Albert Nobbs stars Glenn Close as a femme as male waiter/ servant at a Brit residential hotel in the late 19th century. Tootsie was a comedy. Albert Nobbs is a serious drama and both Close and co-star Janet Cater deserve Academy recognition for a pair of incredible performances. Cranky's movie review.

Under no circumstance are you to miss the first five minutes of The Gray, a classic dateflick of the Man is Manly and his date gets to grab his arm and bury her face in his shoulder when wolves attack half a dozen or so losers in the snow-covered Alaskan wilderness. We saw the film. We liked the film. We went home and had the equivalent of a stroke and didn't finish a full review. Go see Liam Neeson's great performance.

We mean it, suffer through the 20 minutes of trailers and commercials so you don't miss the first five minutes.

The aforementioned medical crap is why we missed Man on A Ledge, which stars Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks with Ed Harris, Edward Burns and Kyra Sedgewick

The Descendants stars George Clooney. His film family are descended from Hawaiian royalty and, as such, have a monster land inheritance that needs to be divided. Lawyer Clooney is the big man in that deal, though he is more concerned with two out of control girls that he must wrangle while his wife lies comatose in hospital. That sounds like a lot of story material but it isn't. Without Clooney, the film wouldn't have been made. Cranky's movie review

(and given the millions of PR bucks being spent on this thing, Clooney could get Oscar. Just saying...)

One For The Money stars Katherine Heigle and wasn't screened for the press . . . not that we could have seen it since our legs weren't working and all that stuff . . .

All we can say about Haywire is this . . . don't miss the first five minutes-- Cranky's error -- 'cuz after that director Steven Soderburgh delivers a nonstop actionflick that won't make a bit of sense if you miss the first five minutes. But the action is great.

Red Tails is a story of the Tuskegee Airmen, true heroes of WWII, segregated into a "negro only" outfit of Army Air Force pilots.

George Lucas produced. Good enough for us since we missed a screening due to medical crap aggravated by bad weather here in NY ... you don't want to know from spinal cord damage and disabilities, folks.

Underworld Awakening stars the lovely Kate Beckinsale who looks rockin' in that unitard thingie she's been wearing in all the Underworld movies, none of which have ever screened for us grunts in the press trenches. We managed wallpaper downloads here.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close introduces actor Thomas Horn the son of a 9/11 victim (Tom Hanks). Horn who steals the show from Hanks and co-star Sandra Bullock. That being said, this is NOT a 9/11 film. If we could have figured a way to review the film without giving it away, we would have. See it. Cranky's movie review

Coriolanus from actor/director Ralph Fiennes brings a little seen Shakespeare play into a modern setting. Fiennes stars as an acclaimed Roman general who runs afoul of politics and is thrown out of town. His response? Sack the territories and then the City of Rome itself ... but when push comes to shove, is the General little more than a mama's boy? If your mama was Vanessa Redgrave... well ... you know. Not the Shakespeare to start with

Joyful Noise stars Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah as characters battling for control of a church choir with aspirations of winning a competition naming it best in the land. Cranky, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, enjoyed the heck out of the movie. Readers in our audience of the Christian faith should have an even better time. Cranky's movie review

What will be Meryl Streep's Oscar winning performance recreating British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is in the film The Iron Lady. Streep wipes the floor of everyone save co-star Jim Broadbent, as Thatcher's beloved husband, Dennis. This is where Oscar™ will go. Cranky's movie review

Contraband stars Mark Wahlberg and Giovanni Ribisi ... the former as an ex-smuggler sucked back into the biz and the latter and a tattooed up the wazoo criminal nastyman. This intense popcorn flick has a story that is a wee bit complicated and gets a shade too violent for old fart Cranky ... OTT it's a worthy sit. (about $7 on our scale).

My Week With Marilyn stars Michelle Williams as the movie star Marilyn Monroe, looking for acting respectability by making a movie with Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). Olivier seeks movie fame by teaming with Monroe. In the middle is a go-fer who spends most of the movie making friends with Monroe. It's a one note film, built to win Williams award nominations. Pass it by.

We Need to Talk About Kevin stars Tilda Swinton with John C Reilly as parents of a really evil, murderous kidlet. At first we think he's autistic. Then he pits parent against parent. As a teen his anger verges on murderous. It's a really unpleasant film to sit through, designed to get Swinton some Oscar attention (which is what happens this time of the year). For you cash paying ticket buyers, though, the film is patently unwatchable for any adult. Pass it by

Hugo from director Martin Scorsese pits an orphaned boy living in a Paris train terminal against a security cop determined to send the boy to an orphanage. There's also a robot, a girl, a key and a knock your socks off twist (g a long forgotten bit of film history) in a film that works for adults, for kids, and for adults lugging kids. One of the best of the year. Cranky's movie review and wallpapers here

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy stars Gary Oldman as an ex-Brit spy brought back into the agency to root out a Soviet mole. John le Carré's novel was a hit. This film adaptation is so tedious other critics were walking out of the screening room. We were so bored we wanted to join them. Cranky's movie review

A nutcase called Moriarty tries to set France against Germany, and plunge the whole world into war in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows returns Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law to the roles of the World's Greatest Detective and sidekick Dr. Watson. As much as we hated the first edition, we greatly enjoyed Holmes the Second, which brings arch-villain Moriarty (Jared Harris) into play. Cranky's movie review and wallpaper downloads

Beauty and the Beast is reissued in 3D. It isn't much of a stretch to know that anyone of parental age already knows the film and will bringing the kidlets. We've reissued the wallpapers from the 2002 release PLUS a new batch of wallpaper images Disney has supplied for this anniversary event. Click here

We Bought A Zoo stars Matt Damon and Scarlett Johannson. A true story in which a widower buys the remains of a zoo and puts it back together again to make his daughter happy. Parents with preteen girls should bring them (and their friends) here ... before settling in to the theater's back row

The Adventures of Tintin stars Jamie Bell. The worldwide kiddie phenomenon comes via Steven Spielberg and a script that assumes the audience knows all it needs to know walking in. Big mistake. If you've got a kidlet t explain what is going on, bring 'em. OTT, pass. Cranky's movie review

The Artist, a silent film (!) is, so far, the flat out best of the year. Seriously. We speak from the fully grown adult POV. Some may wonder why John Goodman's mouth moves yet nothing comes out. You want details about a silent star facing the end of his career when talkies take over, read Cranky's movie review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo stars Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. Once you get past the graphically brutal rape that kicks off the story you still won't have the slightest idea what is going on. Absolutely, totally incomprehensible.

A nutcase whose name we never caught tries to plunge the world into thermonuclear war in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol stars Tom Cruise, who carries it all. Honestly? The script is terrible. The music is terrible. But, all put together, the fourth MI is still a great popcorn movie. And no one cares what a reviewer has to say about it (which is, eh, it's a good sit <g>). Cranky's movie review
and wallpaper downloads

The Muppets stars Jason Segal and Amy Adams. New actors are the voices coming out of the felt. Old, bad, jokes still emanate from Fozzie Bear. And in Los Angeles, an evil villain (Chris Cooper) plans to tear down the old Muppets Theater -- there's oil underneath -- unless the gang can pull together and stage one last show . . . a telethon to raise $10 millions to save the day. Delightful. Cranky's movie review and wallpapers here

Cook County stars Xander Berkeley, Anson Mount and Ryan Donowho, Makeena Fitzsimmons. On every level -- writing, directing, acting -- this is one of the year's best. Its subjects, meth addiction and child abuse/ trafficking, will make you want to run the heck out of the theater. Stay far, far away. Cranky's movie review

Two kids have a fight in a park and their parents -- one pair rich, one not so --meet to discuss the matter "as adults" (Meaning: WWIII is coming) in Roman Polanski's Carnage starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly. Despite the screaming and the yelling and the insults, the film is a very adult comedy. Not the Adam Sandler kind. Cranky's movie review

Young Adult stars Charlize Theron as a writer of novels for teen girls; though adult she never outgrew high school. She returns to her home town to reclaim her old boyfriend, now married with child. Theron is good but the stand-out Patton Oswalt in a role described in Cranky's movie review

Girls get doggies. Boys get horsies. Steven Spielberg delivers the latter but makes the big mistake of stuffing the story with lots of dead bodies and random slaughter as seen in the battles of what was once called The Great War (WWI). Is Spielberg's War Horse is a family movie? Not one that I'd bring my nine year old to.