Action
Rod Lott
Premium Rush is the Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie from 2012 that didn't have him playing a Gotham City rookie, a time-traveling hit man or a POTUS' son. (Damn, was this kid busy!) It's the only one of those four that ended the year without any hint of Oscar buzz, yet I'd argue it's the most purely entertaining.

Drama
Rod Lott
Nearly every scene of the made-for-HBO Game Change, I recall from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's excellent nonfiction book of the same name. But the movie directed by Jay Roach (of the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents franchises) tells only half — maybe even just one-quarter — of the story, ignoring the 2008 presidential-campaign narratives of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for the one it finds most compelling: that of Sarah Palin and John McCain, and not the other way around.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Meryl Streep is in a rut — not the actress, who's arguably still atop her game in her fifth decade of screen stardom, but the character she plays in Hope Springs. Long married to frowny sad sack Arnold (Lincoln's Tommy Lee Jones, not exactly stretching), Kay feels more like a roommate than a wife. They don't even share a bedroom any more.

Horror
Rod Lott
Sick of creating innovative tricks only to see someone else take credit for it, inventor Don Gallico (Vincent Price) decides to try his hand at performing live magic as Gallico the Great, aka The Mad Magician.

Horror
Rod Lott
With Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters on the way to movie palaces less than three weeks from now, the inmates of The Asylum respond with a mockbuster of their own, simply titled Hansel & Gretel.

Thriller
Rod Lott
César (Luis Tosar, Miami Vice) works as a concierge at an apartment building in Barcelona. He handles the door, the mail, the plumbing. Although he enjoys an amiable rapport with many of the residents, he is thoroughly unhappy.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Spun off from the hit British TV series that recently was remade poorly for MTV, The Inbetweeners Movie follows the original show’s core quartet of socially awkward lads on vacation — er, sorry: “on holiday.”

Family
Rod Lott
Unlike Madonna, Dick Tracy has aged quite well. Although considered somewhat of a disappointment upon its summer of 1990 release, unfairly attached with Batman-level expectations, Warren Beatty's film actually is quite successful in achieving its goals, which is even more apparent now that it's made a long-overdue Blu-ray debut from Walt Disney Studios.

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
Like The Punisher, Judge Dredd serves as judge, jury and executioner, all rolled into one. Like The Punisher, Judge Dredd also received a cinematic reboot in an attempt to right precious filmmakers’ wrongs.

Sci-Fi
Phil Bacharach
Hooray for movies with ideas!

Documentary
Rod Lott
I was incorrect in thinking the documentary I Am Bruce Lee wouldn't reveal anything new about the screen's greatest martial artist. While not exactly earth-shattering, the facts I learned numbered many.

Action
Rod Lott
Fifth in the increasingly slick but decreasingly lucid franchise, Resident Evil: Retribution had potential to be the best entry since the 2002 original. After all, returning director Paul W.S. Anderson (The Three Musketeers) has positioned so many elements from the previous films that it seemed set up to play like a greatest-hits package. Instead, the result is baffling.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Given the stiff competition with Abe Lincoln, mental patients and paraplegic virgins, I'm not certain Richard Gere will earn his first Oscar nomination for Arbitrage, but I think he certainly deserves to. He's present for nearly every frame of the film, and captivates — something not readily said for his past performances.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Just six days into his residency, Dr. Martin Blake (Orlando Bloom, The Three Musketeers) already has his share of minor screw-ups: His handwriting is illegible, and he prescribed penicillin for a patient who was allergic to it.

Thriller
Rod Lott
When cast in the right role, which is rarely and does not include Magic Mike, Matthew McConaughey can be an electrifying onscreen presence. His breakthrough bit in 1993′s Dazed and Confused is one of those times; Killer Joe is another.