Dominic, Brian and Mia (Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster) are on the lam in Rio de Janeiro where they make enemies with a local crime lord… and are hunted by a zealous federal agent (Dwayne Johnson). A turning point in this franchise, resulting in a very intense heist movie with the occasional street racing scene rather than the other way around. That idea apparently gave the filmmakers a shot of adrenaline because the film is chock-full of brilliant action, including an insane chase involving a huge bank vault (!). Johnson joins this reunion of familiar faces from earlier entries… and he’s welcome.

2011-U.S. 130 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Justin Lin. Cast: Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O’Conner), Jordana Brewster (Mia Toretto), Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. Cameo: Eva Mendes.

Trivia: Followed by Fast & Furious 6 (2013).

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Slacker Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill) is talked into babysitting three kids for a friend of his mom’s, but the night turns into a wild adventure. The director of Pineapple Express (2008) delivers another mad romp, an Adventures in Babysitting (1987) for a new decade. It’s a very busy film, with drug deals, chases, a romance and three kids who are all annoying in different ways. Lively, with one or two funny scenes, but exhausting. A lack of likable characters leads to indifference.

2011-U.S. 81 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by David Gordon Green. Cast: Jonah Hill (Noah Griffith), Max Records (Slater Pedulla), Ari Graynor (Marisa Lewis), J.B. Smoove, Sam Rockwell, Landry Bender.

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30-year-old Jeff (Jason Segel) has no job or girlfriend and lives in his mom’s (Susan Sarandon) basement in Baton Rouge, Louisiana… but his mother and brother (Ed Helms) have problems of their own. The Duplass brothers went a little more mainstream with this comedy after the experimental Puffy Chair (2005). Its portrayal of a family whose lives aren’t going anywhere is warm, amusing and thoughtful – a study of dreams, desire and bad habits, with a sprinkling of serendipity. Cute and engaging, with terrific performances, but perhaps a little too slight.

2012-U.S. 83 min. Color. Written and directed by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass. Cast: Jason Segel (Jeff), Ed Helms (Pat), Judy Greer (Linda), Susan Sarandon (Sharon), Rae Dawn Chong, Steve Zissis.

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On the same night as the Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, an assassin kills the Nobel Committe chair; everybody assumes the killer made a mistake, except tabloid reporter Annika Bengtzon (Malin Crépin). After two previous Swedish thrillers starring Bengtzon, this new project with a younger incarnation of the reporter looks bland, lacks thrills (in spite of its spectacular opening) and suffers from a less than convincing depiction of how cops and journalists work.

2012-Sweden. 90 min. Color. Directed by Peter Flinth. Novel: Liza Marklund. Cast: Malin Crépin (Annika Bengtzon), Björn Kjellman (Anders Schyman), Leif Andrée (Spiken), Kajsa Ernst, Erik Johansson, Felix Engström… Per Graffman, Björn Granath, Ia Langhammer, Pia Johansson.

Trivia: Original title: Nobels testamente. First in a series of six films; the other five went straight to DVD.

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CIA agents and best friends FDR Foster and Tuck Hansen (Chris Pine, Tom Hardy) start dating the same woman (Reese Witherspoon) without realizing it and soon turn it into a mindless contest. McG returns to Charlie’s Angels territory with this romantic action-comedy, but he should have moved on. The cartoonish shootouts, fistfights and car chases are good for a few thrills. Pine and Hardy give it their best shot as the handsome and very competitive spies, but the film needs a far lighter touch (and better jokes) than McG and his crew are able to deliver.

2012-U.S. 97 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Will Smith, Robert Simonds, Simon Kinberg, James Lassiter. Directed by McG. Cast: Reese Witherspoon (Lauren Scott), Chris Pine (Franklin “FDR” Foster), Tom Hardy (John “Tuck” Hansen), Til Schweiger, Angela Bassett, Rosemary Harris… Chelsea Handler.

Trivia: Bradley Cooper, James Franco and Sam Worthington were allegedly considered for roles.

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In 2011, Nevada teenager Alex (Kathryn Newton) and her family take care of their neighbor’s kid when his mom falls ill; the child is a bit odd and seems to have an invisible friend… This chapter is set a few years after the events of Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) and features some of that film’s characters as well as a new family. The found-footage concept strains credibility here, and the cast is less than engaging – but the film’s main problem is that it’s dull, with few real shocks.

2012-U.S. 88 min. Color. Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. Cast: Katie Featherston (Katie), Kathryn Newton (Alex), Sprague Grayden (Kristi), Matt Shively, Stephen Dunham, Alexondra Lee.

Trivia: Dunham died of a heart attack shortly before the film’s release.

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30-year-old London primary school teacher Pauline “Poppy” Cross (Sally Hawkins) always looks at the bright side of life, but her driving instructor (Eddie Marsan) poses a very special challenge. It’s hard not to find Poppy a nuisance, with her constant silly jokes and seeming inability to take anything seriously. But in the hands of Mike Leigh, who knows how to make a film like this ring true, she slowly grows on us and we realize that she does take responsibility and is a much more attractive human being than many others in her life. Leigh makes us think about our daily prejudices, and the intense showdowns between Hawkins and Marsan are spellbinding.

2008-Britain. 118 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Simon Channing Williams. Written and directed by Mike Leigh. Cast: Sally Hawkins (Pauline “Poppy” Cross), Eddie Marsan (Scott), Alexis Zegerman (Zoe), Andrea Riseborough, Sinéad Matthews, Kate O’Flynn.

Golden Globe: Best Actress (Hawkins). Berlin: Best Actress (Hawkins).

Last word: “There are people who the least little thing, they grumble and complain, and their world falls apart. On the other end of the spectrum there are loads of people around who say, c’mon, my bike’s been stolen – but all the crying in the world won’t bring it back. And my back’s gone out, let’s get it fixed. There’s a certain mythology about this film. Because when she finds she has a kid in her class who’s plainly disturbed, she doesn’t say, hey, so what, she deals with it. It’s not accurate to talk about her in terms of this relentless cheerfulness.” (Leigh, indieWire)

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In 1972, a vampire (Johnny Depp) is accidentally freed from his buried coffin and returns to his Maine family mansion; a lot has changed in 200 years, but the witch who turned him into a bloodsucker is still around. A very Tim Burton-esque adaptation of the classic 1966-1971 horror soap, complete with opulent production design, amusing clashes between the ’70s and the 1700s, and a magnificent Depp who’s pale only in his complexion. Very similar to many other Burton films (especially Beetle Juice), and the fiery climax is expected and weak, but the movie is still funny and looks great.

2012-U.S. 112 min. Color. Directed by Tim Burton. Production Design: Rick Heinrichs. Cast: Johnny Depp (Barnabas Collins), Michelle Pfeiffer (Elizabeth Collins Stoddard), Helena Bonham Carter (Julia Hoffman), Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller… Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee.

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After an attack on Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco, the main suspect (Benedict Cumberbatch) hides on Klingon territory and is pursued by a vengeful Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew. The sequel to Star Trek (2009) is equally impressive, boasting beautiful visual effects (now in 3D that looks great even though it was added in post), plenty of thrills and a cast that seems even more comfortable in their iconic roles this second time round. An icy Cumberbatch is wickedly entertaining as the head villain. The script connects with episodes of the original Star Trek as well as Star Trek II (1982), sometimes deftly, sometimes lazily. 

2013-U.S. 132 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci. Directed by J.J. Abrams. Screenplay: Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci. Music: Michael Giacchino. Cast: Chris Pine (James Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Benedict Cumberbatch (John Harrison), Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoë Saldana… Anton Yelchin, Simon Pegg, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, Leonard Nimoy.

Trivia: Benicio Del Toro was allegedly considered for a role.

Last word: “I wanted to do the fans proud and make sure the story is something that touches people. The goal was to try to tell a story which can be seen and enjoyed if you haven’t seen the previous one or know anything about the original series. But having said that, there are those fans of ‘Star Trek’ who are very vocal and like things the way they were – we’ve all met them and I love and respect them because we wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for them – but we couldn’t make a movie just for those fans.” (Abrams, The Telegraph)

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When producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard decided to turn the story about the ill-fated 1972 Apollo 13 mission into a movie, they found a lot of support from NASA. The space agency, likely eager to exploit the goodwill surrounding the rescue of the mission’s three astronauts, even offered Howard a chance to film the Mission Control sequences in the actual facilities in Houston, Texas. The spacecraft interiors were designed in Kansas by the same manufacturers who worked on the original Apollo 13 command module. The actors were given access to the Space Camp in Alabama and the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Where does one draw the line between independent filmmaking and NASA propaganda?

Three years after Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, the American public has grown jaded with lunar expeditions. By the time Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) are cleared for the Apollo 13 mission, there is no real excitement. Lovell’s wife Marilyn (Kathleen Quinlan) has bad dreams about the expedition and just wants it over. Then, unfortunately, it turns out that Mattingly has been exposed to the measles, and since NASA can’t take any chances, he’s replaced by Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon). A few days after liftoff, a liquid oxygen tank explodes and another turns out to be leaking. It is soon clear that the crew of Apollo 13 and NASA are going to have to forget about the moon and focus on how to get the spacecraft back to Earth in one piece…

Technically believable and dazzling
“Lost Moon”, Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger’s chronicle of the Apollo 13 accident and rescue, provides much of the backbone of this technically believable and dazzling film, one of the best ever to portray a historical space program event. It’s easy to think of it as a failure, but in light of the horrific Challenger and Columbia disasters in 1986 and 2003, it is amazing how those astronauts were brought back to safety. Everything in the film, from the smallest 1970s period details to the meticulously constructed modules to the visual effects that bring the Apollo 13 liftoff to life looks impressive. As for that last part, the sequence may have its flaws to modern audiences, but it still provides one of the absolute highlights of the film because of the tension that Howard builds and the stirring emotions of James Horner’s music; as the Saturn V rocket lifts to the sky with great thunder and the camera targets one of the astronauts’ wives whose intense fear is relieved with a tear, I felt the hairs on my arms stand up. Nothing that follows is equally powerful, but still very engaging, which is quite a feat considering how technically complex every problem that befell Apollo 13 were. The filmmakers are very good at conveying just how claustrophobic and eerie it must have been up in the module, with the embracing cold and darkness. Ed Harris delivers a forceful performance as Gene Krantz, the Flight Director whose white vest became so legendary it is now an item at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington; he’s more than ably aided by a terrific cast that also includes some of Howard’s closest family. Horner’s score is one of the composer’s best, including the end title track that features special vocals by Annie Lennox.

What about that initial question I posed? The answer is, yes, this is perfect PR for NASA… but it’s also one of those times where the collaboration serves a higher purpose. The artistic qualities of Apollo 13 would have suffered without NASA’s involvement. Sometimes, the end justifies the means.

Apollo 13 1995-U.S. 139 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Brian Grazer. Directed by Ron Howard. Screenplay: William Broyles, Jr., Al Reinert. Book: Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger (“Lost Moon”). Cinematography: Dean Cundey. Music: James Horner. Editing: Mike Hill, Daniel P. Hanley. Production Design: Michael Corenblith. Cast: Tom Hanks (Jim Lovell), Bill Paxton (Fred Haise), Kevin Bacon (Jack Swigert), Gary Sinise (Ken Mattingly), Ed Harris, Kathleen Quinlan… Narrated by Walter Cronkite.

Trivia: Released in a 116-min. IMAX version in 2002. John Travolta, Brad Pitt and John Cusack were allegedly considered for parts.

Oscars: Best Film Editing, Sound. BAFTA: Best Production Design, Special Effects.

Quote: “We’ve never lost an American in space, we’re sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option.” (Harris)

Last word: “One of the real highlights of my career, on so many levels. Interfacing with so many people who were involved in the space program. And being able not only to tell that story but also let people understand what the Apollo era was about, and how these people achieved so much with so little, technologically, during that period. At mission control, at home and in the capsule. It was an honor and such a tremendous filmmaking opportunity full of challenges, some physical, some technical and some narrative.” (Howard, Deadline)

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