Amour (2012)

An octogenarian couple decide to face the rest of their days in private, with dignity and grace after the missus has a series of strokes.

The gimmick: You can watch it as an unsentimental, yet moving melodrama.

The other gimmick: You can watch it as part of Haneke's long filmic project of subverting bourgeois sensibilities.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 26 December 2012.

Arbitrage (2012)

Richard Gere plays a Wall Street tycoon whose timing has never been worse when his mistress dies suspiciously on the eve of a big deal that will sour if it doesn't leave his hands soon.

The gimmick: Instead of a Wall Street, that is, a Greek tragedy of outsized personalities and appetites, Arbitrage presents the radical idea that Wall Street criminals are best talked about as criminals, full-stop.

Watch for: How the blue collar procedural fits the white collar setting; a very sneaky script.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 26 December 2012.

Won't Back Down (2012)

Dissatisfied parents and teachers take over a school, literally.

The gimmick: This movie teaches you how to take over a school. It doesn't focus on what happens afterwards. That's because it's a film backed by the school privatisation lobby, and the lobby either doesn't care about what happens after, or doesn't want you to know that none of such recently privatised schools succeeded.

Watch for: bunch of Hollywood liberals suckered into a right-wing project; an 'inspirational' movie going through the motions; very good but very dishonest scriptwriting.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 26 December 2012.

Jack Reacher (2012)

A lone gunman is caught with incontrovertible evidence. A badass former MP is brought in to either clear his name or make him hang.

The gimmick: a classic Western (Reacher as the man of violence from out of town) masquerading as a gumshoe procedural. Note: this is purely the director's spin on the novels, not the author's.

Watch for: clever scriptwriting, grasp of genre cinema, the very limited Tom Cruise cast in an appropriate and effective role.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 December 2012.

The Hobbit: An unexpected journey (2012)

The charm of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit lies in its naivete, in its innocent comedy, and sense of naughty fun.

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit rewrites the comedy into part of the dark epic of Lord of the Rings.

The result is a story that is unsuited to the genre, at odds with its telling, and at odds with its intended epic greatness.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 12 December 2012.

Bachelorette (2012)

Another experiment in gender reversal, Bachelorette is basically The Hangover with a female cast.

So, the gimmick is: drunk and high bridesmaids try to fix a very big problem on the eve of the bride's big day.

Our verdict: very tolerable as long as the characters were mean, impolite, and merciless towards each other. Turn towards sentimentality not appreciated.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 12 December 2012.

Intouchables (2011)

A sickly, rich white aristocrat employs a poor black immigrant as his nurse. Hilarity ensues instead of teachable moments.

The gimmick: Instead of a sentimental Driving Miss Daisy, expect an all-out, increasingly politically incorrect comedy with insensitive jokes that take the pathos out of the situation.

Watch for: a rare comedy where nothing's too sacred to mock, where mockery is the best medicine to mend broken hearts and souls.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 12 December 2012.

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

Silent Hill is one of the very rare video game to film adaptations that get it right.
Silent Hill is not about the horror and gore, and least of all the thrills. It's all about psychological horror

The gimmick: Your protagonists escaped Silent Hill. Now Silent Hill wants them back and is willing to warp reality to retrieve them.

Watch for: Several hallucinatory sequences, quite possibly inspired by John Carpenter's They Live.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 5 December 2012.