50 years ago, Tom Courtenay starred in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) as a gaunt-cheeked, anti-Establishment rebel. Courtenay was one of the major, intriguing faces of the "Angry Young Men" of British film.

Not Fade Away is one of those films that really depend on what you bring to it.

Zero Dark Thirty is a skillful - and somewhat cautious - look at military bureaucracy and power.

It's both hampered and elevated by its dependence on authenticity.

The Impossible is like a big budget Lifetime saga. It's a mixture of screams and violins.

Seeing The Hobbit is like going to a timeshare presentation. First you have to sit through the boring stuff before you can take advantage of the spectacular benefits.

Les Misérables is a long, slow, musical slog. It's a dreary piece of work. It has its moments, but it seldom if ever takes flight.

The stage play soared.

The Long Green Line is a high-spirited celebration of life on a high school cross country team in Illinois.

Philadelphians are a breed apart. Nobody understands us.

Most people think we booed Santa Claus. We didn't boo Santa Claus.

A film's ending matters.

A lot of movies sputter or fade at the end, but occasionally a surprising denouement raises a movie to another level. It reverberates back through the work and lifts it to a new sensibility.

Lincoln is like a course taught by a competent teacher. It's informative, but it's neither inspiring nor fascinating.

The Sessions is another movie about a man on a journey. Destination: Ejaculation Junction.

In 1990 Mark O'Brien, journalist and poet, had his article, "On Seeing a Sexual Surrogate" published in Sun Magazine.

Hitchcock is a film for which I am very grateful.

It restores Hitchcock's humanity.

Flight is a bumpy ride. It swoops and sputters.

Here I go again.

Wanting better and unwilling to settle for less. It's a curse. Why can't I just sit on the edge of my seat or stand up and cheer?

Shifty is low-key, low budget, but high grade. It's a film about sitting and talking. And drug dealing.

It builds slowly - some may want more action, but it has a surprisingly satisfying conclusion.

Argo is a skillful, dramatic entertainment. It's slick.

If you leave before the end of End of Watch - about 3/4 of the way through - you'll see a much better movie.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master baits the audience.

One notable reviewer, in a major magazine, ended his rave: "He [Anderson] clarifies nothing, but leaves us brooding on our own confusion."

Looper is stylish mayhem.

It careens along the edge of silliness. It stalls and starts and spins out. It's a spastic attack on its audience's suspension of disbelief.

Trouble with the Curve should be titled Trouble with the Cliche.

It was not written by a hitter; it was written by a hacker.

Arbitrage is the latest in a long line of movies with touches of Alfred Hitchcock's DNA.

Robot & Frank is an airy, engaging flight of fancy.

It's also part caper film, part character study, and part allegory about aging. Robot & Frank shouldn't work, but it does.

It's rare to have a good movie made from a novel by an artistic American author. Extremely rare.

Where has the western gone?

It's gone to Virginia.

In Side by Side, editor Walter Murch states, "In a way, film was the church of the 20th century."

Most men have been bewitched by a female in their lives.

Many of these intoxicating vixens have been created in their imaginations - or at least idealized and romanticized.

Until we woke up.

When a very successful movie franchise makes some major changes, it is likely that it will face a deluge of rejection and preconception.

"They changed it. OMG, they made changes!"

Neil Young shambles across the dim stage. He's garbed in black t-shirt, jeans, whitish jacket and wearing a straw hat that has seen better days.

The Deep Blue Sea is a fitful, poignant film about failed love. It's a movie that casts a harrowing spell.

Adapted from the play written by Terence Rattigan, The Deep Blue (1952) is set "around 1950."

The Monitor [originally titled Babycall] is a morose sturdy of morose behavior with an actress giving a morose performance. It's all pretty morose.

The Dark Knight Rises is a brawl of a movie.

In IMAX, it's a magnificent brawl of a movie. At times it careens into unwieldy mayhem, but at other, crucial times, it's brilliantly thrilling.

Move over Scientologists.

Who says there aren't movies for 60-year old Roman Catholics? Stella Days is making room for a pewful of moviegoers.

The contemporary world is smitten with "Reality Shows."

Maybe the best thing about Monsieur Lazhar is that the school children in it really seem to care about education.

Of course, it's in Canada.

I'm taking over for Macklin - he can't handle the truth about bears.

But I can. I'm a bear named Teddy. I live with Tony and his honeypot Judy. They named me - clever name, huh?

Were Ken and Barbie rockers?

Rock of Ages seems to think so. Its version doesn't have a speck of dirt or an iota of grit. It makes the dancing gangs in West Side Story (1961) authentic in comparison.

Safety Not Guaranteed is an indie flight of fancy.

In his latest endeavor, To Rome with Love, Woody Allen goes on a scooter, weaving his way through Rome on a sputtering vehicle.

Headhunters (Hodejegerne) is a roiling Norwegian mix of Hitchcock and Wile E. Coyote, with a generous dose of feces and blood.

If that sounds like a strange, absurd concoction, it is.

Prometheus is no odyssey. It's more a slog through space glop.

The characters are sketchy, and the plot is scrawny. It goes where a lot of filmmakers have gone before.

What's next - Bambizilla?

1968 was the year both Will Smith and Josh Brolin were born.

Now Smith and Brolin get together on screen for about an hour in Men in Black 3 - set when? 1969.

Old folks like familiarity. For most of them, familiarity breeds comfort.

Someone told me I'd have to suspend my disbelief when I saw Battleship.

Not true. After a while you have no brain left with which to disbelieve.

Battleship is a loud lobotomy.

Question: When is a pirate a lark?

Answer: When he's composed by the Aardman Animations production company and voiced by Hugh Grant.

It drives me nuts when an interviewer doesn't follow up.

Although it takes a while to hit its stride, once it does Marvel's The Avengers is a razzle-dazzle, rip-roaring entertainment.

Cellmates is an indie film that shouldn't work. And at times it doesn't, but at other times it has an offbeat integrity that engages.

The plot is threadbare, and many of the allusions seem dated and forgotten.

Marley is a terrific documentary. It goes beyond one figure, and captures the essence of life itself.

Unraveled is a con job.

It has the clammy hands of its crooked main figure all over it.

Sleepless Night (Nuit blanche) is one frenetic French dream. It's slam-bang mayhem - with an active intelligence.

Although We Have a Pope is a heady concoction, it may not have mass appeal.

Goon is based on chutzpah.

At the beginning of the movie, it says, "Based on a true story." That's usually the kiss of inauthenticity.

Education is under attack. It always has been.

If the essence of education is independent thinking, it's in free fall these days.

The Hunger Games is nourishing entertainment. It's a riveting adaptation of the first of Suzanne Collins' trio of celebrated novels.

21 Jump Street is a cockamamie movie.

It's as rowdy as a dick joke. And another dick joke. And another dick joke. After the 21st dick joke, I wanted to jump off.

Thin Ice is in the tradition of movies that were filched from their directors, recut, changed, and then released in a different, more "commercial" version from what their creative directors intended.

Game Change, in a way, is more potent than its political sources. Based on the book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann (who has one line of dialogue as a reporter in the movie), Game Change was adapted for HBO by Danny Strong.

The Forgiveness of Blood ends with the image of the expressionless face of a young woman. If audiences demand resolution, this does not provide it.

It's hard to recommend a movie such as In the Land of Blood and Honey. It's more than two hours of misery and despair.

Roadie shows the gulf that at times separates critics and general viewers.

Why would you cast Denzel Washington, and then cut his performance to ribbons?

The other day I was at the Doughnut Shop having a cup of coffee.

Separation is an active international phenomenon. Cultures and societies are at war with themselves.

A Separation is about one of these cultures and societies.

What does a director do when the star of his movie is not an accomplished actress?

Ralph Fiennes has created a slashing, sprawling version of Shakespere's Coriolanus.

It's muscular Shakespeare. It's trimmed down - but has themes and a sensibility that fit into today's society and world.

At its best, Undefeated is a Hail Mary TD pass. It recently received an Oscar nomination as Best Documentary feature. Other times, it's a routine punt.

2011 was the year of the actress.

At least five or six female performances perhaps were superior to any male performance last year.

A Dangerous Method is a lustreless squabble.

Dear Guy Ritchie:

My name is Robin Hood.

I desperately need your help. I need you as a director to do for me what you did for Sherlock Holmes.

Every once in a while, one needs unbridled sentimentality.

Director Steven Spielberg and War Horse fill that need. War Horse is a combination of The Wizard of Oats and Gone with the Whinny.

Spoiler alert:

Watching the movie We Need to Talk About Kevin will make you feel like hell.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a raw, gruelling, disturbing nightmare. I dare you to try to forget it.