Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

Talk about a lump of coal: For a film titled “Santa Claus” ol’ Saint Nick is MIA for most of his own notorious movie, no less from the producers behind the “Superman” films. Dang. Fetch Rudolph, and sorry, Virginia, this cinema origin tale focuses on the jolly toy-giver for only 30 minutes –- covering the North Pole, reindeer, and toys. Then it switches sleighs for a runaway elf (Dudley Moore) who takes up with a corrupt toy company CEO (John Lithgow). Santa? Ho-ho-hum, dude is relegated to a sad-sack grump sitting by the fireplace wondering if he’s still relevant. That right, Santa has an existential crisis. Talk about meta. Frances Church, help us! Add in a dull and cheap-looking production, even recycling flying footage from 1978’s “Superman,” and watching this is almost as disappointing as finding out you-know-what about you-know-who. That said, we get David Huddleston –- “The Big Lebowoski” himself -– as Santa, and you can tell he cherished this role. Just don’t steal his carpet. Lithgow’s OTT Grinch is a parody of the famous “SNL” Dan Aykroyd villain Irwin Mainway, so … why not just hire Aykroyd? A missed perfect gift. C+

Arbitrage (2012)

Richard Gere is never bolder/better than when he plays an amoral cockup with sins to hide and a clock to beat. He is that and more in “Arbitage,” a timely thriller with Gere as a billionaire hedge fund manager who in one week sees a longtime financial fraud shell game crumble and accidentally kills his mistress in a crash, all while dodging police and his suspecting wife (Susan Sarandon). This is a 1 percenter who has been thieving and lying so long, the light of truth gets him sweating. But he knows the rigged system. That’s the twist in this ethics quagmire: We see-saw between wanting this pig nailed and wanting him to escape unharmed. Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki also takes an open shot at the real “takers” in this land –- not the poor or African-Americans or Hispanics as Fox News preaches, but the rich white Wall Street elite who own the banks. The scene where Gere’s CEO cluelessly asks a young black man who he has drawn into his scheme, “What’s an Applebee’s?” (The man wants to open a franchise), exemplifies modern American values. Money is all. A-

The Innkeepers (2011)

“The Innkeepers” harkens back to old-school horror, the slow, slow, slow drop into the macabre and death, the full-on the lingering question that settles over the viewer hours later: “Did I see what happen actually happen?” We’re inside an on old New England inn with a history of mishaps, deaths, and renovations, but time has not been kind. The place faces shuttering. Two employees (Pat Healy and Sara Paxton) are on duty, and both are wink-wink ghost hunters. They’re there to make some cash, but mostly get ghosts on tape. The tenants are few and odd, including an actress (Kelly McGillis of “Witness”). Slowly, ever so slowly, writer/director Ti West sinks us into the story of these, um college slackers with clichés of spooky stories, a dark and dank basement, slamming doors, midnight mirages, and  a suicide upstairs, plus locked doors and creaky stairs. He keeps on sinking us downward, these old tricks spun jokingly, nastily, anew until we are as frazzled as the heroes locked up with the desire of horror maybe trumping anything real. A tiny budget, mostly unknown actors, and a simple plot go a long way. B+

Chronicle (2012)

Faux found-footage films are dead dull thanks to the “Paranormal Activity” quadrilogy. The low-budget “Chronicle” seeks to break the rut, and for the most-part, excels smashingly. Much is smashed in this 90-minute thriller after three high school boys stumble upon a cavern and quite foolishly (as teen boys are prone to do) touch a glowing, pulsing … something. Meteor? We don’t know, but the object gives the trio telekinetic powers. In sci-fi lore, newly powered teens must fight crime. Not here. They turn merry pranksters and play football 13,000 feet up. Then one of three -- bullied, beaten, and angry Andrew (Dane DeHaan of “Lawless”) -- goes mad and his rampage in downtown Seattle is so thrillingly of-the-moment TV news “real,” the sight is horrifying and exhilarating, thanks to director Josh Trank. But the teenage oh-so-exact shot “footage” and the constant meta-raised-eyebrows from the other characters halts the momentum, and I think, get on with the story. Stop the gimmick. That said, Track’s thriller near blows the superhero genre out of the water with a fraction of an “Amazing Spider-Man” budget. B+

Argo (2012)

Ben Affleck’s directing career has hit orbit. “Agro” is the crazy/ genius/brilliant/true tale of CIA agent and the Iranian Hostage crisis of 1979. I was five. “Star Wars” defined me. Thousands of miles away, Iran burned under a sick and violent Islamist dictatorship. Our embassy was rushed by zealots out for blood. Hostages were taken. The world panicked. War considered. A ray of hope unbeknownst to us: Six Americans escaped and hid inside the home of the Canadian ambassador, blind from Iranian grip. (Chris Terrio’s crackling script takes liberties here, as the six were split up. But never mind that.) How to extract the six? Enter CIA agent Chris Mendez (Affleck) and a bold plan: Ferret the group through the main airport as a “Star Wars” rip-off film crew, all under the Iranian Army’s watch. Pumped with tense drama, and dark political and Hollywood humor, “Argo” may be 2012’s best film, gripping and ingenuously played from the start. Affleck as a Hispanic-American is bullocks, but 10 minutes my qualms fell silent.The kicker: Our 2012 is no different, outside of shaggy hair and five channels. “Star Wars” still defines me, our embassies fall to madness, and Iran burns. I love this film.  A

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt's grim crime thriller “Killing Them Softly” already has much box office notoriety: A money loser slapped with an “F” from CinemaScore. Hell with that. This is ballsy filmmaking of the highest order. Andrew Dominik -– who made “Assassination of Jesse James” with Pitt -– is behind “KSF” as director/writer, and he is not out to please anyone. We follow two low-end criminals (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who rob a mafia-run card game, and escape with cash in hand and angry men in pursuit, one of them a world-weary hit man played by Pitt. “KSF” is set in 2008, during the economic meltdown and Obama/McCain election, and Dominik uses the panic and uncertainty of the time to explode the panic and uncertainty onscreen. There are no heroes, jokes, or happy endings. It’s a devastating punch about real criminal life, peppered with sad-sacks, drug-users, and average joes in over their heads. Not necessarily evil. Unintended fuck-ups. Dominik dares say our politicians, Wall Street bankers, and Founding Fathers are/were no different. It's the American way. Even a tedious slow-mo killing and oddball fireworks scene can’t hide that “KSF” is shockingly true cinematic art. A-

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

The most redundant horror franchise ever, “Paranormal Activity 3” takes its digital found-footage shtick back in time to the days of VHS tapes. Here, we follow the adult sisters from the first two films (Sprague Grayden and Katie Featherston) when they were children (Jessica Tyler Brown  and Chloe Csengery), still in San Diego, still in the same kind of yuppie split-level house, still stupid as dry paint, and still haunted by unseen ghosts. “PA3” would top “Rosemary’s Baby” if repetition were frightening. But this crap is painfully laughable. Yeah, some scares are found in watching children dragged and tossed by unseen forces. Such acts play on any adult concern for a child. Duh. But here’s the real mind fuck: As the girls play, dress, and sleep in their bedroom, they are filmed 24/7 by their dip-shit mother’s live-in video-camera-obsessed boyfriend (Chris Smith). Dude then watches the bedroom videos with his male best pal in the garage. Um, ghost-hunting pedophiles anyone? That the girls grow up to marry equally camera-obsessed men may not equal paranormal activity, but it sure is whacked sexual activity. Awkward, anyone? D+