There’s a thin line between “awesomely ridiculous B movie” and “absolute waste of time”. Actually, a few thin lines. Namely, the ones that spell out the director name on the movie poster.

Everyone agrees that Lucy was really, REALLY stupid. Critics are saying it’s “enthusiastically silly” and “powers through its logical gaps”, but I didn’t get the “we need to assume this is a winking nod to the audience, because we love this guy” memo. With cringe-inducing faux science that couldn’t be bothered to be consistent even within its own fantastical framework, open-mic-night-at-your-local-improv-club levels of robotic acting, and a “stylish” left-field ending that should alienate the only people who were on board for the prior hour of stupidity, I thought it was terrible. Granted, it was terrible in more interesting ways than most terrible movies, and apparently it has some campy appeal somewhere. Just not here. Full review below.

“Meandering”, “profound”, “Sundance hit”, and “directed by Richard Linklater” could all be red flags for some people. I personally love the Before ___ series, but like many films I strongly love (Short Term 12, Moonrise Kingdom) I can see potentially valid criticism from a mile away. In Linklater’s case, his films tend to be indulgent conversations between amazingly well-spoken characters, or thinly veiled versions of himself (see: Waking Life). Love it or hate it, the conceit is hard to ignore.

Even if the thought of watching Linklater’s take on the Up Series makes you cringe, it’d be a real shame if you dismissed Boyhood. While the story surrounding the film — shot incrementally as the actor grew from 6 to 19 years old — makes it a unique (and arguably unmissable) experience in its own right, it’s the seamless continuity and lack of heavy-handed editorializing which make it truly remarkable. There are no “One Year Later” title cards, overt Coming Of Age milestones, or precious Look At How Much He’s Grown™ moments; it’s naturalistic and subdued in the best possible way. The broken-family themes can get a bit heavy and the characters fall prey to a little armchair philosophizing (hey, if Ethan Hawke were your dad, you probably would too), but it all fits perfectly in the context of a boy growing up and finding his voice — as flawed a byproduct of his age and surroundings as that voice may be. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s moving in ways a more perfectly-scripted one could never be. Regardless of whether you typically like this sort of thing, it’s absolutely worth seeking out. You’ll be glad for the three hours you got with these characters. Review below:

I’m an unabashed Scrubs fan, have fond memories of The Last Kiss, and — despite it being quite a bit less hip to admit now than it was in high school — I still appreciate Garden State. So when Zach Braff took to Kickstarter to make his new movie, I was happy (if a little embarrassed) to back it. His style isn’t subtle, but it’s goofy, bighearted, and often genuinely touching in places where a subtler hand wouldn’t have fit. Wedding footage with a voiceover monologue set to Peter Gabriel’s “The Book Of Love” cover sounds pretty damn trite on paper, but when it clicks, it really clicks.

Maybe “Wish I Was Here” would have been a better movie if it also had 8 years of backstory to make its cheesiness feel earned. As it stands it feels like a Greatest Hits collection of indie feel-good moments set to an indie feel-good soundtrack, with no driving theme or character arc to hold it together. Characters cry on (what else?) deathbeds, precocious children say precocious things, and Zach Braff is a good dad in slow motion every few minutes — but nothing is connected and it has no point of view worth sharing. It doesn’t come across as fake or dishonest; that’d be groanworthy but make sense. It’s more like he looked deep within himself and sincerely found nothing but Hallmark card poems and inspirational stock photographs. That earnestness, combined with a decent production value and clear eye for composition, makes for a very frustrating viewing experience. I didn’t hate it, but I can’t recommend it.

The original How To Train Your Dragon was a wonderful movie. It was beautifully rendered, playfully acted, and fun; but plenty of unremarkable things are. What made it fly above the pack was its simple emotional core and ability to communicate awe through the lens of its protagonist — making the small/personal feel big so the big would feel massive. It was like an upside-down Gravity.

That’s an amazing trick which could only work once, and How To Train Your Dragon 2 wisely didn’t try to repeat it. Instead it decided to elaborate on the massive world the other left in its wake: stakes were higher and the story broader in scope. It pulled it off about as well as it possibly could have, and did no disservice to the original. Kids will probably love it — it’s a great kids’ movie, way better than (say) Brave. But only a kids’ movie. Those of us who found magic in the quiet and personal will see it homaged here but never quite recreated. Like a sequel to a romance, it might deepen or expand on the same sort of love, but it won’t have the thrill of falling.

Whether it’s a story about Legos, a kids’ film which is almost entirely devoted to food puns, or a comic reboot of a show no one in the target demo remembers, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are masters at making surprisingly solid films out of unlikely premises. No one knows what turned the least anticipated remake since Starsky and Hutch into the massive sleeper hit that 21 Jump Street was. But at least that one had underdog charm going for it. Like the creators happily acknowledge, the problem of doing it a second time is daunting.

If comedy is all about subverting expectations, how do you make a highly-anticipated comedy sequel? The same way you write a compelling story about an orchid thief, or a non-cliched comedy about community college cliches: let the audience in on the contradiction. 22 Jump Street is no Kaufman movie, but it also elevates its self-reference above a throwaway gimmick (take notes, Muppets 2); it makes a whole story hinge on it, and makes that story funny. Like the movie before it, it’s witty, self-assured, and packed with jokes — not “loose” Apatow riffs, but actual observations and wordplay — which are winking enough to be fun even when they don’t perfectly land. It’s a smart genre parody, a genuinely fun action movie, and a bromance which somehow doesn’t elicit the eye-rolls that word deserves. If the post-credits scenes are any indication, {++JumpStreetAddress; StephensWallet-=$20;} is bound to keep happening. I can’t wait.

“The other day I saw that Tom Cruise sci fi flick in IMAX 3D. It was really good!” is not the sort of thing I’m supposed to say. At all. Examples of the sort of things I’m supposed to say: “Like Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow is another flaccid blockbuster which thinks watching Tom Cruise fall out of a beautifully rendered spaceship counts as a ‘story’”, “The audience, like the film’s protagonist, is forced to rewatch tropes they’ve seen play out a thousand times before”, “Releasing a futuristic movie about Normandy Beach on the anniversary of D-Day is a shameless PR stunt. Save your money and watch something with an actual point of view.”

I should say that sort of thing, but I can’t. Edge of Tomorrow was a genuinely good movie. Its stars are engaging, its story riveting, and the time travel conceit dances nicely between Groundhog Day / About Time lightheartedness and the heavier toll it exacts on its lead. The ending wasn’t perfect, and it didn’t quite hit the unique sci fi heights of, say, Looper. But it was solidly crafted, visually stunning, and never, ever boring. Review below:

Be it Adam Sandler or U2, Hipster-ical revisionism affects everyone in show business. And while others have been hit harder (please observe a moment of silence for our fallen comrades, Creed and Dane Cook) Seth MacFarlane has felt more than his fair share. Virtually everyone loved Family Guy in its heyday, but quote it today and see what kind of looks you get. Like the aforementioned victims of H.R., the show struck a tone which was loved to the point of ubiquity, becoming so grating that even the original started to feel like another cheap rip-off. Self parody breeds hatred for the present, breeds eye rolls for the past, breeds denial that it ever had merit. It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s lazy.

All that to say, “A Million Ways to Die in the West” probably should have come out ten years ago. It’s a parody which thrives on the same strain of-hit-or-miss non-sequitors which made Family Guy’s tone both iconic and (now) overdone. When the jokes land, they’re very funny — the observations are sharp and the actors just as hammy as they need to be. The other 90% of the time it’s either cringeworthy or flat, with no compelling character- or plot- moments to help us ride out the plateaus. As a jokefest it was OK, as a rom-com it was awful, and as a genre parody it didn’t go deep enough. Like Family Guy, the Western genre is a formulaic institution which is easy to mock from a modern vantage point, but that’s not enough to carry a film. It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s lazy.

When X-Men 3 came out, I was ready to completely check out from the franchise. Prequels, sequel-prequels, and reboots took up adspace for a few weeks at a time, but never compelled me to head to the theatre. But 2014 is looking to be the Year of Superhero Sequels Which Are Actually Pretty Okay Even Though Stephen Never Saw The Original, and X-Men: Days of Future Past was no exception. The younger characters are fresh and compelling, the time travel gimmick didn’t make me hate myself, and in the tradeoff between exposition and mindless action it hit just about the perfect blend. It wasn’t transcendent, suffers a bit from the now-common Rotten Tomato Inflation Syndrome, and I’ve been told it pales in comparison to First Class. But as a newcomer to the reboot series, I was plenty satisfied, and am glad to see that the Avengers aren’t the only blockbuster machine in town. The days of blandness past have hopefully passed, and the future of well-made, stupid popcorn flicks is looking bright.

When I heard there was a new Godzilla movie coming out, I was ambivalent. When I saw the Cranston-heavy trailer in IMAX before Captain America, I was fully on board (with the obvious caveat that, come on, it’s a movie about Godzilla, it’s not going to be transcendent.) And after having gone to a packed show this Saturday, I can say with confidence that the movie matched my expectations.

For the first twenty minutes or so. Then, like certain characters who won’t be named, it needlessly plummeted. What started as an interestingly dark take on the franchise quickly became a plotless mess. It tried to devote most of its time to exposition, but without a compelling lead the disaster angle felt boring and lifeless, and no one’s actions had consequences. This would be fine (who remembers anyone in Cloverfield?), except even the “epic” destruction felt forced and, considering the scale of all things CG, weirdly small. Military people pose militarily, famous landmarks get destroyed by virtue of them being famous (let’s save the kids! send them across the Golden Gate Bridge, that’s the safest way to avoid SEA MONSTERS while on a peninsula) and I just couldn’t bring myself to care about anything. It wasn’t terrible, but it was a huge letdown, and like the Ken who was better than most everyone else in the cast, I Wa[nted]-ta-na-be in the theatre by the end.

Review and bonus spoiler ep at:

It’s easy to hate on the Apatow crew now that they run the world. But when The Forty-Year-Old Virgin came out nearly a decade ago, it set the standard for a new breed of comedy: loosely scripted bro fests which were both “unbelievably vulgar” and full of heart. Knocked Up and Superbad continued the trend in a way that my 18-year-old self found absolutely envelope-pushing.

In hindsight it’s funny to remember that these movies used to be “edgy”, just like American Pie used to seem “crude”. The formula has repeated itself so many times that movie reviews with words like “raunchy” and “riotous” are almost always a sign of eye-rolls to come: mediocre comedies like Role Models or 21 And Over run on the principle that “if it was funny once, it has to be funnier with twice the bro-hugs and penis jokes”. Neighbors wasn’t quite this bad: it had some genuinely funny moments, clever Community-style meta humor, and particularly strong comic turns from Zac Efron and Dave Franco. It also had its fair share of painfully unfunny actors-one-upping-each-other banter, emotional beats with no buildup or payoff, and “crazy” party scenes that were way less entertaining than they seemed to want to be. It couldn’t commit to the classic Apatow heart or the Pinneapple Express / 21 Jump Street insanity, so it settled for that just-OK purgatory where plenty of comedies go to be forgotten. But OK is sometimes good enough. It’s scattered, energetic, and making more noise than it has any right to, but if you turn off your brain you’ll probably have a pretty good time. Even if you don’t remember it in the morning.