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I'll get the popcorn!

Kim Hollis: What movies have you seen lately? What are your thoughts on them?

Tom Houseman: I finally saw Top Gun, which is one an enormous number of popular '80s movies that I have never gotten around to seeing. It was just as homoerotic as everybody said it was, and decently entertaining, although I know I'll never enjoy it as much as the people who are obsessed with those '80s movies do.

One thing it reminded me of is the days when people made good spoof movies. Hot Shots is a great comedy because it is still funny even for people who aren't familiar with the genre it is parodying. Most recent spoof movies are more a parade of references than an actual plot from which comedy is derived. Very sad.

Bruce Hall: In a shameless plug for my column, I'll say that I watched Heavy Metal last week. Not as mind blowing as it was when I was a kid, but still more genuinely entertaining than I remembered. The Hunger Games was a chocolate covered cherry without the cherry. Delicious, but lacking the essential goodness that made me crave it in the first place. I only bring it up because I haven't heard anyone utter the words "Hunger Games" for what feels like a decade. That said...

Think Like a Man was like a Tyler Perry film, except it was also kind of good. The Avengers was fun, if a bit cartoonish for my taste. Battleship is better than you think, but still somehow worse than any Transformers flick. Still, the movie can do some good for humanity if it prevents anyone from ever making another movie based on a board game again. There's always that.

Felix Quinonez: I saw The Avengers which I LOVED. I have nothing bad to say about it. Yes, it had some cartoony moments but it worked for me. I also saw Dark Shadows, which I mostly enjoyed thanks to Johnny Depp's very committed performance but even he couldn't save the third act in which they realized they had no clue how to end the movie. I finally got to see Chronicle. I loved it. The movie had some great acting, especially from the main actor, whose name I didn't bother to learn. It reminded me of Akira and I mean that in a very good way. I also saw The Grey which was very entertaining and Liam Neeson kicks ass. Oh, and I also recently saw 21 Jump Street. It was way funnier than I thought it would be. I no longer despise Channing Tatum.

Samuel Hoelker: MOONRISE KINGDOM MOONRISE KINGDOM MOONRISE KINGDOM!!!! I saw Moonrise Kingdom and it's so much better than even those with the highest of expectations could want. It's Wes Anderson-y, of course, but not in the overbearing, Darjeeling way. He experiments with his styles, motifs, and cliches, to wonderful results. It's with this movie that I realized how great he is with a fictional setting within the real world. The island of New Penzance is a place so mysterious it can't exist, yet so grounded in realize I want to move there.

Much like Tarantino, Wes Anderson can bring out excellent, unique performances out of actors you wouldn't expect (remember that Gwyneth Paltrow was good in Royal Tenenbaums?), and they're all excellent, especially Bruce Willis. The kids seem to click immediately with his style, making for fantastically quirky (in a good way) performances. It's touching, funny, and accessible. Definitely my #1 movie of the year so far.

Sticking with arthouse, I've seen Bernie twice. It's a delight - an excellent, nuanced Jack Black performance, a unique mix of documentary and narrative, and a really sweet tone overall. It's a movie that could go so easily into a mocking and cynical state, but it never does.

And I agree with Bruce. Think Like a Man is better than it should be, and toes the line of "a quality film."

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