Playing for Keeps (2012)

With a cast studded with stars, Playing for Keeps seems as if it might be some sort of Hollywood insider joke. Nothing could possibly be this bad — unless on purpose — so perhaps Robbie Fox’s script is a contemporary version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” disguised as an innocuous kids’ sports movie. Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) helmed this offensive hot mess and star Gerard Butler, to what should be his great shame, produced it. Read the full review here.

Hitchcock (2012)

With Hitchcock, Sacha Gervasi, the director of the popular 2008 documentary Anvil, offers a droll and stylistic fusion of fact and fiction. Adapted by John J. McLaughlin from Stephen Rebello's novel-length journalistic study "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho," the film, with a wink and a nod, uses the story behind the struggle to bring the controversial horror movie to the big screen to explore the great director's marriage to collaborator Alma Reville. Read the full review here.

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Writer/director Andrew Dominik’s third feature film is graphically violent and earnestly political. When this adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 Boston crime novel Cogan’s Trade is not turning your stomach or making you roll your eyes; however, it’s a smart, engaging commentary on crime during the recession. What saves Killing Them Softly is its storytelling. It rightly holds its dialog and the skilled performers delivering it in high regard. Read the full review here.

Anna Karenina (2012)

In this stagy adaptation of Leo Tolstoy Biography’s 1877 epic novel, Tom Stoppard, experienced playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter for Shakespeare in Love, skillfully trades plot points for stylized set pieces to put on display the artifice and dramaturgy of 19th century Russian society. Directed by Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement), the latest big-screen version of Anna Karenina focuses on spectacle, choreography and costume yet also offers transitory glimpses backstage. Read the full review here.

Lincoln (2012)

Instead of the epic biopic implied by the title and lengthy running time, Tony Kushner’s screenplay for Lincoln, inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, mercifully crops the endeavor to one sharp moment in the political career of the Great Emancipator. But leave it to schmaltz peddler Stephen Spielberg to direct the film into soft, hackneyed corners. Read the rest of the review on KCActive.com.

Flight (2012)

With an eye toward awards’ season, director Robert Zemeckis returns to live action with Flight, a technically ambitious film populated with an all-star cast. Although Zemeckis' realistic effects add a claustrophobic emotional intensity to the flight scene, screenwriter John Gatins fails to add dimension for the talented ensemble to fill out the rest of the film.

Read the rest of the review on KCActive.com.

Alex Cross (2012)

Charged with adapting James Patterson’s twelfth Alex Cross novel, "Cross," writers Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson have simplified plot, characters, and action, reducing the story to a mere caricature of psychological thriller. Director Rob Cohen ("The Fast and the Furious") adds his own peculiar fondness for violent burlesque to this mess. Alex Cross turns farcical in its failed attempt to be taken seriously.Read the full review on KCActive.com.

Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

If it’s already not too late, try to avoid any coverage of writer/director Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man that reveals the answer to the documentary’s mystery. Premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film — and its subject — has been receiving much-deserved critical and popular acclaim. However, Bendjelloul’s first effort, a must-see thrilling and bittersweet lesson in serendipity, is best served cold. Read the full review on KCActive.com.

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s (In Bruges) much anticipated return to movie theaters is a surprisingly meta adventure that risks it all by taking the piss out of its own subsistence. In a brilliant move that both honors and marks the end of an era dominated by pastiche artists Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, Seven Psychopaths is at once both the ultra gangster shootout movie and the anti-gangster shootout movie. Read the full review on KCActive.com.

Sinister (2012)

Director Scott Derrickson’s latest horror movie, which he co-wrote with C. Robert Cargil, is sufficiently moody and contains a buzz-worthy jump tailor made for the digital age, but Sinister stubbornly refuses to add up to anything. Despite flirting with the argument of meaningful work versus money-grubbing popularity, the film goes for the latter for its own trajectory. Read the full review on KCActive.com.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Adapted from his best-selling YA novel, writer/director Stephen Chbosky’s film version of The Perks of Being a Wallfower is deeply flawed. Yet, its blend of nostalgia, youthful energy, and earnestness to uncover traumatic secrets is somewhat irresistible. Read the full review on KCActive.com.

Looper (2012)

Director/writer Rian Johnson (Brick) doesn’t want to think too much about the technical details of time travel. Although his latest film, Looper, wholly depends on the device for both plot and character, Johnson dismisses any investigation into the logic of his construct as “drawing diagrams with straws." Consequently, where there should arise questions of free will and determinism are only dull, long-winded explanations provided by voiceover narration and snarky, hipster dialog thinly disguised as irony designed to put on the kibosh. By cheekily railing against the “show, don’t tell” edict of storytelling, Johnson may have done the metaphorical equivalent of shooting himself in the foot with his movie’s most ubiquitous object—the clumsy but powerful blunderbuss. Read the full review on About.com.