How wonderful to see a movie that deals with the emotional and sexual life of two very different women north of 60, who are the sum of their lives, not bound by cultural cliches or perceptions.

It’s an unoriginal, budget-conscious and hardly brain-taxing race against time. But that doesn’t negate its entertainment value or its often heart-pounding pace.

Looking past its nostalgia and unhappy ending, More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story is kind of a time capsule of an era of North American showbiz, and the compromises and struggles that faced people because of their faces.

It’s a heartfelt film that seems to be aimed at the strength of familiar love in spite of difficulties. The elements are all there, but the film’s repetitive structures render it frustratingly flat.

Rams is a film that goes its own way, settling like a cozy sweater made from beautiful sheep.

As flat and uncompelling as its title, Jiu Jitsu plays like a hybrid of rejected audition tapes from Predator with the outtakes from the fifth Highlander movie (and not the ones starring Christopher Lambert). But just how bad is Jiu Jitsu? Well, bad enough that the phrase “a waste of Nicolas Cage's talents” actually means something.

A stately 20th Century period piece in the style of the best British dramas, The Dig is just what the anglophiles ordered.

The parts of The Little Things that are good aren’t original, and the parts that are original aren’t good.

At under 90 minutes, Make Up doesn’t include much action but the skin-crawling effect of the film reverberates until after the credits roll. The entire technical package — the menacing visuals, the rumbling soundscape, the brief disorienting sequences of flashbacks and dreams — are anchored in naturalistic, understated performances.

Despite the relationship he had with the Enaches, Ciorniciuc sticks to his roots as an investigative journalist and makes no judgements. He avoids giving easy answers.

There’s nothing new in noting that crime and dirty politics are fast tracks to success. (“Is it the same in your country?” Balram asks the viewer). What’s more interesting here is how The White Tiger explores the paradoxes of the master-servant dynamic. Singer-actor Gourav is marvelous in capturing the duality.

With winks at the cheesiness of a previous generation’s entertainment and a razzberry directed at contemporary blockbusters with a thousand times its minuscule budget, Psycho Goreman is an entertaining exercise in low-tech sci-fi camp.

Beautifully shot and terribly sad, with a wildly twitchy score ratcheting up the tension, the Mexican drama Identifying Features is a profound statement about maternal love, brutal inequality, and institutional corruption.

The whole package — written by Sarah Henderson and directed by her husband Curtis Vowell — has a casual, episodic vibe, mixing sardonic banter and broad physical comedy.

To be sure, Climate of the Hunter is an oddball outing, a melodrama disguised as a horror-thriller with not much horror and not many thrills. And if, by the end of the final act, you're shaking your head, mumbling, "Wait…what?" you won't be alone.

Its warm-heartedness, positivity, and consistently striking visuals are a pleasant counter to ugly January days and nights, and a reminder that a compelling story well told is… wait for it… a can’t-miss recipe for success.

One Night in Miami is a powerful imagining of one of the most intriguing private gatherings in contemporary history. And though we are merely a fly-on-the-wall, eavesdropping on a conversation that is likely far more electrifying than the actual discussion, it's still a remarkable experience.

The result is a film that is presented as a kind of a fable, and a microcosm of a country whose fortunes once depended on oil.

Effectively the Ripley of this flight, Moretz makes a good case – again - for her ability to work an action film. Shadow in the Cloud is a fun ride through enemy territory, both human and demonic, and Moretz wields her weaponry with aplomb.

What holds all this, mostly, together to the presence of Mulligan (An Education, Shame) and her own ambiguous performance.

Although The Dissident is, arguably, unnecessarily juiced-up with the editing and scoring of a Hollywood thriller, the excesses are balanced by the procedural rigour worthy of a crack prosecutor.

The Reason I Jump is a remarkable documentary not because of what it includes but because of what it avoids.

The Prom, as it progresses from camp to earnest messaging, is like a sermon you believe, but still find too preachy.

Mikkelsen’s affecting performance is backed by an exceptional ensemble cast, who bring to life the fears and emotional scars that come with age, and the part alcohol can play in it, for better or worse.

Viola Davis is an actor apparently incapable of a false note. She’s a force of nature, playing a force of nature. She is perfection. And even though Ma is the center of the story, Boseman’s Levee goes through the most changes through the film, and covers the most emotional territory. It is a masterful and powerful performance - a beautiful take on a difficult and tragic character.

Both the Arctic survival story and the spaceship drama are derivative, and while action sequences are well done in isolation, they never develop a convincing momentum.

Oh, but they’re a quirky lot, so they are, in Wild Mountain Thyme, which arrives December 22 stuffed with blarney, Irish clichés, and a head-scratcher of a plot about an odd yet spectacularly attractive pair who just can’t seem to get their romantic act together.

Hanks and young German actress Helena Zengel (Shock System) play off each other faultlessly, with minimal dialogue, relying on gaze, gesture, and tone and we can easily understand how the twice-orphaned Johanna can look into Kidd’s warm, melancholy gaze and recognize a fellow misfit and survivor, accepting him as her protector.