THE GREY ** After presenting Mexico City as the ultimate hellhole on Earth, Tony Scott's 2004 Man on Fire ended with a credit stating that the city was actually "a very special place." Sydney Pollack's 1993 The Firm assures us that Cayman Island officials look down on the sort of money laundering occurring in the film. And best of all, Irwin Allen's 1978 The Swarm gave a shout-out to our buzzing buddies by adding a ...

A DANGEROUS METHOD **1/2 As part of his four-score from 2011, Michael Fassbender turns up in A Dangerous Method as Carl Jung, the Swiss doctor often deemed the father of modern psychology. Watching him tackle Jung as a cautious, conflicted man, it's hard to see the same person who was so brooding in Jane Eyre, so, uh, magnetic in X-Men: First Class, and so raw in Shame. Yes, there's a reason so many of us ...

THE ARTIST ***1/2 The definitive look at the transition from silent films to talkies arrived courtesy of the 1952 musical Singin' in the Rain. The story about a talented nobody becoming an overnight success while an established performer simultaneously suffers a career crash'n'burn has been filmed ad nauseam, most recognizably in the various screen incarnations of A Star Is Born. And, unless one counts Charlie Chaplin's gibberish song in 1936's Modern Times, the employment of ...

SHAME *** Michael Fassbender went all James Brown on us in 2011, as the hardest working man in show business -- or at least in film -- appeared in leading roles in no less than four motion pictures. Fassbender was compelling as Rochester in Jane Eyre, as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method and especially as Magneto in X-Men: First Class, but it was his role in Shame that allowed him to most fully expose ...

THE IRON LADY *1/2 Taking Meryl Streep out of The Iron Lady and replacing her with just about any other actress would be akin to removing the meat out of a beef stroganoff dinner and replacing it with a Hostess Twinkie. The result would be a thoroughly indigestible mess, worthy only of being flung into the garbage bin. Yes, Streep delivers yet another note-perfect performance, although it must be said that 1) 2011 was such ...

CARNAGE *** "The book was better" is a common refrain that's been uttered at the close of many a movie adapted from a literary work, but "The play was better" seems to have the upper hand during this particular winter window. While earning largely positive reviews and faring well at the box office, Steven Spielberg's War Horse has been lambasted in some quarters by those who feel it doesn't measure up to the Tony Award-winning ...

LIKE CRAZY *1/2 Three-quarters twee and one-quarter Glee, Like Crazy won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance shindig, beating out a slate of 15 other titles that included Take Shelter and Martha Marcy May Marlene. If nothing else, this stands as proof positive that even the film festivals can be as misguided in their selections as the notorious Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. It was also a featured presentation at the ...

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY *** Many viewers might find it easier to wade through quicksand while sporting cement blocks on their feet than understanding just what the heck is going on during the opening half-hour of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Author John le Carre's 1974 novel required a seven-part miniseries that ran over five hours when it premiered on the BBC back in 1979, yet here's Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (making his English-language debut on ...

WAR HORSE ***1/2 Steven Spielberg is no novice when it comes to presenting moviegoers with the horrors of war, whether it's the muted screams of Schindler's List, the frontline carnage of Saving Private Ryan or even the knotty retaliations of Munich. While all those films deservedly earned R ratings, don't be fooled into thinking the PG-13 War Horse takes a softer approach to the subject at hand - with one specific scene, Spielberg establishes that ...

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO ***1/2 Think of it as the "close but no cigar" brand of cinema, where American adaptations of foreign hits prove to be better than expected yet don't quite trump their highly regarded predecessors. Let Me In, Matt Reeves' take on the Swedish vampire yarn Let the Right One In, is one example; The Departed, Martin Scorsese's version of the Hong Kong import Infernal Affairs, is another (Oscar wins notwithstanding). ...

NEW YEAR'S EVE *1/2 Forget counting down from 10 as the ball drops in Times Square; here instead is a countdown of the 10 key points in New Year's Eve, which proves to be even tougher to take than director Garry Marshall's previous all-star holiday romp, Valentine's Day. 10. A cocky messenger boy (Zac Efron) helps a depressed woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) fulfill her New Year's resolutions. Although it squanders any intriguing potential for a May-December ...

ANONYMOUS **1/2 Call it the anti-Shakespeare in Love. Call it the more cultured cousin to Inglourious Basterds. Just don't call Anonymous a fact-based story. There have been many speculations advanced that William Shakespeare actually did not write the countless classic works attributed to him, but the conspiracy theorists can't quite agree on the true identity of the genius behind such works as Hamlet and Macbeth. Among the suspects are Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon and Stephen ...

HUGO ***1/2 Movie mavens startled by the fact that Martin Scorsese has elected to direct a family film when he's exalted for his string of hardcore crime flicks clearly know little about either the man or his achievements. Scorsese has hopscotched between genres far more often than he's given credit for -- the costume drama The Age of Innocence, the religious epic The Last Temptation of Christ and the black comedy After Hours represent just ...

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 **1/2 Forget Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities; what we get here is Meyer's tale of two movies. I'm not referring to the fact that the final book in Stephenie Meyer's wildly successful franchise has been split, Harry Potter style, into two separate films, with the second half due exactly one year from now. Even within the confines of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, ...

J. EDGAR **1/2 No one could possibly have fathomed that someone as handsome as Leonardo DiCaprio and someone as homely as Ernest Borgnine would ever play the same character, but the actors indeed share the same screen DNA by both having portrayed J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial Federal Bureau of Investigation director and one of the most powerful figures of the 20th century. Borgnine is just one of the many actors to have essayed the ...