Matt Fagerholm

CHICAGO – Sometimes it’s difficult to pinpoint the precise moment when one falls in love with a movie. Other times, it’s as effortless and intuitive as the day one stumbles upon a soul mate. That moment struck me like a bolt of lightning early on in Jeff Nichols’s “Mud,” the most richly satisfying and purely enjoyable moviegoing experience I’ve had thus far in 2013.

CHICAGO – Ruben Fleischer’s “Gangster Squad” is a steak devoid of juice. It has all the trappings of an effortlessly enjoyable genre exercise, but it doesn’t bring a single fresh idea to the table. It goes through the usual motions of a standard gangster picture while giving each overqualified member of its ensemble exactly one note to play. And they’re all exceedingly familiar notes, conveying a tune so familiar even Sam would refuse to play it again.

CHICAGO – A routinely diverting extra on Apatow home video releases is the “Line O’Rama” montage supplying alternate riffs for scenes included in the final cut. They’re entertaining because they display the various wild directions the scenes could’ve taken courtesy of inspired improvisation. Judd Apatow clearly understands comedy, and Marlon Wayans clearly does not.

CHICAGO – Rare is the film that explores love from a male perspective and doesn’t become overtly preoccupied with sex. Writer/director Jeff Nichols’s fabulously entertaining third feature, “Mud,” is a bittersweet ode to the broken heart, and how it can both hinder and bolster one’s evolution as an individual. The picture is romantic in every sense of the word.

CHICAGO – Two short stories conceived by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa were brilliantly fused in Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece, “Rashômon,” a picture destined to eternally rank alongside the all-time greatest films. Like “12 Angry Men,” it’s the sort of universally relevant morality play that can be adapted countless times and still retain its power in full.

CHICAGO – Deservedly renowned as one of our greatest living filmmakers, Terrence Malick has a reputation for taking his time with each project. He won’t make a picture unless he feels a burning desire to make it, and will put directing on the back burner for two decades, if necessary, in order to pursue other interests. He’s never made what could be conceivably considered a minor work—until now.

CHICAGO – “The Sorcerer and the White Snake” is a title that suggests the sort of tall tale that would entrance a crowd of scouts around a camp fire. It’s chockfull of fantastical creatures and action-packed setpieces, but its shoddy special effects cause it to fall short of pure enchantment. As for the story itself, it’s pure silliness.

CHICAGO – I’m always astonished when a filmmaker takes a fascinating figure immortalized in history and decides to explore one of the least interesting aspects of their life. “The Iron Lady” was so fixated on celebrating Margaret Thatcher’s gender that it ignored both her achievements and her controversies. “My Week with Marilyn” made the maddening decision to view its titular Hollywood icon through the perspective of a starry-eyed bore.

CHICAGO – It doesn’t sound like a particularly bad idea. In exploring the globe-trotting adventures of author Ernest Hemingway and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, why not use archival footage of the actual sights and sounds that they encountered, while nesting the actors into the frame, a la “Forrest Gump”? I didn’t think it was a bad idea at all until roughly three minutes into the movie.

CHICAGO – About ten minutes into “John Dies at the End,” a doorknob suddenly transforms into a large flaccid penis. It earns a laugh of sheer incredulity from an audience delighted by writer/director Don Coscarelli’s willingness to do literally anything for a laugh. Not since the ZAZ team tackled “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun” has a film been packed wall-to-wall with so many absurdist gags.