Short Take: Without the usual grounding presence of Kristen Stewart it's too melodramatic for its own good

Director: Bill Condon

Screenwriters: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (novel)

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

Length: 1 hour 57 minutes

Synopsis: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 opens with Bella (Stewart) and her vampire boyfriend Edward (Pattinson) on the cusp of eternal happiness. Their lavish wedding marks the beginning of the end of Bella’s human life. She bids farewell to her parents and friends, knowing that transforming into a vampire means never being able to see them again. The happy couple sets off on their honeymoon to a private island in Brazil to finally consummate their relationship. However, things take a bad turn when the impossible happens and Bella finds herself pregnant with a hybrid vampire-human child. Against the advice of everyone around her, Bella decides to keep the baby. As it drains the life out of Bella, Edward and werewolf Jacob (Lautner) worry that the woman they love won’t survive.

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Short Take: Truthful or not, it's an interesting and compelling portraiture

Director: Clint Eastwood

Screenwriter: Dustin Lance Black

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench, Josh Lucas

Length: 2h 17m

Synopsis: In 1919, as an eager young twenty-something looking to make an impression on the world, John Edgar Hoover tried ardently to devise and synergize crime-fighting tactics so as to better repress the presence of radicals in the United States via his newly appointed position as the head of the yet to be federalized Bureau of Investigation. A stickler for professionalism, Hoover built the Bureau into an entity to be reckoned with by criminals of all sorts, which even included politicians. But along the way Hoover faced struggles with his superiors, the public, and a personal life that could be described as emotionally acidic. His driving force was his dedication to his work, which through all of its practicable advancements actually did as much harm as good. His reputation became controversial and his love life suffered, but the Bureau always remained his top priority. Though never one to suffer a fool, we find that some of Hoover’s flaws and decisions made him every bit the fool himself, in more ways than one. Eventually leaving behind a reputation that continues to be judged in the court of public opinion, J. Edgar contributes to the discussion by providing a portrayal of the infamous dignitary that contests a number of well-established perceptions.

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Short Take: Visually impressive, with enough story to keep you interested

Director: Tarsem Singh

Screenwriter: Charley and Vlas Parlapanides

Cast: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto, Luke Evans, John Hurt, Stephen Dorff

Length: 1h 50m

Synopsis: A brave peasant named Theseus (Cavill) is chosen by Zeus (Evans), the ruler of all, to lead humanity against the evil King Hyperion (Rourke), whose unyielding desire is to smite the Olympians and rule all of creation with fear and turpitude. With his vast and ruthless army, Hyperion searches mercilessly for a mystical weapon known as the Epirus Bow, which he aims to use to unleash the imprisoned Titans in order to kill the Gods and command all power in the heavens. Aided by a clairvoyant priestess named Phaedra (Pinto) and an accompanying band of renegades, Theseus must find the bow before Hyperion and defeat him without any interference from the Gods, despite their partiality. An epic adventure ensues that will decide the fortunes of not just mankind’s mortality, but also its ties to divinity.

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Short Take: Amusing and apropos, but lacking in substance

Director: Bruce Robinson

Screenwriter: Bruce Robinson; Hunter S. Thompson (novel)

Cast: Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Giovanni Ribisi, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins

Length: 2h

Synopsis: American journalist/aspiring novelist Paul Kemp (Depp) is desperate for a job, so he takes one at a small fledgling newspaper in Puerto Rico as an odd job reporter and amateur horoscopes writer. The decade is the 1950s and the island of Puerto Rico is in political flux, with locals constantly protesting about one issue or another and big wigs working to capitalize on hotel properties and U.S. government contracts. One such big wig, named Sanderson (Eckhart), stumbles upon Kemp and decides he’s the man with the suitably buttery words needed for a PR campaign needed to sell the proposition of building several new island resorts. Kemp accepts the offer, but a complication arises by the name of Chenault (Heard), Sanderson’s mistress. Meanwhile, Kemp struggles to focus on assignments for the bogus paper, seemingly incapable of averting his attention from booze, his roommate Sala’s (Rispoli) insanitary nightlife, or Chenault’s under-table flirtations. Such distractions consequently lead to problems with Sanderson, but more importantly they serve to actually awaken Kemp to bigger problems within and about his surroundings, as well as his own life.

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Short Take: An incredibly authentic romance with both highs and lows. It weaves the veil and then strips it away.

Director: Drake Doremus

Screenwriters: Drake Doremus and Ben York James

Cast: Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlie Bewley

Length: 1 hr 30 min

Synopsis: Soon after Anna (Jones) and Jacob (Yelchin) meet in college they develop an infatuation, which quickly turns into a deeper love. Though Anna is set to return to England after graduation to avoid overstaying her visa, she can’t bear to leave Jacob for the summer and decides to stay. However, when she tries to return to the States after a brief visit to the U.K., she is denied and cannot enter until the visa violation is resolved. Because of this, Anna and Jacob must endure a years-long struggle to keep their love alive even when space and change threaten to break them apart.

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Let me preface this by saying that the moments I often find scariest are those that are more unnerving than shocking. It’s not the moment when a masked murderer pops out from behind a door that scares me, but rather the moments that are grounded in reality and play on natural human paranoia that make me pause before I turn off the lights to go to sleep.

Freaks (1932)

I’m going to start old school and pick a moment from this infamous 1932 Tod Browning film, which is tough because I find the movie seriously disturbing. I first watched it a few months ago and I was utterly horrified during the scene in which the “freaks” take their revenge. After discovering that the aloof trapeze artist Cleopatra has only married fellow “freak” Hans for his money and intends to kill him, they decide to punish her and her secret lover/accomplice. As the lover tries to crawl away from his crashed wagon in the stormy night, the “freaks” stalk toward him with weapons in hand and menacing expressions on their faces. No music plays over the scene, the only sound is the rain and the slow movements of the “freaks” as they circle their prey. Browning films each “freak” in an extended take that shows them slowly moving toward the camera. It’s a technique that ensures that even the audience feels it can’t escape the oncoming violence. However, the scariest shot for me is the moment we see one of the “pinhead” characters crawling through the mud with knife in hand. Throughout the rest of the film, the “pinheads”—so named because a genetic defect called microcephaly has caused a narrowing of their skulls—are characterized as childlike and loving. So to suddenly see that innocence turned to silent, vindictive rage is incredibly unnerving and it expresses just how committed the “freaks” are to protecting their own.

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Short Take: It feels incomplete, but there's a cyclicality you can't ignore

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Screenwriters: Jonathan Raymond

Cast: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Paul Dano

Length: 1h 44m

Synopsis: In 1845 three families are attempting to travel west along the Oregon Trail, searching for the American Dream. Emily (Williams) and William Tetherow (Patton) have commissioned a guide for their group named Stephen Meek (Greenwood), who along the way suggests taking a short cut across an uncharted plain desert to save time. Eager to make their trip as short as possible, the men decide to take the small caravan along the supposed cutoff. Over the coming days it becomes clear the cutoff was false, and the group becomes increasingly discouraged about its dwindling supplies. Serious doubt sets in about Meek’s competency, and with their survival in his hands the group’s anxiety and frustrations steadily approach the boiling point. Unexpectedly, a wandering Native American crosses the travelers’ path, and despite their harsh prejudices they force a bargain with him to lead them to water. Because of this deal a rift forms within the group over trusting the appointed guide or a man they consider to be just as much an enemy as a savior.

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It sounds crazy, but the remedy for a so-so prequel just might in fact be a sequel

Dear Universal Pictures,

Just an idea, but maybe you should dare to follow your prequel of The Thing with a sequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and make it a follow-up reminiscent of James Cameron’s Aliens.

In my review of Heijningen Jr.’s recently released prequel I note how transparent it is that what he really made was actually more of a remake. And although there is still a rather large cultural resistance to horror remakes (I’m going by fan forums here, not box office numbers), such a fact should not really be held against Heijningen Jr. himself. More appropriately, any hostility towards this truth should be directed at you because it was you who insisted on making a “prequel” that in this particular case couldn’t have been anything else but a remake. One way you could redeem yourself of this misguided decision, though, is by seriously entertaining the above suggestion.

It sounds almost paradoxical for me to suggest that the way to make up for a poorly conceived remake is to base another related story on a film that so many – including myself – consider a classic of such status that to even joke about “tampering” with it might be tantamount to heresy, but hear me out.

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Short Take: Not without intrigue, but flawed in its invention

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

Screenwriter: Eric Heisserer; John W. Campbell Jr. (Who Goes There? novella)

Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olseen, Ulrich Thomsen

Length: 1h 43m

Synopsis: The following story takes place shortly before the events of John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same title. A great scientific discovery has just been made in the wastelands of Antarctica, and top experts of various kinds are being assembled to research and document it. Paleontologists Kate (Winstead) and Adam (Olseen) are recruited by the venture’s director Dr. Halvorson (Thomsen), but exactly what their tasks will be remains a mystery to them until they’re shown what their dealing with. What the inexplicably curious discovery turns out to be is the remains of a giant alien spacecraft and a frozen specimen suspended in ancient ice. That specimen, they regret to find, is not as inanimate as one would assume. Incredibly, there is still cellular activity, and each cell is capable of imitating any foreign cell it comes into contact with. Before long the abstraction is able to, after killing them, perfectly impersonate whole people. Kate, Adam, and the rest must determine which of their fellow researchers are things, and fight to make sure they don’t reach civilization to infect the rest of the world. With so dangerous and cunning a species, this is far easier said than done.

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Short Take: Deftly written and directed for those who have forfeited all optimism for American politics - or are prepared to

Director: George Clooney

Screenwriters: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon; based on Farragut North by Beau Willimon

Cast: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright

Length: 1h 41m

Synopsis: Nearing the turning point to a highly contested Democratic Primary election, Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) and his chief campaign managers Paul (Hoffman) and Stephen (Gosling) are trying desperately to win out against the competing Senator and his crafty press secretary Tom Duffy (Giamatti) for the pivotal state of Ohio. Soon before full support is set to swing in either candidate’s favor, dependent upon the backing of the powerful Senator Thompson (Wright), Stephen, a genuinely fervent devotee of Morris’ politics, accidentally gets entangled in a small scandal when Duffy decides to bid for his defection. Word of the two’s meeting creates friction at the top of the Morris campaign, and from there on the dominos fall in the direction of defeat. Forced to test his loyalties by defending his personal ambitions, Stephen finds a way to play himself back into good professional standing using questionable influences and political chicanery. Although he may have started out rather green, Stephen discovers just how dirty the art of politics can really be.

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