Nebraska ****

A headstrong old man's determination to collect the million dollars promised in a magazine subscription offer sets this story of family, choices, and the taciturn inhabitants of the plains in motion. It's another take on fathers and cousins from the writer/director of "The Descendants," Alexander Payne, who returns to where he grew up in this movie.

Bruce Dern is Woody Grant, an aging and often confused resident of Montana with a history of drinking too much. One of his two sons, David (Will Forte) agrees to drive him to Nebraska to collect his "winnings." The road trip turns into a family reunion in the town where the boys grew up. Woody's wife and other son arrive, and David begins to discover things about his father's past he didn't know, or understood differently.

It's a bleak landscape, emphasized by black and white photography, and punctuated with sharply drawn characters who step out of the bounds of caricature just enough to give them a lifelike dimension in this comedy/drama. The humor, and there is plenty, grows organically from the characters and situations. Dern and Forte both deliver strong performances, especially Dern, who is sure to be recognized in award season.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ****

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is better than first installment of this trilogy (or quartet, since I'm told the last volume will be made into two movies, a trick Hollywood now employs as often as prequels it seems). And thank goodness it is, because even the amazing Jennifer Lawrence and Katniss Everdeen could not have held our interest if all we had here was more of the same. Just about everything is better: the acting, the costumes, the special effects, even the fighting.

In "Catching Fire" Katniss and Peeta begin to enjoy the spoils of their victory in the brutal spectacle of children killing children of the first volume, when they learn what a charade they are meant to play. They have won a life of ease but must play their part in keeping the districts quiet and the capitol and its one percent in luxury. Then, with signs of rebellion surfacing, a new games is called, one that pits past winners against each other. This at least removes the most squirmy aspect of the first movie, with adults now hunting adults, and opens the possibilities of alliances.

I very much enjoyed this chapter, and its ineluctable movement toward revolution. Jennifer Lawrence continues her string of magnetic performances, with fine turns from Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Stanley Tucci. But I suppose the highest marks should go to the new director, Francis Lawrence.

Kill Your Darlings ***

"Kill Your Darlings" offers an intriguing blend of biopic, coming of age/sexual awakening story, literary history, obsession, and murder mystery, all based on actual events when those who were to be the leading lights of the beat generation, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs, were in New York in the forties.

The story follow Allen Ginsberg, son of a minor poet himself, as he matriculates at Columbia and meets the charismatic and seductive Lucien Carr. Carr introduces Ginsberg to a world of literary rebels, jazz, drugs, and dark secrets. Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) finds yet another role to inhabit and stretch into as the young Ginsberg. The evocation of the forties and the excitement and iconoclasm of the group are palpable, and the importance of words in life, love, and death are searingly portrayed. Dane DeHaan as Carr is fantastic, and Michael C. Hall as his friend and admirer is an inspired bit of casting.

"Kill Your Darlings" had a short run, but it's well worth hunting down to get a flavor of Ginsberg's milieu and the people and forces that shaped him, as well as to enjoy a fine movie.

Thor: The Dark World **

"Thor: The Dark World" is better than the first, but that's faint praise, I know. In this one I liked Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the special effects. The attack on Greenwich was inspired location casting. The framing story was silly, but hey, it's a comic book.

Dallas Buyers Club ****

In 1985, Dallas electrician, hustler, and straight homophobe Ron Woodroof learned that he had AIDS. This movie tells the story of his schemes and fights to get drugs and treatment first for himself, and then for others, as the epidemic spread and all drugs were experimental. Matthew McConaughey tackles the role head on and gives us the unvarnished Woodroof, ever the hustler if not the homophobe.

McConaughey, who lost a prodigious amount of weight for the role, is utterly convincing, matched by an arresting performance by Jared Leto as the transgendered Rayon. He also dropped many pounds to play the role believably. I understand Rayon is a synthetic character created to provide a dramatic foil, business partner, sounding board and, I suppose, repository of audience sympathy when Woodroof is too off-putting. Jennifer Garner plays Dr. Eve Saks, physician, researcher, and friend. She is fantastic in a role that demands a wide range of interactions with the mercurial Woodroof.

"Dallas Buyers Club" recreates a time and a culture that should be remembered. Those of us who lived through it will relive many painful moments, but the fighting spirit on display is heartening and some solace. And those who were too young at the time to understand what the AIDS epidemic was doing to so many should see it to get a view and appreciation of the fear and desperation and the halting steps of the government's support for research. See it if you can find it in a theater, because the DVD will likely be delayed until after award season.

12 Years a Slave *****

It's hard to exaggerate how good this film is. Told cinematically without the glossy remove of many historical dramas, "12 Years a Slave" depicts the brutal enslavement of a free black man, Solomon Northup, kidnapped in Washington D.C. who survived to regain his freedom and publish his story in 1853. John Ridley's screenplay plunges us into Northup's desperate and humiliating situation, then takes us back to the beginning of the story, all told cleanly and in the locutions of the period and the original author himself from a perspective inside the peculiar institution.

Much happens in the 12 years, and the movie takes the time to depict each highlight. Even though it's 2 and a quarter hours, there's nothing extraneous or superfluous, and the viewer's attention does not flag. Steve McQueen's direction is often close-up as he draws outstanding performances from an incredible cast. Chiwetel Ejiofor leaps to the highest level of his profession with his portrayal of Northup. Michael Fassbender, a mainstay of McQueen's oeuvre, delivers an electric performance as the sadistic plantation owner Edwin Epps. Lupita Nyong'o and Adepero Oduye are also in award nomination territory, inhabiting their slave characters' suffering fearlessly.

The movie is searing and touching. In Denver it's available only at The Mayan for now, but with strong word of mouth, and near-universal critical acclaim, I'm sure Fox Searchlight will be expanding the limited release run soon. And as we head into award season I expect multiple nominations for for this outstanding motion picture.

All Is Lost ****

A one-man, virtually wordless film, "All Is Lost" depicts an un-named protagonist whose sailboat, somewhere south of India, is punctured by a stray shipping container. What follows is our man's struggle to repair his vessel, stay afloat, survive its sinking, salvage what he can, and reach out for help. It's a heroic effort, and in the telling becomes something larger than just a detailed, very well acted and directed chronicle.

While never dull, there is time in this movie for reflection and questions. Who is this man? How did he get here? Why is he alone? To whom is the apology, virtually the only words spoken, that opens the movie directed? Who gave him the unopened gift that he salvages? What's the story behind the wedding ring on his hand? Does the shipping container say something about commerce and materialism? How could he afford to be on a sailboat south of India in the first place? Where did he learn to sail? Wasn't he a part of the getting and spending world that has both put him here and torpedoed his precarious perch? Or does he stand for those heroes who must do what they do alone? Is he a man faced with a life and death situation that requires thinking, planning, and doing? Is he like us in our struggles to survive our own sea, to overcome, to make something big happen in our lives?