Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in TrainwreckTRAINWRECK

Longtime admirers of Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer could easily be troubled by director Judd Apatow's Trainwreck, considering that by its finale, the wickedly smart, subversive, hysterical Schumer has morphed into a pretty standard rom-com heroine. (The transformation may be particularly dispiriting knowing that Schumer wrote the script.) As for me, I came to the party late, not having seen the star's sketch-series output until a few months ago, so I'm still living happily in the Amy Schumer afterglow, and was grateful for the oftentimes very funny Trainwreck at least being better than standard Hollywood rom-coms. Schumer's more die-hard fans may well bristle, but hey - I barely know the woman.

MinionsMINIONS

The previews for the Despicable Me prequel-slash-spin-off Minions made me laugh out loud every single time I saw them ... the first dozen times I saw them. After the second dozen, though, I started to get a little nervous. By then, I had experienced roughly 72 collective minutes of these squat, yellow henchmen with their helium squawks and adorable bulging eyes (or, in some cases, eye), and my initially hearty laughter had been replaced by occasional grins and a smidge of irritation. Granted, I was only seeing three to five minutes of footage over and over, but would directors Kyle Balda's and Pierre Coffin's animated outing wind up feeling the same? Would a solid hour and a half of Minions, and Minions, be too much of a good thing? Answer: Not really. And also: Kind of.

Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon in Hot PursuitHOT PURSUIT

All movies provide at least one reason to feel grateful, because even the worst movies eventually, mercifully end. Director Anne Fletcher's action comedy Hot Pursuit provides exactly one reason to feel grateful.

Om Puri, Manish Dayal, and Helen Mirren in The Hundred-Foot JourneyFriday, August 8, 10 a.m.-ish: I'm at The Hundred-Foot Journey, and five minutes into this lighthearted foodie dramedy, I'm already regretting my decision to only have yogurt for breakfast. With director Lasse Hallström's camera slavering over the creation of steaming, succulent pots and grills of Indian cuisine, all of it enhanced by spices and oils whose aromas are practically wafting off the screen, this is not the movie to see if you're hungry. Considering screenwriter Steven Knight's T-shirt-ready dialogue - which features such pithy bromides as "Life has its own flavor," "We cook to make ghosts," and the grammatically vexing "Food is memories" - it's not really the movie to see if your brain is hungry, either.

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in GravityGRAVITY

Alfonso Cuarón's space thriller Gravity opened this past weekend, and if you haven't seen it yet, you really should. Like, now. I'm serious. Step away from whatever electronic device you're using to read this and get in line at the cineplex - or, if the cineplex isn't currently open for business, drive over there and wait. Don't be one of those people who procrastinates until the movie hits home video and then whines about missing it on its initial release. Because I'm telling you: You're gonna want to catch Cuarón's latest on the big screen, and preferably on the biggest screen possible with your 3D glasses firmly in place. No kidding, folks: This thing is going to blow your mind.

Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx in White House DownWHITE HOUSE DOWN

At the start of the Roland Emmerich thriller White House Down, Channing Tatum's military veteran John Cale is seen applying for a position with the president of the United States' Secret Service detail. By the film's end, he'll have rescued hostages, shot innumerable bad guys, ensured peace in the Middle East, averted nuclear apocalypse, and saved the commander in chief's life several times over. In short: most impressive job interview ever.

Best Actor Daniel Day-LewisSeth MacFarlane, I thought, did a fine job hosting the 85th Academy Awards ceremony. He turned out to be a fine choice for the frequently thankless Oscar-emcee position, tossing in some fine jokes in between the generally fine production numbers and mostly fine acceptance speeches ... .

I'm sorry, but I am alone in thinking that last night's telecast, in the end, was just a little too "fine"?

Best Actress Meryl StreepThe first trophy handed out at the 2012 Academy Awards ceremony was for Best Cinematography, a prize that I predicted would go to The Tree of Life but that instead went to Hugo. (Seriously, after his undeserved losses for 2006's Children of Men and now the Terrence Malick film, exactly whom does Emmanuel Lubezki have to do to win an Oscar?) But that was actually my second incorrect assumption of the evening, because as soon as host Billy Crystal stepped on stage, I said to the others at my viewing party, "Here comes the standing ovation," and the audience - despite giving the man a warm reception - remained seated. Did the crowd have a collective premonition of just how spectacularly Crystal would bomb last night?

Tom Hanks and Thomas Horn in Extremely Loud & Incredibly CloseEXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE

The protagonist of director Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - based on Jonathan Safran Foer's famed 9/11/01-themed novel and adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth - is Oskar Schell, an 11-year-old Manhattanite who tells a new acquaintance that he was once tested for Asperger's syndrome, but that "the results weren't definitive." My first thought upon hearing that admission was that Oskar's folks really should've sought a second opinion, because with young actor Thomas Horn tearing through breathless reams of stream-of-consciousness dialogue, his condition seemed definitive as all-get-out. My second thought, which I only fully composed during the end credits, and which I apologize for in advance, was that watching Extremely Loud was like watching a movie while an 11-year-old with Asperger's yammers in your ear for 130 minutes.

Before getting into what went wrong at last night's Academy Awards ceremony - and sadly, quite a bit went wrong - let's begin by addressing the one portion of the telecast that, for maybe the first time in Oscar history, went magically right.

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