I was reviewing a new Steven Soderbergh film not four months ago, and will be doing so in not five months. Such is the pace at which he hammers out films. No hard feelings. The man’s a maniac, and American cinema is all the better for it. His new film, the chase thriller “Haywire”, is an exercise in how much excitement restraint can yield. It stars, in her cinematic debut, the former MME wrestler Gina Carano.

Her character, Mallory Kane, is a freelance government soldier. After a successful Barcelona operation, she’s quickly re-deployed to Dublin, and here things get a bit shaky. She’s double-crossed and sets off on a mission to see who spited her. Her options are not slim: “Haywire”s amazing supporting cast of men include Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, and sporting a magnificent beard, Antonio Banderas. They’re all given quite a bit to do in the film’s slim 93-minute running time, an impressive accomplishment. Carano herself never wavers in her unwavering, magnetic intensity, hinting through Bill Paxton’s father figure at a softer, sweeter side that we never (nor should ever) see.

“Haywire” isn’t so much a story to be told, but rather, a sort of style and vibe to be evoked. There’s a cohesive, interesting plot in play here, but its clearly not Soderbergh’s primary intent. “Haywire” is really about lining up a group of insanely talented men and having a unique physical presence beat her way through all of them.

And what beatings! “Haywire” strips action to its bare-knuckled roots: people with their fists, beating each other furiously. Soderbergh’s approach is just as vintage-minded, with steady camerawork, continuous shots, and no music or sound providing a welcome alternative to the Adderall-infused action-sequence standard we’ve come to expect. And when the score does kick in, DJ David Holmes’ pulsing rhythms are just as coolly fitting as his excellent work with Soderbergh’s “Oceans” trilogy.

Soderbergh’s technical finesse remains entirely evident, as his tendency to personally take up the duties of editing and cinematography results in an intriguingly toned visual style. “Haywire” climaxes in a showdown on a beach, and here all of the film’s strengths come together deftly: interesting technical techniques, restrained style, and just a good old-fashioned ass-beating. “Haywire” is blockbuster entertainment imagined as methodical minimalism; the result goes down smooth as butter with a kick like spice, or better yet, from its main character. B

Standing with her husband, Margaret Thatcher -- the first woman Prime Minister of England and the "Iron Lady" of the film.

Seemingly every year, audiences and critics rally around the new Meryl Streep film, chanting up and down the block that her work is mesmerizing and demands to be seen. They are always right.

Whether the actual narrative built around and within Streep is compelling, remains more of a mixed bag. Her latest work vying for a potential Oscar nomination – if all goes kosher, her 17th – is “The Iron Lady”.

Chronicling Margaret Thatcher’s rise from timid, insecure school-girl to conservative, authoritative Prime Minister of the U.K., “The Iron Lady” aims to encapsulate the soul of one of the 20th century’s biggest figures. What is its plan to go about doing this?

Well, director Phyllida Lloyd of “Mamma Mia!” seems to believe that having Streep bellow non-stop political monologues is the way to go. Lloyd rarely possesses the confidence to slow things down to simply allow the characters play off one another, instead depending on monologues and rapid-fire political montages to try and sculpt a plot. And when she does, its a series of repetitive conversations between Thatcher and her long-dead husband (via grating hallucinations).

“The Iron Lady”s low budget, cited by Streep jokingly in a recent awards-acceptance speech, comes across really strongly in every aspect of the film, from the rushed Thomas Newman score, to the sets, reminiscent of a TV movie, to the awkward, clumsy lighting. Were it not for Streep, this would be on Lifetime.

“The Iron Lady”, in theory, should have been a dynamic exploration of what makes a great world leader tick. We emerge from the film, however, not caring so much about its main character, but how good the make-up looked on Meryl Streep. “The Iron Lady” reduces one of the 20th-century’s most dynamic figures into an accent, prosthetic teeth, and red lipstick. An amazing feat of shallow reductiveness, that in having nothing to say, in turn, leaves me with very little to say. D

Eva and Kevin make up a doomed family in "We Need To Talk About Kevin".

“We Need To Talk About Kevin” is a film of unrelenting terror and discomfort; one that left me physically trembling by the conclusion at the events I had just witnessed. Reactions like this are what I live for. “Kevin” shook me to the core, with its tightly-constructed, dream-like style constantly suggesting horror just beneath the surface.

“Kevin” is told as a non-linear series of memories, framed as a mystery in reverse. We open with Tilda Swinton as Eva, a woman who has very clearly been rocked by a tragedy. Pills lay about in her run-down one-room home, and neighbors are hostile towards her. This begs the question — what happened?

“Kevin” bounces back and forth between Eva’s present memories and ones of her past — moments of utter joy with her boyfriend Franklin in Italy, starting a family with him, and watching their first child Kevin grow into a calculated force of terror and unpredictability.

Franklin’s refusal to see Kevin for what he is will ultimately destroy this family. And as the film barrels toward Kevin’s 16th birthday, we see the worst in him, humanity at large, and ourselves.

“We Need To Talk About Kevin” is an absolute masterpiece, from top to bottom, beginning to end. Every aspect of the film both stands on its own, and is a vital component to the film’s overall nightmarish tone.

Director Lynne Ramsay has an impeccable technical grasp. The film itself is constructed like a nightmare, with the editing fluidly jumping 20 years, the red-hues providing a constant reminder of the blood on these people’s hands, and the shaky camerawork throwing your balance for a loop while remaining totally visually coherent.

Jonny Greenwood’s score provides much of the film’s power. The lead guitarist of my favorite band, Radiohead, Greenwood’s scores often stray from guitar towards more ambient, subtle compositions. I’m not complaining. This music is terrifying.

“Kevin” wields a counter-duo of Oscar-worthy performances from Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller as mother and son. The interactions between these two will break your heart; Swinton’s devastation playing off of Miller’s steely insensitivity to great effect.

The really troubling thing about “Kevin”, to me, is the ambiguity as to who is responsible for the actions of the title character. Is Kevin just a self-propagated force of malice and evil? Or is he simply the sum of the actions of his mother, whose lack of support in his early years may have ruined him? Who is the victim? Who is the villain? And why is “We Need To Talk About Kevin”, a film I wouldn’t even classify as horror, probably the most unnerving English film since Kubrick’s “The Shining”? Here’s why — because it has the  tightest grasp on film’s power to shock, wound, and feel. A

Woody Harrelson in one of his many morally twisted misadventures in "RAMPART".

For the second time in three years actor Woody Harrelson collaborates with fresh directorial talent Oren Moverman, tackling. However, unlike their first team-up, 2009’s “The Messenger”, “Rampart” isn’t an emotionally organic narrative so much as it is a series of sketches illustrating how corrupt and deranged its protagonist is.

“Rampart” has been advertised as wielding the “most corrupt cop you’ve ever seen”. False. Nicolas Cage’s nutty junkie of a badge in 2009’s “Bad Lieutenant” remake, one of my favorites of the last decade, dug a little deeper and made me laugh a lot harder.

Not to discredit Woody Harrelson’s work as seedy Los Angeles cop Dave Brown — Harrelson chomps Moverman’s script to bits and spits it out with plentiful venom and cigarette smoke. It almost makes me guilty to enjoy so thoroughly a violent, drunken sex-addict of a man, but Harrelson’s tongue is planted partially in-cheek at all times. Harrelson is having a blast, even if it clearly comes at the expense of the characters surrounding him.

He is the energy, delirium and insanity of “Rampart”. But even he can’t supply it with a dosage of humanity. Harrelson’s rampage through Los Angeles streets and courtrooms loses its novelty at around the 45 minute mark and the end result is a film more repetitive than truly involving.

Moverman surrounds Dave Brown with a competent group to mess with — Sigourney Weaver pops her head in as a grizzled department-chief, Robin Wright plays one of Dave’s many sexual endeavors, Ben Foster as a homeless addict in an amusing “Messenger” reunion, and Ice Cube as a private investigator driven to bring Dave down. They all deliver very solid work, and the fact that Ice Cube has gone from rapping songs like “F–k Tha Police” to a mild-mannered movie career will always amuse me.

“Rampart” is a film whose main thesis seems to be, ‘Hey guys, this is a really bad man.’. We understand that from the second he comes on-screen. The film’s remainder serves as more of an exclamation-point to that thesis, rather than validly exploring it. C

Jean Dujardin and Berenico Bejo, paying their respects to an adoring audience in "THE ARTIST".

If 2011′s films have had one recurring theme, it would be nostalgia. Whether it’s a cautious disapproval a la Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” or a full-on, golly-gee embrace of it like J.J Abrams’ “Super 8″ or “War Horse”, seeing interpretations of interpretations of the past has been a really fascinating ride.

But the final word on the topic comes from Michel Hazanivicus’ “The Artist” — a black-and-white silent film. Its charms, of which there are many, include cute dogs, tap-dance numbers and evocative mugging. It goes without saying “The Artist” is a film unlike most of what you’ll see this year, but it proves a much bolder point — by reaching to devices of the past, in terms of both technology and storytelling, it creates an entertainment as fresh and vital as most “modern”-minded products of the year.

Jean Dujardin channels a mixture of Clark Gable and Buster Keaton in his depiction of silent movie-star George Valentin. Valentin is the toast of Hollywood in 1927 — right on the brink of both the Great Depression and film’s transition into films with sound. This combination proves disastrous for Valentin’s career; a parallel storyline detailing the rise of young Peppy Miller as the advent of “talkies” puts her on top of the town.

Peppy and George’s relationship is certainly the emotional center of the film, although interestingly enough it never travels down the romantic route one would expect. I cannot stress the sheer chemistry actors Jean Dujardin and Berenico Bejo strike together here. What is required of them is an exaggerated sense of emotion — they are robbed of the ability to speak, and so their faces must express twice as much and charm the audience twice as much. What’s wondrous is how Dujardin and Bejo make it seem so effortless.

And to be sure, although thoroughly charming, when the film’s more tragic moments kick in the two are more than up to the challenge, Dujardin in particular demonstrating great flexibility as an actor and emoter. The utterly adorable, fast-paced tap-dance scenes that these two share are just the cherry on top.

Ludovic Bource’s score, which is employed in nearly every scene, is both evocative of the actual music used in silent cinema, and a really catchy, bouncy piece of work. From a technical perspective, every frame of this film is an impeccable replication of the era, be it the tight close-ups, kitschy transitions, German Expressionist-influenced lighting, or even things as simple as hair-dos and clothing. “The Artist” nails it.

Don’t let me make this sound stuffy and high-minded to you — quite the opposite. Hazanivicus only employs these techniques to ensure its the most faithful recreation possible — in essence, making “The Artist” as giddy and as pure a pleasure as possible. Man, what a fun ride.

Where Hazanivicus stumbles, perhaps the only area, is the film’s pacing around the middle third. As the character George Valentin falls into a sluggish period emotionally and economically, the scenes become a little droll and repetitive. One remains hooked on the storytelling and the character’s arc, but a bit more variation could have gone a long way.

I do concede it took multiple viewings for me to fully grow to this film. I placed too much emphasis on the story, which, while important, is not really what it’s all about. “The Artist” is really about capturing a feeling, a vibe, an essence in a bottle for 100 minutes. In an interview, the writer-director stated the film taught him how complex it was to bring a bit of simplicity to the screen. Be glad he did, for the “less is more” approach resulted in a wonderful piece of entertainment. A-

The gang of "ADVENTURES OF TINTIN" on one of their high-speed chases.

The "WAR HORSE" and his master amidst the sweeping English countryside.

Never in a million years would I think that I’d be able to see not one, but two new films from my favorite director. But Steven Spielberg, in all his (infinite) glory, was kind enough to drop us two new works this holiday season. Together they compose a fascinating portrait of one artist’s many faces: “The Adventures of Tintin” is a high-tech, fast-paced doozy of an adventure, and ”War Horse” a classically styled evocation of John Ford-esque grandeur with absolutely one goal — moving you to tears.

These films couldn’t be any more different from one another, but feel like no other master could have produced them. That’s Spielberg for you, a man of both one face and many styles.

Spielberg’s last film, the fourth “Indiana Jones” installment, was savaged by both critics and audiences alike. I firmly stand by my initially positive critique, and he seems to be channeling that character’s pulpy, adventurous spirit into “The Adventures of Tintin”. It’s a collaboration with some of the biggest figures in geek culture — “Doctor Who” writer Steven Moffat and “Scott Pilgrim” helmer Edgar Wright hammered out the script, and Peter Jackson of “Lord of the Rings” served as producer.

“Tintin” is a sugar-rush of a film almost to a fault — this is a movie with no patience for nuance or silence. I suppose that’s a side-effect of the film’s three leads being a drunken sailor, a teenage journalist (!!!), and a giddy Wire Fox Terrier. Spielberg has gone to great lengths to ensure that “Tintin” is essentially one massive set-piece — with threats ranging from flooding cities, crashing planes and nefarious eagles. It’s all in good fun, and perhaps one of “Tintin”s greater flaws is that the characters never seem to be in any palpable danger.

The actors are all quite solid here — Daniel Craig, playing against type as a crinkly villain, is appropriately menacing, although he never comes off as more than a motivated grouch. Jamie Bell captures all of the zest and wonder of the Tintin character quite nicely, and Andy Serkis in his second great computer-assisted performance of the year, is a wonder. His Captain Haddock is one of the most memorable characters of the year; a manic, stumbling drunk with a heart of gold. The film never veers into the darker side of his drinking and mainly uses it to comedic effect, but all in good taste.

I suppose this would be an appropriate time to mention that “Tintin” is an animated motion-capture film, meaning the characters are played by actual actors yet their environments are entirely computer-generated. “Tintin” is a leap forward for the medium, building off the foundation of works like “Beowulf” and “The Polar Express” to fulfill motion-capture’s true promise — convincing, recognizably human characters, captured amidst spectacularly gorgeous scenery. Disposable entertainment is rarely this memorable.

On the flip-side of the Spielberg coin this week is “War Horse”, and Spielberg’s aspirations are clearly a bit higher –or lower, depending on your respect for the institution of the Academy Awards. Few people have as tight a grasp on aesthetic as Spielberg, and he makes damn sure you know it — be it with John Williams’ sweeping music, whose strings alone can manipulate one to tears, or his camerawork, calling instantly to mind melodramas from the ’40s and ’50s. The fact that “Love Actually”‘s Richard Curtis penned the script should give one a good enough idea of the sap and sentimentality on display here.

But the motivation of the sappiness is not manipulation — it’s simply an earnestness to tell a story, stir emotion, and rouse at the conclusion. “War Horse” walks a tight-line and succeeded quite wildly with me.

“War Horse”s title is as self-explanatory as it gets, but also has a stinging irony about it. Albert is a young farmboy in 1910s’ England, who develops a connection with a horse from his first day of life. The film chronicles the life of the horse, nicknamed Joey, as World War I strikes and he passes through owners of all walks of life. Joey is in fact a “war horse”, but that’s because humans made him that way– against his will, against his nature. In this way Spielberg suggests neither side of the war is exempt from moral depravity, a fairly sobering truth amidst all the sweep and the sap.

The film takes on an almost episodic nature, moving from the horse’s tenure at young Albert’s farm, to his stints with both sides of the war, to the way in which he inspires a young, sickly French girl and her grandfather.

“War Horse” is an unabashed epic. In anything from its epic battle sequences to the character-driven moments of triumph, Spielberg is swinging for the rafters here with his scope and our emotions. His camera trails the events with an eye for both intensity and wonder. This film doesn’t have anything particularly new or original to say — the “war is hell, nature is sacred” subtext is recycled and pandering. But originality is not the key here — it’s the skill with which the themes and emotions have been adapted.   Tintin: B+, War Horse, A-

Kirsten Dunst as a bride-to-be whose state of mind is the center of "MELANCHOLIA".

In the eyes of the press, Lars von Trier is a misogynist, Nazi-sympathetic lunatic. In my eyes, he’s one of the most inventive, profoundly moving directors we have today. When premiering his latest film at Cannes, he started a joking tangent of “offensive remarks”. His intent was to screw with the press. In return, the press has screwed him over, to an extent overshadowing the film he was there to promote in the first place. And man, is it a beauty.

The title is “Melancholia”, referring to both the gloomy state of mind of the lead character, Kirsten Dunst’s Justine, and the red planet that is slowly but surely hurtling towards Earth. While everyone else is frantically running about, providing scientific “proof” that the two will not come into contact, Justine serenely sits, waits. Knows.

She’s not incorrect in her assumption either — “Melancholia”s very first scene is the ultra-slow-motion destruction of the Earth, a sequence set to Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” prelude that mesmerizes and shocks. von Trier has always had an utter grip on visual style and form, but here he manages to make the very destruction of our world a poem, playing to the senses and the mind.

After this sequence, von Trier rolls it back a few months to Justine’s wedding — here we meet her dysfunctional family. Here we meet her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg in her second von Trier, and first without clitoral mutilation), Claire’s husband, a very convenient astrologist (Kiefer Sutherland, playing well outside his “24” origins), their charming drunkard of a father (John Hurt), and Justine’s slime-ball of a boss. (Stellan Skarsgard, who else?)

Here is a charming little mini-movie in which things fall apart rather quickly. Justine experiences a wave of sudden, paralyzing depression. Watching the looks on her groom-to-be (Alexander Skarsgard of “True Blood”) slowly become less and less hopeful is heartbreaking. Justine’s are even harder to watch. The film here enters a second segment, more centered on Claire’s home-life and her grappling with the forthcoming end of the world.

“Melancholia” is an immensely personal statement for von Trier, whose crippling depression has well-publicized over the years. von Trier here offers a full-fledged exploration of it, both as a force that can destroy and build, immobilize and empower.

All of this is done with an equal emphasis on character and visual. Both are important to the message being conveyed, but von Trier’s true accomplishments lie in his techniques, in his form. In what other film would an Oscar-worthy performance go almost entirely overlooked in my praises? And although Kirsten Dunst may not go home with even the nomination she deserves for her work here, it still marks a wonderful revitalization in talents and form in, ironically, a performance embodying depression.

“Melancholia” is a film both sluggish and brief, natural and fantastical, heartbreaking and magical. Lars von Trier has, through his career, has excelled in finding universal truths through focused portraits. Here, von Trier has expanded his ambitions to the stars, and the result is less a film than it is a dream. The only bad part is waking up. A