Paul Schlase, Tony Revolori, Tilda Swinton, and Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest HotelTHE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Generally speaking, I'm not one to argue for the inclusion of more foul language and bloody violence in a director's oeuvre, and feel especially awkward doing so a mere week after being bored silly by the endless profanities and exploding squibs in the latest Schwarzenegger flick. But I'll happily make an exception in the case of Wes Anderson, at least based on his most recent outing, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Like all Anderson efforts, this one, too, could be filed in the "precious comic bauble" category, given its deliberately artificial production design and obsessively controlled compositions and overall suggestion of an improv-free zone. Yet this endlessly inventive and funny new work might boast more interior life than any of the writer/director's other live-action achievements, and for that I'm afraid we have to thank the forcible removal of Jeff Goldblum's fingers, and Ralph Fiennes' tendency to drop the F-bomb into every other sentence.

Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams in Midnight in ParisMIDNIGHT IN PARIS

The overall experience of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, at least for me, can be effectively visualized in one sequence - one shot, really - in this jubilant, intoxicating comedy.

Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal in Love & Other DrugsLOVE & OTHER DRUGS

In my 2009 review of the director's turgid World War II drama Defiance, I opened by asking, "Am I the only person who wishes that Edward Zwick would go back to making sharp, bitchy comedies like his 1986 Rob Lowe-Demi Moore romance About Last Night ... ?" Well, less than two years later, Zwick has returned to those romantic-comedy roots with Love & Other Drugs. Because, apparently, I needed another reminder to be careful what I wish for.

Despicable MeDESPICABLE ME

When a computer-animated feature doesn't have the Pixar label attached to it, I tend to be grateful for whatever flashes of true cleverness I can get, and it's a pleasure to report that Despicable Me delivers hundreds, if not thousands, of these flashes. They arrive in the form our protagonist's minions, and are called Minions, and resemble canary-yellow gel capsules with functioning limbs and one or two eyes. They're also just about the cutest, silliest, funniest damned creatures that have ever waddled, bounced, and shrieked through an animated outing (excepting your own children, of course). I liked Despicable Me just fine, but I never loved the movie more than when these miniature slapstick wonders were on-screen; the Minions' boss may be a super-thief, but these goofy little buggers easily steal the show.