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Kim Hollis: I really enjoyed Looper, which is a moody, atmospheric time travel film that deals with questions of predestination and also has an odd (if off-putting, mainly because it's unpalatable at moments) moral core. I agree that the kid in the movie is simply terrific. I always wonder how people elicit such spectacular movie performances from children that age. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is solid, and Bruce Willis has a sadness about him that works quite well for the character. He kind of plays it similar to his character from Sin City in some ways, and since Looper is really a noir-ish science fiction, I guess that comparison makes sense.

I'm going to go straight ahead and say that everyone should go out and see Argo, which is a tense, intelligent thriller that should give us all proof positive that Ben Affleck is a truly talented director. I think people were somehow thinking that his first two films weren't necessarily indicative of what he could do and shrugged them off (I'm really not sure why). He's really maturing.

Resident Evil: Retribution is more of the same, but I'm a sucker for these films even when they're over-the-top ridiculous. And don't doubt for a moment that Retribution is absolutely over-the-top ridiculous. It's pretty good fun, but I did find myself feeling oppressed by the repetitiveness of it some point during the third act. Even so, it's one of those movies I'll probably watch when it's on the movie channels, at least partly because I think Boris Kodjoe is hot.

I caught Katy Perry: Part of Me a couple of weekends ago, and I was pretty surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I only know one or two of her songs, but I do think she's an interesting talent. She's very comfortable with who she is. Also, if you're just looking for something that will draw your eye to the screen with absolutely mesmerizing color, Part of Me is perfect. You definitely don't have to be a fan to enjoy the film.

Safe was a movie that I really only sort of watched. I like Jason Statham, but the film was just far too violent. I guess sometimes I can deal with violence in films, so I'm not being all finger-wagging here, but in Safe it felt truly needless.

David Mumpower: I don't know exactly why but I watched a set of J films recently. Joyful Noise was a precursor of sorts to Pitch Perfect, albeit not targeted to teens as directly. The movie is exactly what you expect it to be. The focus here is on the music. I must admit that I downloaded Man in the Mirror first before eventually buying the entire soundtrack off of Amazon. So, that was mission accomplished for the sound crew.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a sequel to a movie that far better than it had any right to be. All of the whimsy and cleverness of Journey to the Center of the Earth is replaced by lowest common denominator shenanigans that caused me to wonder if Luis Guzman fired his agent directly from the set or waited until after the shoot. His role demeans all of us, not just himself. Ah well. At least The Rock is always funny.

John Carter was a pleasant surprise. I had the lowest of expectations for the film. I mentioned in the previous conversation that I wanted Battleship to be worse than it is in order to at least have some fun with the awfulness of it. Battleship falls somewhere in the range of mediocrity. John Carter rises quite a bit above this. I would describe this science fiction title as an unexpectedly faithful adaptation that demonstrates the whimsy that caused the books to be so popular. The visuals of the movie are so good that I plan to buy the 3D disc at some point. I think it rivals everything other than Prometheus thus far in 2012. John Carter deserved a better fate.

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