Comedy
Rod Lott
If there's one thing I love more than a good Sherlock Holmes movie, it's a vintage Alan Arkin performance, and 1976's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution provides both. Widely acclaimed upon its release, the film has become somewhat forgotten — here's hoping Shout! Factory's Blu-ray/DVD combo release will help reverse that.

Comedy
Rod Lott
I'm drafting a new Movie Rule: If a seemingly innocuous word in a title turns out to double as a character's name, whether used ironically or not, then buyer (or renter) beware. Case in point: The Trouble with Bliss and its questionably named protagonist of Morris Bliss.

Action
Rod Lott
Here's the first great Blu-ray surprise of 2013: Tai Chi Zero, a Hong Kong martial-arts spectacle that's inventive and invigorating.

Thriller
Rod Lott
From 1954, Suddenly is the lesser-known of Frank Sinatra’s two films centered on a presidential assassination. Cry “sacrilege” if you wish, but I actually prefer it to the later, more polished, highly revered The Manchurian Candidate. Yes, Suddenly is a B-noir treatment of the same theme, but the underdog proves ridiculously effective.

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.