The Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis is an odd film. It is a "slice of life" taken from a fictionalized character in the early 60s Greenwich Village folk scene (yes he has a great deal in common with Dave Van Ronk). It has moments--especially an early scene with Oscar Isaac (as Llewyn Davis) and a cat--that are beyond beautifully shot. The film is full of historical markers, characters based on real people (sort of), jabs at the music industry and the subtle humor that graces most of the Coen's films.

The main character, a folk singer who isn't necessarily an easy character to like, is obnoxious, self-centered and a bit of a loser. You know, he's a musician. Somehow, you like the character regardless of his flaws. Isaac plays him with humanity, as a sort of everyman with talent. Sure he is a jerk but aren't we all jerks sometime? As you see bits and pieces of the business he is trying to succeed in you begin to see where how the seeds of his attitude were sown. When he decides he wants out he seems trapped in a career that he loves and hates. It is a dilemma familiar to any small time musician.

The film is also a fine bit of writing, editing and directing. It is so seamless and professional. Any attempt to describe the plot, the action, will sound flat compared with what you see. It is as much about a feeling, creating a place and a time as it is telling the story of any individual. The film does a fine job of recreating the early 60s Greenwich Village scene without being obvious.

While there are numerous characters in the film--and many of them are music archetypes--the only one the audience really gets to know in depth is Davis.  In the movie Davis is given the chance to make up for his decisions, to atone for his sins. In most Hollywood films characters leap at this chance. Not here.  It isn’t so easy here and it makes him more human. When there is an easy out, something to make an audience feel good? The Coens do not take that easy path.

No one in the film seems rotten to the core (with one or two exceptions) but there are not many angels either (with one or two exceptions). The people who seem decent may have had to sell their souls, or other bits and pieces, while the people who represent the worst in the music business may have more integrity than it seems.

The film leaves you with a feeling that while there is usually something dirty behind success, there is nothing noble in failure.

Thank God for movies like Nebraska. There is nothing whatever wrong with blowing things up, with CGI, with duels to the death were someone always says "This ends HERE." All those things are good. But it is also nice to have a film that is about people who might easily live next door, about the actual human condition, with its humor, frailty and ultimate need for redemption.

Perhaps the most important thing to say about Nebraska is how stunningly beautiful it looks. The black and white film, from beginning to end, is a masterwork of cinematography. It doesn't matter if you are looking at landscapes and lonely roads or close ups of the often bedraggled characters. The film is just beautiful looking from start to finish.

If it doesn't win the Academy Award for cinematography they should do away with the award.

There is also, of course, more to the film than how it looks. Ostensibly it is the story of an elderly man, Woody Grant (played in an Oscar-nod worthy performance by Bruce Dern), who believes he has won a million dollars. He heads out, on foot, from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his reward. Everyone knows there isn't any reward (except perhaps Woody). But his son, David, played by Will Forte, in what has to be a break through role, decides to take him to Lincoln.

What could go wrong?

He views it as a way to get to know his dad and to get the notion off the old man's mind.  In short order, however, they wind up sidetracked into Woody's hometown where discussion of his "winnings" brings out the good and bad in old friends and relations. This description gives the film short shrift because as it moves forward you learn, piece by piece, about who Woody really is. The film is about kindness and decency as much as it is about greed.

Alexander Payne delivers a wonderful film here and the casting is also flawless. Dern's taciturn Woody and Forte's well-meaning David are joined by June Squib as Woody's wife (another possible best supporting Oscar), Bob Odenkirk as Woody's other son, Ross, Stacy Keach as the ill-flavored Ed Pegram and Angela McEwan as Peg Nagy, a long lost love who, with very little screen time, makes a huge impression.

And it is nearly as beautifully written and in its intent as it is visually stunning. There are places where you laugh, where you feel a little angry and there should be, if you are human, places where you tear up. This is a small film, there are no explosions, the universe isn't going to end, there isn't a single car chase and, again, thank God for that.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a solid second film in the series. But it may suffer a little from being the middle movie in a trilogy. Those old enough to remember when the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back was released may remember the sensation.  It was a good movie that ended with something of a letdown (or what seemed to be a letdown). The film seemed, out of the context of the trilogy, to be a little disappointing.

Then, years later, when watched in the context of the trilogy? The film is arguably the best of the three. This may be the fate of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. At the very least the film may seem fuller once surrounded by parts one and three.

The film begins with the victors, home in their district, preparing to go out on a sort of victory tour. President Snow pays Katniss a visit to let her know she better really sell it--or everyone she knows will pay the price. The film shows the moment she finds out she's failed in the same way as the book;  it is a subtle, effective and even a little scary. It happens with a nod.

The film, like the first one, has a fine collection of actors and is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book. The changes made are not substantial. This is not a Peter Jackson movie that runs gleefully away from its source material cutting and pasting. It isn't identical. Of course the third book is going to be two movies, not one (KA-Ching!). It has worked in the past--the last two Harry Potter movies came from one book. But that was a massive book.

There is little attempt to develop existing characters further in the second film--we know who they all are from the first film. Woody Harrelson's Haymitch and Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss are the same as we left them. The former alcoholic and crafty and the latter brave and conflicted. Some characters get a little more human (Elizabeth Bank's Effie, for instance) but mostly this is status quo.

There are two new characters of note; Finnick, Johanna, Beetee and most notably Plutarch Heavensby, played by Philip Seymour-Hoffman. All these characters are not just important in this movie but have a big part in the two films to come.

The film perhaps drag a bit in the set up, as we see the tour of the victors unfold and then go through the set up for a second Hunger Games--the procession, the interviews and the melee as the games start. It is all a little familiar but it also tracks along fairly close to the book. Parts of what is actually going on are hidden and a second viewing of the movie may--or may not--reveal clues.

This is a good film, not a great one. But it may prove to have a second life with a second look.

The most remarkable thing about both of the Thor movies, and maybe even more about Thor: The Dark World, is that they are not terrible. They are entertaining, well-paced, well-directed action films filled with good acting and relatively coherent stories (even given that there are various monsters firing lasers at Norse gods in the new film.)

They make sense within themselves and that is about as much as you can ask for in a super hero movie. Hollywood seems to have gotten this down--for the most part. They play it basically straight throw in some humor. They never make the mistake of thinking they can make this any of the Batman movies. It is played serious but a great deal lighter than the caped crusader films. It isn't something you will think about after you see it? But you won't be bored watching it.

Seems like faint praise but only to those who do not attend many movies. Being entertaining all the way through is the exception not the rule. Thor has that going through it.

It is difficult to get too deeply into a movie like Thor: The Dark World because there is so little depth to it. There are evil elves who want to destroy everything and make the universe dark. Thor aims to stop this.  This lack of detail, this lack of complication might actually be a strength of the movie. There is very little time spent talking about the goobledeygook science behind the evil elves and the physics of their schem and the less time doing that the better.

Just get the basics to line up and let Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hiddleston chew some scenery; they do it expertly. Director Alan Taylor has directed a number of episodes of cable television series; Game of Thrones, Nurse Jackie, The Sopranos, Deadwood and even Sex in the City. He knows how to move things along and seems to realize this isn't Shakespeare.

Of course Kenneth Branagh was successful making the first Thor movie by making a film with a Shakesperean feel. It was good for one film but Taylor was wise to move in another direction.

Thor is still in theaters but it won't be the end of the world if you see it on DVD.

Dallas Buyers Club isn't a grand overview of the prejudice and hysteria of the early years of the AIDS epidemic. It isn't really a story of some great triumph either. It is a small story, about one man, Ron Woodroof, trying to survive. He does it, basically on his own, in the face of massive attempts by the government agencies that should be helping him.

It is a little more complicated than that too. The complications are sort of under the surface in the film. The "bad" doctors were sort of right, AZT worked in lower doses. The protagonist, at the very least, starts out aiming to not only stay alive but turn a profit. He isn't a saint.  Yet he is played by Matthew McConaughey as so likeable that it is impossible to resist him. You like him even as you realize what he is.

But the character changes as the film progresses too. The brunt of prejudice maybe he, somehow, comes to understand the other characters pain.

The one other character in the film who really matters is Jarod Leto's Rayon. He delivers a performance that should get serious consideration for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He HAS to be nominated. He plays the role mostly in drag, partly with great humor but also with a pain that is almost palpable--that seems real.

Rayon isn't someone it would be wise to give your apartment keys to. He isn't someone you want to lend money or have talk to third graders about "just saying no" but he is a character that demonstrates how even people at the bottom of society love, are loved and are worthy of love. It is a remarkable and moving performance.

The other actors in the film do the best they can with their less flamboyant roles. Jennifer Garner is fine in the role of Dr. Eve Saks but just seems sort of dull next to McConaughey's Woodroof. If she didn't seem that way it would be a silly film and it is not. One interesting note is that the small roles where an actor is only on screen for a few minutes are all quite well done. It is tough to be memorable in a few minutes but many here do that--Denis O'Hare, Kevin Rankin and Steve Zahn specifically. Rankin must long for the day when he gets to play a character that isn't a racist redneck. But he does it so, so well!

The movie is moving and full of great performances. It also serves another purpose. Those who recall the early days of AIDS remember the hysteria well. It wasn't "just another disease." it as God's wrath and the "gay plague" come to kill us all. This movie brings you back to that time and is something of a cautionary tale.

It also, oddly, since the intent is likely the opposite, leaves you with a feeling that ultimately the system works. It just lacks compassion for individuals. That isn't the job of "the system" it is the job of actual humans.