Drama
Rod Lott
In a short career largely dominated with genre films — from Final Destination 3 to this past summer’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — Mary Elizabeth Winstead always has exuded a certain something. But nothing that ever suggested the level of performance she delivers in Smashed.

Thriller
Rod Lott
And just like that, director Frédéric Jardin leaps onto my ongoing radar for his work on Sleepless Night, a powerhouse French-language thriller. The crime film begins with action and rarely lets up during its 98-minute sprint.

Drama
Rod Lott
It’s curious that the Internet Movie Database (among other sources) has classified The Loneliest Planet as a “thriller,” since the film forgoes not just all that genre’s trappings, but narrative altogether.

Horror
Rod Lott
Hey, kids! Remember the hysteria surrounding Y2K? Ahhh, so quaint ...

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
When I first saw Holy Motors, it was in a way that would make director Leos Carax cry, “Mon dieu!”: on a small window on my computer screen. That’s hardly the proper showcase for a film that set Cannes all abuzz, especially for courting year-end votes from critics’ groups.

Thriller
Rod Lott
File Compliance under “stranger than fiction.” Although not a documentary, it is based on a true story, and one so utterly outrageous that many will refuse to believe it anyway.

Drama
Rod Lott
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is my least favorite of the director’s half-dozen films. That said, he has yet to make a bad one.

Thriller
Phil Bacharach
Generating suspense from a story that is a matter of historical record is no easy thing. That was the primary challenge facing Ben Affleck and Chris Terrio, the director-star and writer, respectively, of Argo, a thriller inspired by a real-life covert operation that helped rescue six U.S. embassy workers out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.

Horror
Rod Lott
What’s an Academy Award-winning director like Barry Levinson doing in a found-footage horror movie like The Bay? Trying to revive a Rain Man career, I’d assume, following 15 years of flops like Envy, Bandits and Man of the Year. Here's another.

Television series
Rod Lott
On the basis of Eastbound & Down’s first two seasons, if Kenny Powers were a real person, I’d advise readers to lock up their daughters. After watching the third season, I’d add infants and toddlers to that list.

Horror
Rod Lott
Although horror movies rarely scare me, I love them. The most I can hope for is to be creeped out sufficiently, and Sinister satisfies that bill.

Documentary
Rod Lott
Although now I can’t remember the publication, I recall reading an article about con artist Frédéric Bourdin and thinking, “This would make a really good documentary.” A few years later, The Imposter is that documentary.

Comedy
Rod Lott
It’s kind of amazing how far $5,000 can get filmmakers these days, especially when Dustin Mills is in charge of the cash. Having helmed the inventive Puppet Monster Massacre and, less effectively, Zombie A-Hole, he now sets his deranged sights on designer drugs in Bath Salt Zombies. As one could surmise, it, too, sits squarely in the DIY horror-comedy realm.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Now that I’ve devoured Warner Archive’s The Great Gildersleeve Movie Collection, I know who my mom was referring to all those years. It’s irrelevant for your enjoyment of the set, but Harold Peary’s Gildersleeve character proved so popular on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio program, he was spun off into his own show (and eventually TV and these films).

Comedy
Rod Lott
Seven's not a lucky number in the case of Seven Psychopaths, writer/director Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated In Bruges. In fact, the math is all wrong, as I kept waiting for its disparate elements to add up. Unfortunately, it never did.