Aldis Hodge, Neil Brown Jr.,  Jason Mitchell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., and Corey Hawkins in Straight Outta ComptonSTRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

In the N.W.A. bio-pic Straight Outta Compton, long after the professional and personal flame-outs between Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) and Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson Jr., playing his real-life father), the two rappers run into each other at a club, and Eazy, seeking reconciliation, tells Cube he saw him in Boyz n the Hood. Cube reminds his former friend that Eazy publicly called the movie "an after-school special," and Eazy, knowing he's caught, simply grins and says, "Man, you know I like after-school specials." (As it must, this initially tense encounter ends in a hug.) Given the film's expectedly harsh language, constant threats of violence, and poolisde and hotel-room debaucheries that only platinum-selling albums can buy, I was amazed to find its own resemblence to an after-school special the most surprising thing about director F. Gary Gray's musical drama. But whatever - I, too, like after-school specials.

Paul Dano in Love & MercyLOVE & MERCY

Receiving a wide national release on the same weekend as Inside Out's debut, director Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy is also an exploration of the brain - specifically, the brain of Beach Boys wunderkind Brian Wilson, alternately portrayed by Paul Dano (during the film's Pet Sounds-era 1960s sequences) and John Cusack (during Wilson's heavily-, and incorrectly-, medicated period in the late 1980s). And rather astonishingly for a work of its type, it boasts numerous scenes in which it really, truly feels like we're allowed to roam around in a legendary musician's head, feeling what he feels and, even more importantly, hearing what he hears.

Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks in Saving Mr. BanksSAVING MR. BANKS

Saving Mr. Banks concerns the efforts of the crinkly-eyed Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) in getting the persnickety, Hollywood-averse British author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) to sign over the book rights to Mary Poppins. (Spoiler Alert: He does.) And as it's a Disney movie about a Disney movie with Disney products and Disney people - including Uncle Walt himself - popping up nearly every time you blink, the cynic in me resisted director John Lee Hancock's dramatic comedy for as long as humanly possible. Then Thompson's seemingly impenetrable Travers broke down while watching the Banks family sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" at Mary Poppins' first public screening, and I was a goner. Aw crap, I thought while wiping away tears. Two more minutes and I would've been fine.

Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave12 YEARS A SLAVE

It's impossible to imagine any viewer of director Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave not haunted for hours, if not days or weeks, by its potent, frequently horrific imagery. Be it the protracted sight of protagonist Solomon Northrup hanging from a tree, his wiggling toes barely touching the dirt, or the early shot of Northrup caged in a Washington, D.C., prison with the camera slowly tilting upward to implicate Capitol Hill in his (and all slaves') ordeal, McQueen continually delivers wrenching visual representations to match this already-wrenching tale. Yet if pressed for the one image that I find lingering above all others in this magnificent, devastating film, it would simply be the face of Chiwetel Ejiofor, who, in one unbroken take near the finale, almost seems to encapsulate hundreds of years of injustice in one anguished stare.

Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Vera Farmiga, and Ron Livingston in The ConjuringTHE CONJURING

I was about halfway through my screening of The Conjuring when I noticed that I was having a most unusual reaction to director James Wan's haunted-house opus: For the life of me, I couldn't stop smiling.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and George Clooney in The Ides of MarchTHE IDES OF MARCH

Audiences demanding insight, or even much depth, from director George Clooney's The Ides of March will no doubt leave the film disappointed - unless, that is, the revelation that political candidates and their staffers routinely lie and spin and backstab strikes any of those viewers as a newsflash. Yet if you enter this tale of Machiavellian (and, as its title suggests, Shakespearean) intrigue not expecting trenchant analysis so much as a good, gripping yarn supremely well-told, you're in for a major treat. Smart and fast and gratifyingly vicious, Clooney's latest is a drama that plays like a thriller, and it's full-to-brimming with sequences you want to watch over and over again; for those conversant in West Wing-ese, the movie suggests a juicy episode of Aaron Sorkin's TV series if every character in it was played by Ron Silver.

Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Justin Bartha, and Ed Helms in The Hangover Part IITHE HANGOVER PART II

Todd Phillips' The Hangover Part II is the sequel to the director's box-office smash from the summer of 2009, and it's just like the original.

Let me re-punctuate that: It is just. Like. The original.

 

Ellie Kemper, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig in BridesmaidsBRIDESMAIDS

You wouldn't necessarily think that exhaustion and depression would be fertile subjects for a big-screen slapstick - at least, for a big-screen slapstick that didn't star Paul Giamatti. Yet in director Paul Feig's buoyant and brainy Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig plays a sad, discouraged, frequently humiliated maid of honor with such inventiveness and style that she seems to be creating a new comic archetype right before your eyes. Hiding her misery behind a thinly veiled mask of courtesy and good cheer, and letting her anger and resentment spill out in sarcastic asides and messy, chaotic bursts, Wiig's Annie - like many of the brilliantly talented performer's most memorable characters - is a singular creation. And so, too, is Bridesmaids, a female-driven Judd Apatow comedy (he's a co-producer) with the rare distinction of being smarter than it is funny, though it's still plenty funny.

Paul Giamatti and Alex Shaffer in Win WinWIN WIN

When I say that writer/director Tom McCarthy's Win Win could easily serve as the inspiration for a long-running TV series, I don't mean it in any way insultingly, partly because our current small-screen options are, in general, vastly superior to our big-screen ones. Mostly, though, it's because this serious-minded comedy is so teeming with nuanced, empathetic characters and complicated yet wholly plausible situations and circumstances that you want to luxuriate in Win Win's universe for far longer than the movie's too-brief 100 minutes - like, for an hour a week over several seasons.

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows; Part IHARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART I

About two-thirds of the way through Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part I, Rupert Grint's Ron Weasley finally has it out with Emma Watson's Hermione Granger and Daniel Radcliffe's Harry. Fed up with the apparent hopelessness of their latest quest, and more than a bit peeved about his eternal status as Harry's second banana, Ron angrily asserts that the three wizards-in-training aren't finding anything and aren't getting anywhere, and eventually storms off in a huff. Never in my life have I felt so connected to Rupert Grint.

Pages