This extraordinary documentary Pina by German filmmaker Wim Wenders (justly nominated for an Academy Award) on the choreographer Pina Bausch, his countryman, near-contemporary and fellow visionary, was a long time in coming. An artistic collaboration had been planned for some time but in an instance of epic bad timing, Bausch died just two days before filming was to have begun, having been diagnosed with cancer only five days previously.

The movie is thus haunted by the specter of death and of aging, compounded by the fact that many company members had been with Bausch for twenty-plus years. This theme is stated in the opening piece (returned to periodically in the duration of the movie), in which a long line of dancers chants Fruhling…Sommer…Herbst…Winter as they snake along a train platform, behind and onto a stage and later, on a wind-blown hilltop.

The Tanztheater German expressionist influence is clear in their affects, which ride the line between ecstasy and despair. Are they smiling in the face of death, or ruefully acknowledging that life and death march on regardless?

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Like a successful spy, the quiet and grippingly brilliant Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sits unobtrusively amidst the flashier year-end Oscar contenders—alternately heartwarming (We Bought a Zoo), Artistic with a capital “A” (Hugo, The Artist), tragic (War Horse, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), scene-devouring and envelope-pushing (Shame), glossily true to life (Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn) or purpose-built to sweep awards (The Descendants, Carnage).

Based on the classic spy novel, this film adaptation necessarily abridges Le Carré’s densely plotted story far more than did the famous 1979 six-episode BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness (who, for generations of fans, is the quintessential George Smiley). And yet it feels in no way over-simplified or dumbed down. Quite the opposite.

A raft of the world’s finest actors (nearly all male—this is a man’s world)—Colin Firth, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones and Gary Oldman as protagonist George Smiley—play high-level operatives in the British Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. When a mole is detected, it’s up to Smiley to ferret out which of his colleagues is the double agent.

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Great balls of tinsel, this third installment in the Harold & Kumar franchise starts off with a bang. The primary objective seems to be justifying its 3D incarnation, which it gets down to immediately, mostly by floating billows of marijuana cumulus and cirrus into the audience, as well as candy canes, Christmas ornaments, feces and other effluvia.

This being Harold & Kumar, the racial and religious slurs and gross-out humor come just as thick and fast. It’s enough to offend nearly every affinity group on the planet, and disgust anyone who’s left. If you thought that scene in A Christmas Story with the tongue stuck on the pole was horrible, this movie has got a frozen treat for you.

Seven years have elapsed since Harold and Kumar’s misadventures in Guantanamo Bay, during which the two once-BFFs have gone their separate ways. Harold has returned to his former rule-following, high-achieving ways, while Kumar has been expelled from his medical studies for failing a drug test and descended into a slovenly life of perpetual stonerdom.

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Spoiler Alert: I know how she does it. And I’m about to tell you.

The “she” of the title is Kate Reddy (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), and, for starters, she has a full-time nanny. The nanny apparently also cleans, really well, or else there is some unseen housekeeper, because the house is always in a perfect state of cleanliness, beds pristinely made and kitchen counters bare and shining.

Someone also does laundry, because there is not a single basket of dirty, clean-but-not-folded or folded-but-not-put-away laundry anywhere in sight. That same person, or perhaps someone else, must also do Kate’s personal shopping, because she has a killer wardrobe, as do the children, and what mother working a demanding 60+ hour-a-week schedule has time for shopping?

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Based on the cast (Steve Carell and Julianne Moore as a married couple Cal and Emily—how perfect) and a promising trailer, I went into Crazy, Stupid, Love fully expecting to love it. I didn’t, but I did leave loving the young couple (a surprisingly funny Ryan Gosling as Jacob and Emma Stone as Hannah). They had everything going for them—charm, chemistry and perfect timing. Emma Stone is darling and hilarious and deserves every bit of the praise and buzz she’s receiving.

They’re no mere insanely pretty faces, either. Both Gosling and Stone have smarts and personality that shine through, despite the screenplay’s sometimes ridiculous shortcomings. Yes, the screenplay. Who the heck greenlit this thing? With all the money they must’ve had, they couldn’t have hired someone to perk this thing up?

The clichés, oh the clichés. This is one of those movies where the crowd acts as one simple-minded, one-minded body. You know what I’m talking about. Everyone in the office pokes their heads above their cubicles at once and claps. Everyone stands outside and with the exact same judgmental expression watches the hero’s meltdown in the school parking lot. Stuff a normal group of individuals would never do. It’s the equivalent of a laugh track in a dumb sit-com. But that’s not all.

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If The New York Times were to break the story that the NEA has been generously funding an ongoing study of manhood and brotherhood among everyday schmoes in contemporary culture, that sure would explain a lot. Surely few phenomena have been as comprehensively documented of late as the dilemma of nondescript modern men (usually lifelong buddies) forced by extreme circumstances beyond their control (roofies, bad bosses) into the type of reckless behavior (murder, breaking-and-entering, walking into a bar in the bad part of town) they would never normally contemplate.

Almost always the upshot involves:

• •  illegal drug usage (usually unintentional)
• •  first-ever encounters with law enforcement (cue bickering recrimination scene in the back seat of a squad car)
• •  uneasy encounters with The Other (usually hip, powerful, sometimes grotesque black men against whom the protagonists’ manhoods are implicitly contrasted and found vastly wanting. In the case of Hangover The Other is represented by both Mike Tyson and Ken Jeong as an Asian Mafioso. Here, it’s a very funny Jamie Foxx.)
• •  flashes of homosexual anxiety
• •  all countered by elaborate vulgarity, gross-out humor and scatological references, as well as
• •  forced interaction with that other Other: frighteningly gorgeous and overtly sexual women who positively demand to be serviced.

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If Ferris Bueller’s Day Off got really drunk and fell into bed with Less Than Zero, their fetal-alcohol-syndrome-afflicted offspring might be Take Me Home Tonight, a movie that aims to be to the 80s what Dazed and Confused was to the 70s. And after all, it’s high time: Michael Douglas has already revisited Wall Street.

Take Me Home Tonight takes place in LA and Beverly Hills and hits all the era’s tags—RayBans, pastel popped-collar polos, pushed-up jacket sleeves, Preppie bow ties vs. New Wave skinny ties, frizzbomb perms for girls and spiked mullets or Gordon Gecko mousse-backs for guys, video stores, red sports cars, cocaine, wild house parties, evil bankers, and, of course, a sinister and sexually perverted fat German businessman in shoulder-padded black leather. Wouldn’t be an 80s movie without one of those.

The story, one of those “guy grows up in the course of one wild and crazy night” deals, hits all the plot buttons too. Our too-straight hero manages to finally bust loose and somehow to fulfill both his parents’ expectations and the anarchic instincts of the loser sociopathic guy who’s inexplicably his best friend. It goes without saying that he gets the girl too.

There are fibs and other deceptions, grand theft auto, cocaine abuse, dance-offs, police encounters, light sadomasochism, youthful irresponsibility and more. It’s all pretty silly and not to be taken seriously. There are absolutely no consequences for stealing the expensive sports car, bankers are prima facie arrogant and evil, and the moment of  moral triumph comes when Tori decides to quit her banking job, because, of course, she hates it. Believe me, I’m no fan of the banking industry (see last paragraphs), but most of these ideas are simply juvenile.

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Who wouldn’t want to see a movie starring the dream cast of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine and Maggie Smith, with cameos by Ozzy Osbourne, Dolly Parton, Patrick Stewart and Hulk Hogan? They had me at James McAvoy.

Throw in some Shakespeare source material and music by Elton John, and one would think we were set. But Gnomeo and Juliet does the seeming impossible—takes all of these phenomenal elements and churns out a movie that’s only sporadically entertaining and completely forgettable. Unlike its durable garden decoration characters, this movie will wash out of your brain with the first drizzle.

Gnomeo and Juliet’s first and biggest problem is its lack of original, engaging characters. Gnomeo, Gnomeo, wherefore art thou, Gnomeo? Who knows, but he’s just your standard love-stricken youth determined to prove himself to the world and win his girl, while Juliet is your standard spunky heroine who’s trapped in a narrow female role but has the ninja skills to fight out.

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It’s the cycle of nature. Every year, the studios serve their finest for the holidays, projects chock full of high tone and blue chip casts. This year there was the usual deluxe assortment: literary adaptation (True Grit), drug addiction (The Fighter), madness and artistry (Black Swan), and physical disability, historical drama and royalty (The King’s Speech).

Then comes January. The good stuff runs out and they bring out the cheap wine, hoping we’re too drunk to notice. So we get the likes of Country Strong, Season of the Witch, The Green Hornet and The Dilemma.

Starring the peculiarly charmless Vince Vaughn as Ronny and Kevin James (The King of Queens) as Nick, his purported bosom buddy/business partner/mechanical genius (more on that later), The Dilemma also features as Jennifer Connelly (Beth) and Winona Ryder (Geneva) as their respective love interests, both actresses dark-haired, kohl-rimmed, wraith-thin and hard-faced.

Of course it’s totally preposterous that either woman would ever go out with the likes of Vaughn or James, and pigs will scrapbook before we see the likes of Jude Law movie-dating the likes of America Ferrara (the only female star under 50 who comes to mind who’s remotely overweight). But hey, that’s the glorious misogynistic magic of Hollywood.

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Fast, fun and stylish comedies are in short supply this year, so I was really looking forward to I Love You, Phillip Morris. But for all its wackiness, witty editing, colorful production design and terrific performances, by the end it was a movie I had suffered through more than enjoyed. That sounds worse than it is. I liked ILYPM a lot. I just wished I’d loved it.

Which is not to say the movie is a failure. I think it may have beeen the intention of co-directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra to tell a dark story all along. And the increasingly troubling gap between the protagonist’s inner reality and the flashy filmmaking may be a brilliant device to unease us. If so, it worked.

The true story of a devoted husband, father and deputy cop, I Love You, Phillip Morris begins just before the moment of this upright citizen’s transformation to outrageous gay conman. The outrageousness is not the gayness, but the audacity of the frauds he perpetuates. Even more outrageous are his legendary escapes from jail—four times in five years, all on a Friday the Thirteenth (because his boyfriend, Phillip Morris, whom he meets in prison, was born on a Friday the Thirteenth).

Jim Carrey gives a balls-to-the-walls performance as Steven Jay Russell, the church organist-turned-gay-felon, attacking the character with his usual terrier-like zeal, but also with a deep infusion of darkness. Carrey has always been able to tap into a certain twisted place, and in the past it has divided critics and box offices, most notoriously in The Cable Guy, which, coming on the heels of the wildly popular Ace Ventura, left audiences reeling.

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