Ginger and Rosa (2013)

In 1962 London BFF girls “Ginger and Rosa” (Elle Fanning of “Super 8” and newcomer Alice Englert) do that teen thing that many teens do: Piss on chores and curfew, dabble in romances, and smoke. They also strain under paranoia from the Cuban Missile Crisis and a far closer atomic bomb of the emotional kind involving Ginger’s anarchist dad and fragile mom (Alessandro Nivola and Christina Hendricks). Despite the obvious turn, I won’t spill details, but director/writer Sally Potter (“Orlando”) lights the fuse early. Porter has a beautiful-looking film here, picture-wise, and perfects the myriad details of teens from clothes to petty jealousies. But it’s also top heavy with too many Jiminy Crickets for Ginger. Annette Bening plays a leftist with no purpose in life but to dispel advise to our gal, and the same is true of Ginger’s gay godparents (Timothy Spall and Oliver Platt). More so, the only time a radio plays, it bears only doom and gloom like some Orsen Welles production. (TV, movies, nor newspapers figure at all.) All that said, Fanning is spectacular, a Yank going Brit on screen, and as flawlessly as Streep did Thatcher. B

Abduction (2011)

No one gets abducted in “Abduction,” but for a “Bourne Identity” Junior knock-off staring the scowling werewolf from “Twilight,” I guess the title “Who’s My Daddy?” would not drag in the non-teenage fans, huh? It’s almost unfair to dub “Abduction” a “Bourne” knock-off, it’s a boot-licking mash note that name drops Matt Damon. The plot: High school misfit Nathan Parker (Taylor Lautner) learns from a missing children website that he is not quite himself. Just as Nathan confronts his “parents” (Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello), goons storm the suburban home. Guns blaze! Mom down! Dad down! Boy on the run, with a gal (Lilly Collins of “Mirror, Mirror”) in tow! See, Serbian terrorists set up the very website knowing that one day Nathan would visit it and flee right into their insidious trap to outsmart Nathan’s real father, a brilliant ex-CIA agent. Whew! Why not a Craig’s List ad? John Singleton directs on snooze, his “Boyz ’N the Hood” days long gone. Lautner acts listlessly here as he does in “Twilight.” Suspense? Zero. Unintended laughs? A villain warns, “There’s a bomb in the oven!” and our heroes run to check the oven! Hilarious. C-

Margaret (2011)

There’s a book yet to be written about the making of “Margaret,” a drama about a Manhattan teen (Anna Paquin) who witnesses, and is undeniably partially responsible for, a NYC bus accident that leaves a woman dead. Seventeen, naïve, and obsessed with all things teen girls are -- clothes, thinking of college, avoiding some boys and chasing others –- the incident throws her world into frantic discord. The more she thinks she’s trying to help, the deeper she sinks, and more conflicted she becomes about morality, adults, the justice system, and what constitutes “fairness.” The film was shot back in 2005 with a 2006 release date penned in, but various woes and legal stops finally landed “Margaret” in a few U.S. cinemas in late 2011. Director/writer Kenneth Longergan has made one hell of a film so wide, big, dark, and brilliant –- as is New York -– multiple viewings are required. It’s a sprawling majestic novel on film, with Paquin again proving her amazing talent from “Piano.” The film runs 2 hours 30 minutes. A longer cut played on one NYC screen in 2012, and I have it on DVD now. I expect it to be on my 2012 Top 10 List. A

Hanna (2011)

Here’s a fairytale the Grimm Brothers dare not have imagined: A 16-year-old girl, raised in full isolation and trained to be a ruthless assassin by her golden knight father, is set out onto the world to exact revenge against the wicked witch who killed mommy. “Hanna” is not that bluntly supernatural, though. Daddy (Eric Bana) is an ex-CIA agent who we think is nutty paranoid until we learn he is rightfully so. The Wicked Witch (Cate Blanchett) is his CIA boss, a soulless Texan obsessed with material goods. Yes, it’s a commentary. Director Joe Wright is clearly having fun by squashing logic and ending his taut thriller at a derelict amusement park, with Blanchett walking out of the mouth of the Big Bad Wolf. This would all be laughable were it not for Saoirse Ronan, who ruled over Wright’s “Atonement.” As Hanna, she effortlessly bounces from a teen with no memory of women, and no idea of TV or music or cars, to a killer on a dime. She’s a better heroine than the girl from “Twilight.” Very “Never Let Me Go, Jason Bourne.” B

Footloose (2011)

It’s been too long since I watched the 1984 Kevin Bacon-starring “Footloose” to compare it side-by-side to this 2011 remake. Both follow the same concept: A big-city high school guy named Ren McCormack (here Kenny Wormald) arrives in a small town that has gone all 700 Club following the fatal DUI wreck of several students: Dancing is banned. Loud music banned. Church mandatory. The plot is set in stone: Ren loves to dance, and he will dance, bringing a wild child (Julianne Hough) and a geeky country seed (Miles Teller) along the way. It’s a goofy movie with lines such as: “It’s our time now!,” but it’s a fun fight-the-power trip for teens bored of living at home. This version is more sexual and violent. Director Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow”) for the most doesn’t belittle small town people, and his camera happily follows the feet and hips of youths dancing until adulthood arrives. Wormald scores bonus points over Bacon: He does his own dancing, and does it spectacularly well. Diverse helpings of music abound. B+

Super 8 and X-Men: First Class (2011)

“Super 8” and “X-Men: First Class” are not two films I would toss together on any given day, but they are sealed in my mind as a weird double feature separated by a week or so. They are sold as Summer 2011 Box Office Hits, but instead happily riff and thrive off film genres that no longer get the respect they deserve, even if they fall short of beloved and timeless classics.

“Super 8” is a throwback to the five-star films of my youth, “The Goonies” and “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” fathered by two masters-of-cinema dads, one older and one younger, producer Steven Spielberg and writer/director J.J. Abrams. With a pedigree such as that, it should be the Film of the Year. Yet, it’s not. Maybe I’m too far removed from my 11-year-old self, the year I saw and desperately wanted nothing more than to be a “Goonie.” (Hang out and kiss older girls? Fight villains and plunder pirate treasure!?! Yes and yes, please.)

The plot follows a group of young teens (led by Joel Courtney as a boy grieving over his dead mother) as they get sucked up in a spectacular alien conspiracy in their small Ohio steel town after they witness a spectacular train crash. The title comes from the movie they are making -- a zombie flick -- on old 8 mm film, this being the late 1970s. I remember doing that. In full Spielberg vein, the children are the heroes, and the adults must grow up.

“Super 8” also mixes in heavy doses of government madness as in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and it's a wild joy for a while. The teens play to each other, not the audience. The in-jokes of 1979 are so damn accurate and funny. But, damn it all, when the big bad alien is fully revealed, the film goes soft and flaky, and breaks its back reaching for sentimental pathos. All tension and fun evaporates. Also, the creature looks so …eye-rolling obvious CGI. Hey, guys, why not go for old-school puppetry and in-camera tricks? Speaking of cameras, Abrahams’ OCD love for lens flare kills the finale as faces are near blurred by blue light pops. It’s never a good sign when, during an emotional finale, one sits there thinking, “What the hell lens did they use?” But that’s nitpicking. I'll shut up.

Yes, “X-Men: First Class” is a prequel to the 10-year-old film franchise and yet another superhero movie in this, The Summer of Super Hero Movies. But that’s surface. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, “X:FC” is actually an old-school 1960s spy flick born of John Le Carre novels, James Bond films and “Fail Safe” paranoid drama, spiced with an old revenge thriller plot. We get CIA agents, war room grand-standing, fantastic hideouts for the villains (a submarine!), secret bases in plain sight for the good guys, strip clubs and old Nazis in hiding.

Much of the film takes place in 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world almost nuked itself into radioactive dust. As with “Inglourious Basterds” or a James Ellroy novel, “X:FC ” takes this history and bends it. The gist: What if the whole United States/Soviet Union stand-off was the wicked master plan of a martini-sipping megalomaniac ex-Nazi Mutant (Kevin Bacon) grooving on the wish that nuclear fallout will bring him to power. Naturally, it is Charles Xavier, a peaceful Mutant (he is a telekinetic) who must keep the party from going nuclear. James McAvoy plays the young Xavier, before the wheelchair and baldness.

There’s also the rogue man out for bloody redemption who drives the whole plot forward. This is Erik Lensherr (sic), aka Magneto, an ex-Jew out to slay the Nazis who killed his family. Bacon’s character being target No. 1. Lensherr is far more interesting than Xavier, basically taking the place of Wolverine – violence-prone outsider – in the 2000 film “X-Men.” I’m assuming you know what I’m talking about, all this name dropping and Mutant talk. Apologies if you don’t. Magneto is played by Michael Fassbender who by law must become the next James Bond. (Ian McKellan played elder Magneto in the previous films.)

It’s a daring canvas, asking movie-goers to know real history. Despite how dark and dirty Vaughn stretches – he provides a gruesome death that will forever change the way you look at pocket change – I felt he wanted to go further. Darker than “The Dark Knight,” with more meaning. Too many kills cut away, sloppily, before they end. I actually could have done without the First Class in “First Class,” as the variety of young Mutants (with Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique) on display don’t hold water against McAvoy and Fassbender. There’s more nitpicking, from an “X-Men” comic book nerd’s perspective, but hey … how many summer flicks feature JFK and men in turtlenecks?

Both films: B

I am Number Four (2011)

The teenage science fiction flick “I am Number Four” is a mixtape of the “Smallville” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV shows, and a dozen films including “Twilight.” Y’know: Super-powered conflicted teen must fight to save his high school and one true love. This normally would grind my patience, but so much of “Four” has an unintended silliness that it quickly veers into guilty fun. For a while. The teen is an alien (Alex Pettyfe) stranded on Earth, on the run from a pack of different extra-terrestrials who resemble Goth “Star Trek” fans with redneck teeth. When the leader speaks, he sounds like Dracula with a bad lisp. It’s a laugh riot. There’s a romantic interest, a nerd, a jock, and a teen girl named 6 (Teresa Palmer) who’s quite the Buffy. Pettyfe is, of course, 4. Director D.J. Caruso (“Eagle Eye”) promises a sequel and a No. 5. All told, this smells of a CW pilot more than anything cinematic. Keep your eye on the beagle, it’s one bad ass son of a … C+

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

Bella still can’t catch a break in “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” The girl (Kristen Stewart) loves the glittery vampire (Robert Pattinson) with 1980s hair, but jealous werewolf boy (Taylor Lautner) is always lurking about. What’s a girl to do? This is the third chapter in the series, and it’s much of the same: Some evil vampire clan is out for Bella’s blood and she needs saving by her suitors, who are more than willing to oblige. Saving means controlling. Vampire guy rips engine cables out of Bella’s truck so she can’t drive anywhere. Werewolf guy dishes “romantic” one-liners that basically translate as “If I can‘t have you, no one will.” Both guys talk stalker, but are treated as heartthrobs. Creepily anti-woman, and from a woman's pen no less. “Eclipse” does score points with well-played, literal head-cracking vampire fights. Director David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) gives the action real blood, so to speak, but can’t lift the banal dialogue and wooden acting above unintended howls. When the two guys compare their own hotness, it plays like a bad spoof of “Brokeback Mountain.” C-

Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

“Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” is a quick, quirky comedy about the genre I’ve previously said bores me silly: the boy-meets-girl teen comedy. Except it actually shakes the genre up, and delivers genuinely funny entertainment.

First, Nick (Michael Cera) and Nora (Kat Dennings) are by no means matinee idol stars of beauty and great, polished one-liners. There’s no eye-bleeding talk of soul mates or “hooking” up. Nor is there a case of mistaken identity, or any semblance of some bet that leads the super cool person to love the nerd. Rather, Nick and Nora meet and bicker and talk about their greatest respective love -- independent rock music – until romance sparks. That’s it. Simple and wonderful.

The entire film is built on Nick’s geeky awkwardness, and Nora’s need for him to just shut-up about an ex. This is the kind of flubbed flirting that any man or women who’s actually lived outside of Beverly Hills has made.

Filmed in fantastic New York locales that would never make it into a Kate Hudson film, “Nick and Nora” almost has an off-the-cuff approach that allows one to feel like they’re along for the ride, not just spectator to unattainable beautifully lit models with perfect teeth. Oh, the soundtrack is cool. Even for a guy who can’t recall the last time he listened to the radio. B+

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

“10 Things I Hate About You” succeeds as entertainment despite it’s being the most woeful of genres: The teen romance. Chalk it up to a smart screenplay that well-knows it’s messing with the rules (teachers swear and talk back in class) and the wow-power of Heath Ledger as a Down Under teen in the U.S. of A. God, what a talent. What a loss. Julia Stiles (where did she go?) plays with the standard movie “bitch” card as a smart girl who knows what she wants, and knows from past wrongs. Best thing: She never gives in her smarts or independence for a man (boy)’s approval. All in all, a great showing for a film type I flee from. B+

The Invisible (2007)

"The Invisible" has a cool premise but is skunked by serious script problems. That's surprising since David Goyer, who worked on "The Dark Knight," served as writer and director. After a teen (Justin Chatwin) is attacked and left for dead in a storm drain, his spirit watches his attackers conspire, his widowed mother weep and his friends dismiss him as a freak.It's a great story: What teen doesn't want to see how the world revolves -- or doesn't -- around him? But, the film goes wrong in so many ways. The most grievous sin: The entire last third of the film is so drawn out, over-dramatized and devoid of any sense of reality cum logic, it turns into an unintended laugh riot. It's a shame because most of the leads have complex characters not normally found in supernatural teen thrillers. The movie all but -- bad pun alert -- disappears. C-