LOCKOUT

This movie is a missed opportunity, a blown chance to craft a throwback 80's style action flick.  Guy Pearce is overdue for a starring role like this, and he fully commits himself to the schlocky premise and hammy one liners, but ultimately the movie somehow feels like less than the sum of its parts.  We have a cynical, sarcastic, reluctant hero (hell, he's not reluctant he's downright unwilling and openly hostile) framed for espionage and then recruited for a hopeless one-man-against-an-army mission to rescue the president's daughter (Maggie Grace) from a prisoner takeover at space jail.  This movie really should have been better.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

This film is a clever and inventive horror-comedy that inverts or examines many of the stereotypes of the genre while telling its own suitably demented tale of carnage and mystery.  It's hard to discuss much of the film without giving away its secrets and deflating some of the fun of surprise.  Would it be spoiling too much to say that it actually stars Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins and that its really funny?  That sounds confusing.  This is a horror film that humorously examines why exactly we want to watch horror films.  That sounds better.

HUNGER GAMES

So much of this movie confused me, and not in the usual fashion that I enjoy.  Since this is the first installment of a massively popular book series, I assume that a kind of checklist system was used in adapting the script, making sure that as many familiar faces and concepts from the book as possible were included, hoping that even a fleeting glance will be enough to satisfy super-fans in the audience who can wipe sweat from their brows and breath a sigh of relief when their favorite X Y or Z makes a perfunctory appearance.  It was a slog.

PROJECT X

This is a found footage movie loosely based on a viral video of an unrepentant Australian teenager who threw a party so large that it destroyed most of his neighborhood.  The video is directly parodied at the end of the film, but the story is otherwise an original creation.  Three high school friends (a loudmouth, a weirdo, and a bland lead) throw a birthday party whilst the parents are out of town.  There is a pointless through plot about the lead either making a move on his long time female friend or on some random popular slutty chick, but otherwise the movie is almost plotless.  The film just alternates between slow motion party footage montages set to house music and random quick gags.  Most of the jokes are pretty lame, but at least there's no contrived pathos or pseudo-heartwarming 'gee I learned a lesson" ending.  Just pure stupid crap.