The Butler ****

He was a butler to eight presidents and a witness to history. Cecil Gaines' time at the White House spanned the time from Brown vs The Board of Education to the eve of the election of the first black president. Composed from the lives of several real men in the position, "Lee Daniels' The Butler" rides on one amazing performance by Forest Whitaker.

Starting in the fifties, Cecil's wife (a randy Oprah Winfrey) and children reflect the many styles, fads, and deeper cultural changes in American life. At the White House, a succession of well-known actors portray the First Occupants in good times and bad. James Marsden as John Kennedy, and Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan are particularly memorable. With so much time to cover, and so many actors, you might think it all a blur, but Daniels holds it all together and the movie succeeds through its focus on Cecil Gaines and his personal journey.

"The Butler" is a fine movie, a reminder of milestones in race relations in the U.S. from a unique perspective, and a celebration of a life present and attending to the men in its highest office.

The World's End ****

Five friends from school days reunite to relive a night twenty years earlier, when they vowed to have a pint at every pub in town, and to finish this time at The World's End, a destination they failed to reach the first time. Organized and led by their chief ne'er do well and boozing brawler Gary King (co-writer Simon Pegg), the gang assembles from their workaday lives elsewhere and gets started.

Their trek begins well enough, if somewhat slowly, since Andy (Nick Frost) doesn't drink any more, and the first place is quite dead. But there's something different, something strange going on in the town, and the boys find themselves, in a bizarre coincidence, as the champions and defenders of the human race. It's an unexpected and very funny turn of events, and full of the surprises and violence you might expect from the creator of "Sean of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."

"The World's End" is a wry look at middle age and how people don't change, wrapped up in a fine apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic adventure straight from any number of recent movies. It's great fun.

The Spectacular Now ****

When Sutter wakes up on a lawn and doesn't know where he is or remember how he got there, it's not exactly a surprise for this hard-partying high school senior. Sutter loves to have a good time and doesn't worry about tomorrow. He lives for moment. Others may worry about tomorrow, like the girlfriend who just dumped him, but Sutter is happy where he is. Then, on that lawn, he meets Aimee, a nice girl he's never noticed, a girl who reads for fun and doesn't have a boyfriend. Slowly, surely, Sutter gets to know Aimee and starts to get a new perspective on life.

It's a familiar story, but this comedy/romance/drama has a freshness and unfiltered perspective, almost innocence, about it that is captivating. The principals, Miles Teller as Sutter and Shailene Woodley as Aimee, are strikingly good, charming, and natural. The supporting roles are strong, with Jennifer Jason Leigh as his protective, concerned mom, and Kyle Chandler as the charming, hard-partying father he never really knew. It's a lovely, ultra low budget effort and well worth a view. We'll be seeing lot more from these two young stars, I expect, as well as director James Ponsoldt.

Elysium IMAX ***

If "District 9" was about apartheid, "Elysium" is about the 99%. Director/writer Neill Blomkamp has given us another metaphor for our society, a science fiction lens to take a look at where we're heading.

The Elysium of the title is the luxurious and highly advanced abode of the rulers, spinning in space above Earth, where want and disease are unknown. The planet below is a fetid wasteland, a jumble of factories organized by brutal bosses with order enforced by the very robot police that hapless workers, like Max (Matt Damon) construct in very dangerous conditions.

When a factory accident leaves him with days to live unless he can get to the technology of Elysium, Max connects with the techno underworld who smuggle immigrants and are involved in an Elysian plot who can use his help. Along the way in his dangerous quest he connects with a beautiful childhood friend (Alice Braga) who has a dying daughter who also needs the magic machines of Elysium.

Blomkamp succeeds in creating the disparate worlds for his story: the beautiful almost sterile land of Elysium, and the gritty, second-hand technology of Earth. In this regard Max's exoskeleton that keeps him going, and the unexplained lack of airlocks and shields up above, are inspired. The cold calculation of the powerful in Elysium, led by an icy, amalgam-accented Jody Foster as Secretary of Defense, and the power politics there are also convincing.

Ultimately the movie stays true to its action genre, and veers off into a chase/fight between Max and the henchman Kruger (a relentless Sharlto Copley). The ultimate resolution is welcome, but seems too facile, even for a movie.

I'm So Excited ***

A rare miss by Pedro Almodóvar, "I'm So Excited" doesn't get its story off the ground. It looks promising enough at the beginning: the aircraft is in trouble and must return to Madrid, so the flight attendants put most of the passengers to sleep and party with the pilots and the first class passengers, where pills, liquor, and secrets abound.

I liked the three main attendants, an energetic gay trio given to lip-synching drag style and bitchy put-downs. And the passengers headed to Mexico City are an interesting collection of entertainers, businessmen, and mysterious entrepreneurs. Surely there's a funny, sad, and true movie in there somewhere.

Alas, the magic of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,""Talk to Her," and "Volver" never appears. There are interesting characters, incredible coincidences, and true confessions, but it's finally just a jumble of stories and over the top choreography by the enchanted fly boys that never comes together as a coherent movie.