In the Christian niche market, “more of the same” from directors and producers generally results in an audience (and pastoral) response that looks more like “Well, I think I’ll take a pass this time.” That’s because, for the most part, the product in question is substandard in one or more ways and has been marketed in a bait-and-switch fashion that packages cut-rate entertainment as the next great evangelistic tool. Think of the Left Behind series (now on the verge of being rebooted… whoo-hoo!), The Nativity Story, or even Rocky Balboa. Yup. There are only so many times you can sell the same pig. Well, Courageous bucks that trend entirely.

Any thriller worth its salt will continue to up the stakes for its protagonist, thus increasing the level of tension. Contraband, the new smuggling thriller starring Mark Wahlberg, does just that. That is, it continually ups the stakes for its protagonist. Unfortunately, the level of tension does not increase along with the stakes as it should. This leaves Contraband to be rather dull—with the exception of one legitimately tense sequence near the end—despite all the crazy stuff going on with the plot.

Even though Joffe overreached himself here, and made it nearly impossible to patch together a coherent cut of the film, what Joffe was aiming for was so much more worthwhile than films like Avatar, The Dark Knight, or Inglourious Basterds—to name just a few. And while those films are ultimately far more finely crafted (and, uh, successful) than Dragons, ultimately empty, self-referential, pseudo-profound popcorn flicks like those don’t hold a candle in my book to less successful films that are about ideas that really matter. Joffe tells this story in a way that just might—just might, mind you—radicalize your faith just a little. So I’ll still recommend the film… but also recommend you skip the deleted scenes!

In 2006, the Mee family purchased the closed down Dartmoor Zoological Park in England, refurbished it, and reopened the zoo to the public in July 2007. It is a very nice story that has already inspired a four-part television documentary, and Benjamin Mee, a former journalist, wrote a book about how the experience changed their lives. Now, their story has inspired Cameron Crowe to return to the director’s chair for the first time since 2005’s Elizabethtown. The resulting film also makes for a nice story; nothing more, nothing less.

When he made Schindler’s List in 1993, Steven Spielberg was praised for having “grown up” as a filmmaker. As good as that movie was, the famed director is still at his best when he lets that kid inside of him come out to play. This winter is a perfect example of that as it sees releases from both the grown up Spielberg and the boy-who-wouldn’t-grow-up Spielberg, and The Adventures of Tintin certainly scores a win for the latter.

I was dead right that it would be difficult even for hard-nosed, jaded reviewers to pan this film. The critics’ score at Rotten Tomatoes stands at 83% fresh… two points higher than the audience score of 81% fresh, a rarity. Not bad for a film that amounts, at a certain level, to an animal version of an illness-of-the-week TV movie. The story succeeds, however, in part because the dolphin Winter actually exists, actually did lose her tail to a crab trap, actually did survive, actually does inspire disabled children and vets in her home at a Clearwater aquarium, and even stars in her own biopic. It also succeeds because Smith and company craft a sensitive, believable, and affecting fiction of childhood loss regained around Winter’s truly tall tale.

Director Jason Reitman has directed only three feature films to date, but all three have been critically acclaimed with the last two, Juno and Up in the Air, earning Oscar nominations for best picture. It’s reasonable, then, to expect that his latest movie, Young Adult, would be earning some early award buzz, especially considering that it reunites the director with Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody. The movie has garnered some attention for a couple of its actors, but it seems that as more and more people see the movie, the further it falls off the award radar… with good reason.

For all of its eye-popping visual effects and how much the trailer makes it look like it is trying to follow in the footsteps of the Bourne trilogy, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is actually a throwback of an action movie. It’s a throwback to the days when action heroes would get beat up for an entire movie and show not a single bruise or scratch (although hero Ethan Hunt does feature an ever-increasing limp throughout the movie) and it’s a throwback to the days when the hero would always send off the villain with a cheesy one-liner. In fact, this movie even starts off with one as the opening credits scroll following Ethan’s instructions to “light the fuse.”

Like most contemporary filmmakers schooled in the Steven Spielberg Formula for Succcess, The Help director Taylor Tate knows that “show them, don’t tell them” can be distilled down into efficient single shots that convey as much as a page or two of dialog. So, for instance, when we are first introduced to Aibileen at the Leefolt’s place, Tate sneaks in a shot of the “L-shaped scratch on the dining room table.” But it’s not just a plot point for later reference; it’s also, as Aibileen slides a serving dish over the scar, symbolic of the hurts that are covered up and glossed over in the Leefolt household… and in Jackson, and the South, and America. If you’ve been waiting to see The Help, wait no further.

This is an oddly pleasing film about an aspiring pro golfer who loses his stroke in a gory and public meltdown… then finds his game again in quasi-Karate Kid style after his car breaks down in a tiny Texas town. With a golf course. After the titular week, Johnny brings Luke to a decision point: will he continue to define himself by the expectations of others, or will he answer a higher calling? Compositions are sumptuous, lighting is divine, the settings feel both right as rain and otherworldly, and he coaxes first-rate performances from an A-list. But the real bright spot of the film for me, as much as I normally cringe at closing narrations, is the way that first-time director Russell chooses to wind up his links-based parable about life.