Crazy, Stupid, Love: Ryan Gosling's Guide to Being A Man.

Recycling photos may become a habit.

It's better if we all accept right now that Ryan Gosling is the pinnacle of all manhood.  Not douchy manhood, more like that one dude you met once who's ripped but actually cool.  Sure, he was in The Notebook, but also grew a sweet beard and built a house to spite a woman.  He picks solid, often unique roles, is in a pretty decent band, and he performs under the alias "Baby Goose," which is only badass because he's Ryan Gosling.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. could have gone in a lot of directions.  The trailer was cut quite well (although this could be attributed to the fact that Muse makes every movie seem enticing), surely appealing to those looking for Hitch 2, all the while hinting at something a bit more dramatic.  The result is something in the middle.  While Crazy, Stupid, Love. avoids a descent into the third act triteness of romantic comedies like Friends With Benefits (which was often hilarious but eventually lame), it hardly achieves dramatic relevance.  However, the result is a satisfying, funny comedy similar in feel to something like The Kids Are Alright.

Captain America and the Never Ending Montage.

Captain America's breast milk is a rare and delicious commodity.

I cannot believe how awful Captain America is.  Normally, I say a bunch of hateful things about a film and then nonchalantly mention that it was decent.  Let me be clear: Captain America is awful.  I would use all caps to emphasize this, but I'm classy, dogg.

That's not to say it isn't watchable.  The first act is pretty solid, and while the rest of the film isn't horrible, it's so bland and lazy that it makes me want to watch Batman and Robin; which was a truly terrible film, but at least you didn't know exactly what horrible thing was going to happen next.  The truth is, after our asthmatic, anorexic underdog becomes Captain America, the film descends into montage after montage, some of which is actual montage, the rest of which is just bland action and meaningless dialogue that blurs together due to lazy writing and poor pacing.

Harry Potter and the Death of Your Childhood.

A review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is hardly necessary at this point.  If you've seen the other films in the franchise it is doubtful that you'd miss the conclusion, and it would be wholly idiotic to see the thing without first having made it through most of the others.  Although, if you were considering it, you should know that (thankfully) the filmmakers made no attempt to appeal to any newcomers.  Deathly Hallows: Part 2 picks up moments after part one left off, and has little time to spare for any off hand reminders of what has gone on before.

Whether or not this final installment is effective is debatable.  Its first act, in which Harry, Ron and Hermione invade the vaults of Gringott's, is by far the strongest; continuing the steady buildup of events--executed so well in Deathly Hallows: Part 1--necessary before facing the evil Voldemort.  But upon their return to Hogwarts, the film starts to feel like the earlier chapters:  too much plot crammed into too little time.

Jennifer Aniston is a Whorable Boss.

This image is likely all that anyone will remember of Horrible Bosses, regardless of whether they decided they liked the film or not.  Now I'm sure if you've seen it, you're all like, "Whoa, bro!  There was some funny stuff in that movie, dogg!"  But given a few years, this thesis will likely prove to be true.  Comedy doesn't seem to have any staying power these days, and as I rack my brain for memorable Hollywood moments in the past few years, I seem to be coming up short.  I had to have seen some comedies, right?

This is not to say that Horrible Bosses is bad, it's simply forgettable, which in my mind translates to "not very good," but I'm sure not everyone agrees with me.  If you're looking for a few decent laughs, go see Horrible Bosses.  If the post-Hangover Hollywood comedy is any indication, it's an acceptable offering to those with nothing better to do.

Midnight In Paris, or a Rhinoceros.

Let it be known that I just wrote for an hour and subsequently deleted all of it.  Prefacing a review with ten paragraphs of commentary on the criticism of Woody Allen just didn't seem appropriate.  But, if anything, it illustrates my appreciation of the man.  He has no rival.

But no one wants to hear about my crush on Woody Allen.  Actually, I'm sure a lot of you do (pervs).  But you should also know that my love for Midnight in Paris does not stem from unconditional affection for the man.  You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger was quite dreadful.  Midnight in Paris is just a wonderful, light-hearted comedy.

Owen Wilson's nose is as obnoxiously bent as ever, but he's perfect as what has come to be known as Woody's 'avatar.'  He delivers Woody's dialogue well--though perhaps not as well as Will Ferrell did--for one of today's best known actors, and never nears obnoxiousness as Jason Biggs and Kenneth Branagh did.  Although, in their defense, they did play more neurotic roles (in Anything Else and Celebrity, respectively).  There's no neurosis here, just nostalgia.

Super 8, or Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Childhood.

Dear M. Night Shyamalan,

Dear J.J. Abrams,

We get it.  You like Spielberg.  So do we.  Everyone does.  The only reason Osama Bin Laden was caught was that, in his haste to order the Jurassic Park Blu-ray, he forgot to change the name on his Amazon account.  Everyone. Likes. Spielberg.

But we didn't need you to make a Spielberg drinking game.  If I did a shot every time there was a lens flare or a child staring wondrously into space throughout Super 8, I would have died of alcohol poisoning halfway through.  Combine that with every other Spielberg homage, and this drinking game's inevitable popularity, you very well may wipe out the entire college population.  You cannot build a work of art on shout outs.  Unless you're a rapper.

Hesher, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Walk with Grandma.

Hesher is a film that does not require me to write a letter.  If anything, I should be sending director Spencer Susser a thank you note.  Luckily, I don't live with my mother anymore so I don't have to send anyone a thank you note ever again.  Not everyone will love Hesher, and if you check out Rotten Tomatoes you'll find that some people even hated it, but that's okay.  We'll set their cars on fire later.