The Spectacular Now – 5

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I’m not wild for films about losers, and Miles Teller, besides being a 25-year-old high-school senior, was definitely a loser. Shailene Woodley was wonderful in the Molly Ringwald role, but instead of making me happy, their reunion at the end was disappointing: she could do better. All he had done was pick her up to make his former girlfriend jealous, not the basis for a lasting relationship. Overall, it was a “high-school movie” in which none of the kids looked or acted like high-schoolers – or had an original thought in their heads.

Blue Jasmine – 7

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Woody Allen looks back, through Tennessee Williams to Shakespeare and the Greeks, to give us a classic tragical heroine. There is no story ‘arc,’ as is the Hollywood norm; instead, we are left to watch the inexorable, inevitable descent of Jasmine French from Hamptons high to homelessness. When she appears to have a chance to escape with an unsuspecting Peter Sarsgaard, the only question is who will expose her and when. We know her doom is ordained. Cate Blanchett is extraordinary and a shoo-in for an Oscar nod. Sallie Hawkins as her slightly goofy sister should get one, too. Then, unfortunately, there is Alec Baldwin, acting no different than in his credit card commercials. Blanchett/Jasmine stands out from her surroundings, good for her but bad for the movie. In sum, it’s a one-character tour de force, but not much more

In A World… – 6

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The funniest part of this movie was the way it treated voice-over artists as major players in the Hollywood scene, culminating in the Golden Trailers ceremony. I mean, when was the last time you saw a trailer that even had a voice-over? Maybe it was a metaphor for Hollywood in general? Lake Bell, a better-looking Sandra Bernhard, put together an archetypical “indie” flick on no apparent budget, but she herself wasn’t quite attractive or interesting or believable enough to carry it past its predictability. And how many cuckolded husbands can Rob Corddry play?

The Act of Killing – 6.5

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A sick movie about sick people – specifically, Indonesian gangsters who killed wantonly in 1965 and are now willing to make a movie about it. It’s hard to feel bad for mass murderers, but it is fairly clear they are being manipulated by director Joshua Oppenheimer, who must know that his subjects are making fools of themselves. The fact that 90% of the people working on the film chose to list themselves as “Anonymous” in the credits gives you some idea of how they think the movie will be received in Indonesia, if it is shown there at all. The history the film recounts is shocking, but the shock comes from the superscripted information. The people on screen just come across as ignorant buffoons with a license to kill.

The Way, Way Back – 7

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Lots of cute moments, most supplied by Sam Rockwell as the cool-dude amusement park assistant manager (although technically he didn’t seem to be managing anything, no one else was, either). The limp 14-year-old dealing with parents and girls is a tried-and-true trope, and it didn’t fail here, but the story otherwise never rose above the banal.

The Conjuring – 5

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Moral of the movie: don’t move into a haunted house. Backup advice: once in a haunted house, move out as fast as you can. The pseudoscientific demonologists, especially the lovely Vera Farmiga, added a nice touch to the otherwise plebeian story, but I lost track of the various daughters and the opportunity to make something of them and their plight was lost. In sum, strictly a time-passer, but I’ve seen much worse.

Twenty Feet from Stardom – 7

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A “fun-fun-fun” movie with great music and genuinely heartwarming cameos by Bruce Springsteen, Sting, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder and Mick Jagger. Although nominally about them, the backup singers Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Claudia Kennear, et al., somehow remained in the background. I couldn’t figure out if the movie had a “point” – how someone becomes a background singer, why someone remains a background singer, what makes a good backup singer – but there was so much pleasure in watching them work and hearing the stars (all men) laud them, that it hardly mattered.

World War Z – 7.4

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What I found incredible were Brad Pitt’s initially rejecting the request that he help save mankind and the Israelis’ letting all comers, including Palestinians, into their secure compound. By comparison, I found the zombies quite believable – frighteningly so – and the discovery of how to combat them quite brilliant. (Well, okay, maybe Brad’s successful injection of just the right amount of toxin gave me pause, as well.) Pitt, to my mind, is generally miscast, but here he carried the movie with ease. Our hearts raced along with the breakneck plot and our minds were kept engaged well after the film was over.

Frances Ha – 7

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It all comes down to how much you enjoy the company of Greta Gerwig, and I found her quite pleasant. She is sufficiently attractive to be pleasant on the eyes, but not such a looker that she can’t play an “undatable.” Her insecurity and attempts to cope with her shortcomings are generally endearing, as we suspect, or maybe know, that she won’t come acropper at the end. How she in fact turns her life around so completely is a mystery; maybe we can just chalk it up to turning 28. I don’t remember the details of Lola Versus, but I think this was basically the same movie.

Before Midnight – 3

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Not since My Dinner With Andre have I watched two such uninteresting characters talk so self-indulgently, often in complete paragraphs, to so little purpose. Julie Delpy came across as real, albeit neurotic, but Ethan Hawke was unconvincing as a novelist, as an expatriate, and certainly as a dad. When you watch a young couple courting, which is the subject of most movies as well as the excellent earlier installments of this saga, there is the easy payoff of consummation, with all that follows left to the imagination. Here, when we see similar exchanges – what, seven years into the marriage? – there is no payoff. This will go on forever, which is what it felt like watching.