Town, The (2010)

Drama Rated R

The campaign for Ben Affleck as a genre auteur (think Clint Eastwood) started with Gone Baby Gone and got louder with this bank-heist drama. But The Town didn’t convince me that the actor has anything particularly special to offer behind the camera. Engaging enough, with raw performances by Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively,

Our Idiot Brother (2011)

Comedy Rated R

“Rudd makes Ned such a comic force of calamitous geniality that you don’t mind the familiar narrative.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

Horror Rated R

“If Gollum and the Tooth Fairy got together and spawned a horde of young’uns, they might resemble the terrible little creatures here…

Iron Lady, The (2011)

Drama Rated PG-13

"Witnessed in a vacuum, free of the adulation that has more to do with Streep’s reputation than the film, her performance is a pleasure to watch."

Bill Cunningham New York (2011)

Documentary Rated NR

Director Richard Press gets amazing access to New York Times legend Bill Cunningham, whose on-the-street fashion photography captures style as it’s actually worn, yet Press’ documentary is too tentative to make that access pay off. Cunningham’s work is illuminated, but the man – 80 at the time of filming – remains a bit of a

Seven Days in Utopia (2011)

Drama Rated G

"Who made caddies God?"

Lives of Others, The (2006)

Drama Rated R

The scope managed by The Lives of Others, winner of the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, is especially impressive given that the movie is about a society obsessively focused on the tiniest of details. Set in 1984 East Berlin, Lives takes us into the operations of the state security service, or Stasi, as

30 Minutes or Less (2011)

Comedy Rated R

"McBride is yet another walking epithet you simply want to get away from."

Cold Weather (2011)

Drama Rated NR

An insider exercise, Cold Weather plays with genre conventions and audience expectations as they relate to both the mumblecore movement and detective yarns. Director Aaron Katz (Dance Party, USA) takes a handful of typical indie characters – a stuck-in-a-rut sister and her aimless, live-in brother – and throws them into a mystery plot when the

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

“…like watching a chainsaw tear apart a toy box.