, but the ending is quite disappointing - in the era of WikiLeaks, the reality has long left Hollywood fiction in the dust.

Arbitrage (2012) **

Richard Gere gives a fine performance in this tense, but cliché-ridden drama that borrows just a little too much from "The Bonfire Of The Vanities".

Safe (2012) **

Typical action pic starring Jason Statham. Never boring, but never surprising either.

Snow White And The Huntsman (2012) **

 

Less successful than "Mirror Mirror" (2012), it's an ultra-serious, action-packed version of the Snow White tale.

The Vow (2012) **

Sappy, but touching drama about a young woman (Rachel McAdams) who suffers a brain injury that erases her most recent memory. Her husband must then work to win her heart again, because she only remembers her life before she first met him.

The Deep Blue Sea (2012) **

ParaNorman (2012) **

Inexplicably nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film, it's a very ordinary cartoon feature full of witches, ghosts, zombies and even bullies.

Hannah Arendt (2012) **

Interesting, but conventional film about the famous philosopher.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) **

Quirky comedy about three journalists investigating a bizarre classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.

Jack Reacher (2012) **

Average whodunit starring Tom Cruise.

Roman Polanski A Film Memoir (2012) **

A documentary about the life of Roman Polanski.

The Expendables 2 (2012) **

The “Expendables” films are to the action movies what the “Scream” movies are to the horror genre – a hip, self-reflexive, satiric homage that nonetheless still delivers the goods the old-fashioned way.

Battleship (2012) **

If they wanted to show – SPOILER AHEAD - the battleship “Missouri” firing a broadside, they probably should have made a film about the naval battle of Okinawa in 1945, rather than a science-fiction flick about an alien invasion of Hawaii during the Obama administration. And considering that the “Mighty Mo” last served in battle during the 1991 Gulf War, it wasn't such a big stretch to imagine it – SPOILER AHEAD - brought back to service to save humanity from total annihilation. However, “Battleship” is still way better than any of the “Transformers” movies.

Hotel Transylvania (2012) **

Mildly amusing animated horror comedy about Transylvanian monsters holed up in Count Dracula's castle because they are afraid of humans.

It's Such A Beautiful Day (2012) **

Don Hertzfeldt's animated feature film, which includes his 2006's short "Everything Will Be OK" and his 2008's short "I Am So Proud Of You".

Ruby Sparks (2012) **

A fictional character comes to life.

Hitchcock (2012) **

Fine, but unexceptional film about the Master of Suspense filming "Psycho".

Men In Black (2012) **

A pretty good sci-fi/action movie with an ingenious time-travel concept.

Ice Age 4 Continental Drift (2012) **

Pirates of the Ice Age.

How To Survive A Plague (2012) **

Oscar-nominated documentary about ACT UP New York.

Underworld Awakening (2012) *

Routine action flick starring Kate Beckinsale as a vampire fighting against werewolves. A sequel to a sequel to the original “Underworld”... or was there another sequel in between ? Who cares anyway...

The Lorax (2012) *

Hopelessly boring animated feature about ecology. Preachy, unbearable and completely devoid of any rhythm.

The Hunger Games (2012) *

The first half of this movie is arguably the most boring, the most ridiculous and the most inept hour of celluloid in the history of Hollywood. The things improve somewhat in the second half, but by then, it's way too late to salvage this pretentious sci-fi/action monstruosity.

Prometheus (2012) *

Pointless prequel to "Alien", by the same director.

Dark Shadows (2012) *

Anthor boring "Johnny Depp in heavy makeup" Tim Burton production. It makes "The Addams Family" look like "Citizen Kane".

The Lady (2012) *

A film about a Burmese civil rights leader.

Chasing Ice (2012) *

Heavy-handed propaganda film about global warming. Its images of receding glaciers are stunning, but they would have been far more effective if accompanied by thoughtful insights even-handedly presenting all sides of the issue, allowing viewers to make up their own minds. Instead, we get countless variations on a single argument, repeated ad nauseam: "those who don't believe in global warming are Satan-worshipping heretics who should be burned at the stake!". It gets boring after a while.

The Invisible War (2012) *

Documentary about rapes in the US military.

Top 10 Films of 2011

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