Bad Santa 2, Miss Sloane, Allied, Lion, Rules Don't Apply, On the Map, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened

Bad Santa 2

Miss Sloane

Allied

Lion



Rules Don't Apply

On the Map



Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened 

Quick capsules on a mostly quite good week of movies:

The Big Short, Sisters, Son of Saul, Dream/Killer, Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story, The Messenger, (T)error

The Big Short

Sisters

Son of Saul

Dream/Killer

Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story

The Messenger

(T)error

Quick capsules on the last of the pre-holiday releases:

By the Sea

Roland (Brad Pitt) is an author as yet unable to replicate the success of his first novel.

Fury

You may be forgiven for wondering whether time has stopped during David Ayer’s “Fury,” a fun-free zone and a compendium of stock characters and war-movie clichés.

The Counselor

“The Counselor” is not only the title of Ridley Scott’s new film but the only name by which Michael Fassbender’s character is ever addressed.

World War Z

It’s been a while since I’ve experienced the adrenaline rush of anticipation for a movie that I had for “World War Z.”

The Central Park Five, Killing Them Softly

The Central Park Five

Killing Them Softly

Ken Burns co-directed the documentary "The Central Park Five" with his daughter, Sarah, who had clerked at a law firm representing the five black boys wrongly convicted in 1989 of the rape and attempted murder of the Central Park Jogger, Trisha Mieli. Burns interviews the five men (four via video, one only on
audiotape), now free and in their late thirties, and their candor and strength of character are the film's greatest assets. Its weaknesses are overlength married with a lack of detail and specificity (it doesn't seem to understand exactly who was doing what where in the park that night any better than the trial jurors). What could have been a study in poor procedure à la Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line" remains vague and blurry. And the issues raised by the boys' confessions under duress were examined more rigorously and powerfully by a documentary from earlier this year entitled "Scenes of a Crime."

Moneyball

Bennett Miller's "Moneyball" ushers us into the fall movie season. It's time to get serious, to tell stories rich with drama and meaning and resonance. Or at least to get Brad Pitt an Oscar nomination - that's a good thing, right? It'll have to be, because "Moneyball" is thin, forgettable and dramatically inert.