Going the Distance is by no means perfect, but it's light years beyond the average rom-com, bracingly honest and genuinely funny about the ups and downs of relationships. Barrymore and Long, once a real-life couple and now who-knows-what, have a real chemistry that complements their well-written, realistic characters, and even when the movie falls apart around them in the third act, we root for these two crazy kids and their shot at romance

Machete is a movie specializing in the ridiculous and the insane and the more insane it gets the more fun you’ll have, in large part thanks to Robert Rodriguez who is so good at this genre that he should never be allowed to direct anything that isn't a grindhouse movie ever again, and in part thanks to the cast which is, unexpectedly, a dream come true. Michelle Rodriguez looks better than she’s ever looked, Steven Seagal has a blast with a killer swordplay ending, and Danny Trejo grunts his way one step closer to becoming an action movie icon. Machete’s politics are a cringe-worthy mess but when it comes to over-the-top fun his blade is razor sharp.

Director Anton Corbijn is not afraid to bore his audience in what's essentially a character study about a career assassin, and while he and Clooney happen upon some striking visuals and dig up a few interesting ideas, the flashy visuals tend to say a lot more than the story itself.

Set in suburban Indiana, the film stars Rockwell as Bill Greaves, an adult misfit recruited by the local high school principal (Corddry) to coach the school’s floundering girls’ basketball team. Initially retreating from what appears to be a hopeless situation, Bill perseveres and manages to help the team and its captain (Roberts) ratchet up its competitive spirit, while the girls offer Bill a renewed life focus. THE WINNING SEASON also stars Shareeka Epps, Emily Rios and Margo Martindale.

An exorcism movie that's well aware of the horror history that comes before it, The Last Exorcism takes a canny approach to its tale of malevolent spirits and haunted houses by pretending it doesn't believe in any of that junk at all.

Takers is the logical result of watching Heat over and over and over until your brain burns out, and then wondering what it would look like if the whole thing were remade as a Smirnoff Vodka commercial.

All the great films have a certain detachment about them. They don’t manipulate their characters so much as trust them enough to live. Get Low is set in the past, in a town where the people aren’t in a hurry to die. They don’t walk so much as amble, tell stories so much as confess long-winded anecdotes. Felix wants to do things at his own pace. He wants to tell his secret on his time, when he’s ready, if he ever will be. Get Low has the confidence to let him.

Piranhas, like mastadons, like wildebeasts and sometimes like boozed-up college kids on spring break are ludicrous pack-traveling creatures who seem to lack long-term goals. They exist only in the moment to satisfy the most basic of human desires. This strikes me as a bad strategy for planning one’s retirement but a totally reasonable way to spend a Saturday night.

An unmarried 40-year-old woman turns to a turkey baster in order to become pregnant. Seven years later, she reunites with her best friend, who has been living with a secret: he replaced her preferred sperm sample with his own.

Lottery Ticket begins with the kind of plot that mad-cap comedies are made of: a whole lot of money appears out of thin air and a group of people will do anything to get their hands on it. It’s a formula which has worked for some and not at all for others. Lottery ticket falls into the not at all category.

Vampires Suck is the latest in a long line of cheaply produced, minimum effort parody movies. In fact it’s the fifth just directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In recent years the Hollywood mockery machine has tackled horror movies, superhero movies, teen movies, romance movies, and they’ve even parodied vampire movies before too. But this one, it’s the best of the bunch. Not because it’s good, but because it’s only unbelievably boring while all the others have been unbearably irritating.

The highest triumph of Winter’s Bone is not its acting, which is great, nor it’s acute script, written in part by director Debra Granik and Anne Rosellin, a script that is adapted from the book of the same title that is also great. It’s highest triumph is a movie that cost only two million dollars to produce, meaning most of the budget went into quality of film. Meaning that actors worked the grind. But also meaning that a woman mostly known for playing a silly prostitute is here able to stifle a roomful of people and steal her scenes. A young fairly unknown actress makes a roomful of people cry. Scenes where children play, unaware of their problems, break up the film, giving it blissful moments of reprieve. Its not a miracle, it’s hard work, and it’s proof that great movies can still be made without having to lure people in with 3D technology and CGI green screen shots

In Nanny McPhee Returns, Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson returns to the role of the magical nanny who appears when she's needed the most and wanted the least in the next chapter of the hilarious and heartwarming fable that has enchanted children around the world.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a disorganized mess. It’s an overly ambitious, poorly thought out, complete and utter failure made by and populated with talented people who should have known better. Watching it, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, except that, as much as Kevin Smith seemed to realize he was poking fun at and laughing with the slacker generation he helped give voice to, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World hasn’t the slightest idea its main character is a pathetic buffoon.

The beauty of good B-movies was always that they were efficient, putting together a tight plot that included as many action scenes as possible and never bothered with actor egos or, well, acting. The Expendables, though, is a bloated mess, a bunch of guys past their prime punching and kicking each other and pretending its for our benefit, when its really just one last self-congratulatory hurrah.