It’s a tormented Tony Perkins at the Bates Motel, re-imagined by "Saturday Night Live," with all the risks implied.

Maybe so much of Son of a Gun seems boring and directionless because so little of the dialogue is comprehensible. This is a problem that tanks so many imports these days.

Good acting and plenty to think about, but a better director than Mike Binder would have made a better film.

B-movie director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious) hasn’t got a clue what to do with so much preposterous pulp fiction, so he wafts between sexy potboiler and psychological thriller with an uneasy lack of grace that brings out the worst in everybody.

A quirky re-boot of the old Burt Reynolds hashtag "Heat," this modest character vehicle for the lifeless, balding and incomprehensibly inarticulate Jason Statham is so bleak and moody it won’t be much of a lure to action fans.

Depression is a tricky subject for a movie aimed at a target audience that is depressed enough already. But this one justifies its challenges to feel-good escapism through honesty and integrity.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), it’s basically another tough genre workout that is all too familiar, with enough tension and violence to keep an audience alert if not riveted.

Paddington is a harmless delight that blends live action with animated technology in the manner of "Ted," but without the raunch.

The situations in Little Accidents cry out for more clarity than the script delivers, but the carefully observed performances are worth perusal, and the dark, industrialized joylessness of Rachel Morrison’s cinematography is a somber mirror to the sad dead-end life of Appalachia.

Another example of concept over coherence, but the entertainment value is considerable.

Mr. Spall, winner of the Cannes and New York Film Critics Circle best-actor awards, does his best to bring an unpleasant character to life — grunting and snorting like a boar ready to charge, spitting on his canvases and dragging around with a constant wince like a fat baby with colic. With all due respect, he’s too repulsive to watch for 150 minutes.

Nimble, off the beaten track and very entertaining, it’s the cinematic equivalent of a lava lamp.

Richard Brooks made a tougher and much better film about the tragedy of compulsive gambling in his 1985 film "Fever Pitch," and in 1949’s "The Lady Gambles," even Barbara Stanwyck made a more convincing fall from respectability into casino hell than Mark Wahlberg does here.

As vital as it is, racial strife is a subject that cries out for a more volatile treatment than this. The Alabama marching sequences and resulting violence, filmed in Selma, where they actually happened, are too understated for my taste. And the home life of King and his vacillating wife Coretta are muted.

Another war biopic opening on Christmas day, with tight, two-fisted direction by Clint Eastwood, and a compelling centerpiece performance by Bradley Cooper.

Put this one at the top of your must-see list. Angelina Jolie might not, in my opinion, have yet reached the heights of the acting profession, but with this passionate, inspired, technically awesome and profoundly exciting chronicle of the life of Louie Zamperini, she rises to the top rank of first-class film directors in a male-dominated field overcrowded with hacks.

The movie sinks without a trace.

Ms. Moore shares her journey with boundless generosity. She makes you feel what it’s like to lose the wind beneath your wings.

Described as a satire on Hollywood detective flicks, this bucket of swill is so amateurish and confused it doesn’t know what it is. It’s not a comedy, drama or anything in-between.

It’s one of the year’s most galvanizing cinematic experiences.

Mr. Christensen the director betrays Mr. Christensen the actor too many times to count, but it’s worth noting that his eclectic tastes in source music includes Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” Bizet’s “Habanera” from Carmen, and Billie Holiday.

Another must-see movie this year-end awards season (the other one is The Theory of Everything) is the brilliant encapsulation of one of the greatest stories of our time — the genius, heroism and ultimately shameful destruction of Alan Turing.

It’s obvious that something got lost in translation.

In the 2014 annals of throwaway flops, save a special place for 95 wasted minutes of drivel called Reach Me.

A grand, shocking saga of a movie, The Homesman is the kind they don’t make much anymore.

The movie, which has all the freshness and insight of a Movie of the Week on the Hallmark channel, is a first for the writer-director, which probably accounts for its lack of any definitive style or focus.

It’s an amalgam of dramatic all-American themes including ambition, paranoia, greed and the ice cubes in the blood that fuel the ruthless pursuit of success in the competitive world of sports. Color it hair-raising.

It’s sexy, violent and creepy, but damn if it didn’t keep me glued to my chair with tension.