What if you could take a pill and it unlocked the vast potential of your mind? That’s what this film purposes. The problem is that writers not on the drug have a hard time representing what a person with a four digit IQ is really like. I highly doubt that someone that smart would end up in a thriller, but that’s what the film is.

Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper, THE HANGOVER) is a struggling writer who has a book deal, but can’t really deal with writing it. Pretty much at rock bottom, he has a run in with his former brother-in-law Vernon (Johnny Whitworth, EMPIRE RECORDS), who was also is former drug dealer. He’s now pushing NZT, the drug that unlocks your mind’s full potential. But as with any too good to be true venture, there are side effects. Eddie gets addicted to the drug and starts running out of his supply. In the process, he gets mixed up with gangster Gennady (Andrew Howard, TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN) and high-stakes investor Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro, RAGING BULL). It’s questionable who is shadier.

Wayward souls are often the prey of sociopaths. They either turn into victims or accomplices or something in the middle. Cult leaders from Charles Manson to Jim Jones have used the veneer of family and community to twist people's minds into believing terrible things. They make it too scary to leave. The outside world becomes foreign. So how can one cope if they do get away?

Martha (Elizabeth Olsen, PEACE, LOVE, & MISUNDERSTANDING) is such a young woman. She flees from Patrick (John Hawkes, WINTER'S BONE) a much older man who leads a family of young men and women on a rural farm. She doesn't really know where she is. The other members follow her. Watts (Brady Corbet, 2007's FUNNY GAMES), one of the members, finds her at a diner and tells her to come home. He doesn't force her, but the impression that if she doesn't something bad will happen to her is strongly implied.

Director Lee Unkrich and the entire Pixar team have found a fitting conclusion to the TOY STORY trilogy. It is worthy to stand by the masterpieces that came before it. The story deals with many of the same issues the previous films did, but extends them organically. The first film was Woody dealing with the possibility of being replaced as owner Andy's favorite. The second film was about what it means to be a toy. Now the third film deals with the existential question of what does it mean to be the toy of a child who has outgrown toys.

After a rousing fantasy sequence that brings the tangent filled imagination of a child to life, Woody (Tom Hanks, FORREST GUMP) leads the other toys in one last ditch attempt to get Andy (John Morris) to play with them. It doesn't go so well and the endless optimist Woody prepares the toys for their new life in the attic. Naysayers fear they'll end up in the trash or on eBay. Through a series of misunderstandings, Woody ends up in Andy's box to college and the others in a trashbag at the curb. After a narrow escape, Buzz (Tim Allen, TV's HOME IMPROVEMENT), Jessie (Joan Cusack, WORKING GIRL) and the others make their way to the donation box, hoping daycare will allow them to be played with again.

The economy of storytelling is the most impressive element of this slight animated feature. Following the poor performances of PINOCCHIO, BAMBI and FANTASIA, the lavish production values were toned down. Less spectacle but not less character. This story of an elephant with jumbo ears fills the big top with emotion in only 64 minutes.

When the stork delivers Mrs. Jumbo's baby son, her fellow elephants label him with the name Dumbo, because of his giant ears. The ridicule he receives only makes the shy little pachyderm even more bashful. Like any good mother, Mrs. Jumbo defends her child from tormentors, but her actions are not taken favorably by the circus management. Dumbo, whose real name in Jumbo Jr., is now left to fend for himself as the circus decides to put the silly looking animal in the clown act, so people can laugh at him more.

Roland Emmerich is best known for destroying the world in films like INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and 2012. This period political thriller is the furthest from his other work as any film he has done. It’s also easily his best film. Do I believe in its central premise that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays? Not any more than I believe that Shakespeare based ROMEO AND JULIET one his own love affair with a noble woman who dreamed of acting.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave, JULIA), the stage was seen ripe with sedition. The problem was that the queen loved plays, so her handlers William Cecil (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER) and his hunchback son Robert (Edward Hogg, 2004’s ALFIE) had to tread lightly in their censorship campaign. Amid this backdrop, Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans, NOTTING HILL), the son-in-law of William Cecil, writes plays in secret. After watching the work of Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto, BRIGHT STAR), the nobleman, who is wasting away his inheritance, commands the playwright to stage his work under the writer’s name. Unwilling to take the risk, the opportunistic actor William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall, SHAUN OF THE DEAD) begins to claim he is the author of such works as HENRY VI, MACBETH and HAMLET.

This isn't a thriller in the American sense of the term. It certainly has more in common with meticulously paced French thrillers, which were as much character studies as they were genre pieces. Director Anton Corbijn has no intentions of making this film for the ADD crowd accustomed to lightning fast editing and adrenaline-fueled action sequences at regular intervals. He is certainly asking his audience to be patient.

Jack, or Edward, (we're really not sure which name is true) (George Clooney, SYRIANA) is a master assassin. He's as cold and remote as the wintery mountain setting the film begins in. He is being hunted by Swede assassins. His handler Pavel (Johan Leysen, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) says he is slipping and needs to lay low. He doesn't like the safe house set up for him, so he changes the plans. One might expect this to really piss off his boss, but Jack is the best at engineering weapons to precise specifications and Pavel has a new client.

Working as a companion to the live-action feature GREEN LANTERN, this animated anthology feature focuses its stories on the lesser known Green Lantern Corps members. One overarching tale links the five vignettes, which are origin stories of sorts for five characters. It’s like a primer for the Green Lantern world.

The conceit for the film is that Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Nathan Fillion, TV’s FIREFLY) is showing a new recruit named Arisia (Elisabeth Moss, TV’s MAD MEN) the ropes. Meanwhile an epic threat is forming that will need all the Green Lantern Corps to work as a team.

Steve Rogers is a 90 lbs weakling, but he has the heart and guts of a warrior. He keeps getting rejected at recruitment centers trying to join the fight in World War II. Chris Evans, who has experience playing superheroes, as he was the Human Torch in the FANTASTIC FOUR films, is an excellent choice to play this hero in the making before and after a super serum is injected into his veins to turn him into Captain America.

Evans is made the bullied Steve Rodgers through some remarkable visual effects. His heart and passion is what attracts the eye of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES), who is working on the U.S.'s super soldier program with Col. Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones, MEN IN BLACK) and investor/entrepreneur Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper, MAMMA MIA!). But instead of going to the frontlines, he is used as a propaganda tool to sell war bonds. But on an USO tour, he discovers that his best friend James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan, BLACK SWAN) has been taken prisoner and goes it alone to save him.

Albert was not born with a stammer, but developed one around four or five. He was born a prince. The former creates a great problem for the latter when public speaking is key to the job he was born to do. Making matters worse, he was prince during the boom of wireless radio and disturbing times with an older brother that had little interest in being king. He would become King George VI.

Colin Firth plays Albert, or Bertie as his family knew him. Inside Bertie was very capable of being a great king, but the stutter made him sound like a fool. His father King George V (Michael Gambon, HARRY POTTER) lorded over him with an iron fist and had no time for his "problems." His brother Edward (Guy Pearce, MEMENTO) was a globetrotting party boy right up until the moment his father died. He was not capable of being a great king. He wanted what he wanted and gave up the crown to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson (Eve Best, TV's NURSE BETTY). Now Bertie wasn't just a stammering prince, but a stammering king, the only king to ever take the thrown with the previous king still alive and well. This kind of pressure didn't help his stutter.

From Fox comes a beautiful transfer of Francis Lawrence's romantic ode to the circus. The AVC encoded 1080p transfer is a nearly perfect. The color palette is rich and nuanced. The bookend sequences, which have a heavier film grain, have a more natural tone. When the film moves to the Depression era, the saturated colors pop. The lavish red of August's ringmaster jacket. The rustic circus banners. The detail provides that virtual 3-D appeal. Look at the detail of the face of elephant and the vintage costumes. The only blaring problem is pixilation during the scene where Jacob catches the train at night. This is probably due to the scene being shot day for night and digitally rendered dark.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is full of ambience and detail. Crowds, animal sounds and the closing stampede fill the entire sound field. Especially in the latter example, directionality comes into play as animals race across the soundscape. The mix is spot on, giving dialogue, music and sound effects all their proper due. The LFE track is utilized best during scenes with the rumbling train.