Young Adult ***

A telling portrait of a "psycho prom queen bitch," in the words of a former classmate, "Young Adult" shows what happens when ghostwriter Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) decides to return to her home town and win back her now-married ex-boyfriend, Buddy (Patrick Wilson). The bad choices this now 37 year old have made become clear and old connections and histories reappear. While not autobiographical, there is surely a good deal of closely-observed real life in Oscar-winner Diablo Cody's screenplay. Mavis writes the sequels to another, more famous author's original work for "young adults," which is marketing code for high school girls. Mavis, it seems, has never left that phase, and the quest she embarks on has only the slightest chance of helping her grow up. Director Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") once again captures a slice of Americana, here of high school culture, fast food lifestyle, alienation, and unexamined lives. Illuminated by a stunning, fearless performance by Theron, "Young Adult" is a humorous, fine, serious drama.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol ***

For me, with "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" the magic is back. The plot, the schemes, the disguises, the daring feats, the dazzling technology, the improvisation when the technology doesn't quite function as planned are all back. Shot entirely with IMAX cameras, the locations are stunning, sometimes breath-taking. This one is great fun, with just enough twists and turns. Tom Cruise is in top form, and seems quite relaxed and comfortable in the role. Cruise has been conspicuous by his absence on the promo circuit for this movie, but I think now it's safe for him return if he wants to. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Paula Patton all fit in to the new Force supplying the requisite brainy brawn, humor, and cool sex, although not always in that order. This is what a fun action movie should deliver.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows **

Full of action, battles of wit, red herrings, a bit of steam punk, and slightly more than cutting-edge 100-year old science, the second of the new Sherlock Holmes incarnations attempts to dazzle. Again with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as the iconic characters of Holmes and Watson, this edition, "Sherlock Holmes: A Games of Shadows," was, for my taste, a bit too self-consciously clever, too much of a show-off. Up against his smartest foe, Professor Moriarty, the games of out-thinking and out-maneuvering depict Holmes as a paragon of prognostication, a gleeful mental and physical combatant that often veers over the line into self-parody.

Director Guy Richie employs here a short-hand device, disconcerting at first, that compresses flashbacks into a fast-motion swirl of hidden history that aptly suits his purpose. The movie has style to burn, a beautiful dark gypsy (Noomi Rapace, last seen as Lisbeth in the Swedish version of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Holmes' eccentric brother (hysterically underplayed by Stephen Fry), and enough gun fire, both in slow motion and Gatling gun fast, to start a major war (which it foretells). For me, it partook too much of the senselessness of a Michael Bay violence orgy, and its set pieces were well-crafted, operatic duds.

My Week with Marilyn ****

"My Week With Marilyn" amuses and instructs as it dramatizes the memoir of a movie-struck young Colin Clark, just out of university, who becomes a gopher and a bit more on the set of his first film, "The Prince and the Showgirl," starring Marilyn Monroe and Sir Lawrence Olivier. Olivier directed this romantic comedy, shot in the late summer of 1956 in England, and the expected clashes between the moody Method actress and the old-school professional were in full flower. From Colin's perspective, it was all wonderful, and his insight into the forces at work was mature beyond his years. "You represent the future to him," he tells Marilyn, "and he represents respectability to you, and neither of you will get what you want from this film."

Colin becomes a trusted confidant, almost a friend, of Marilyn, and he's clearly, deeply infatuated, despite all the warnings from everyone around him. Sometimes it's just commiseration he gets. Watching him on the set, Dame Sybil Thorndike, deliciously played by Judi Dench, observes, "Young love is such sweet despair."

Kenneth Branagh plays the buttoned-up Olivier with relish, and his increasing clenched-jaw frustration with the always late and seldom prepared Marilyn is a masterpiece of contained fury. But this is Michelle Williams' movie, who captures the "blond bombshell" persona that Norma Jeane so carefully created. Williams doesn't try to explain Marilyn, but she succeeds beautifully in showing us her many sides, without apology, without filters or distance. It's a beguiling performance, and a superb film.

The Muppets ***

"The Muppets" is an enjoyable, nostalgic diversion for adults and a good time for kids, who I suppose don't know the characters. I doubt that it's a reboot of the franchise, but it's a nice addition to the canon. The Muppets, now retired or working other jobs, all get together again to save the old Muppet Theater from a nefarious oil man (a suitably oily Chris Cooper) who just wants to drill, baby, and not, as he claims, to restore its former glory.

Aided by super-fans Gary and Mary from the heartland (Jason Segal and Amy Adams), along with Gary's kid brother Walter, who now knows himself to be a Muppet, Kermie assembles the old gang and starts rehearsing a show to raise the money to buy out the oilman before their time runs out. Even Miss Piggy takes a break from her high fashion job to lend a hand. It's a time-honored device, and with tongue firmly in cheek, a fun one.

If the movie has a flaw, it's the surfeit of tongues in cheek, meant I guess as knowing winks to the adults in the audience. I think we're capable of getting it without the winks. Otherwise, the songs are fair to good, the dancing energetic and resolutely cheerful, and the performances are fine, by both the Muppets and the humans alike. Take the kids and enjoy.

Melancholia ****

Graced with a mercurial, incandescent performance by Kirsten Dunst, Lars von Trier's lyrical, beautiful "Melancholia" examines both the clinical depression of Justine, Miss Dunst's character, and the harried panic of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as both face the end of the world. The end is coming from the imminent collision of a rogue planet, called Melancholia, with Earth.

Isolated on their seaside estate, surrounded by golf links with riding horses at hand, the sisters, along with Claire's husband and young son face the end, each in their own way. The atmosphere of this disaster movie is low tech and poetic, with nothing more than a telescope and a loop of wire for scientific props. The science seems quite solid, once you accept the existence of such a planet as Melancholia, but the subject is the damaged people on screen.

The first half of the film concerns the disastrous wedding reception that Claire has organized for Justine, and hand held camerawork, as throughout the movie, infuses the scenes with a verisimilitude that is mesmerizing. The second half hurtles toward the termination of life and mankind in an operatic and almost mystical progression, accompanied by the ecstatically tragic and accepting strains of the Liebestod from "Tristan und Isolde."

You may choose to interpret "Melancholia" as a metaphor for depression and suicide, or a judgement against the cancer of life on an insignificant planet, or a film tone poem about disconnection and isolation, or an unusually subtle science fiction movie, but it will most certainly make an impression.

The Descendants ****

Remarkable for George Clooney's best performance in years, for it's depiction of Hawaii as a place where people live and have lived for generations, for its respectful, sympathetic, and realistic portrayal of family life dealing with the impending death of a loved one, "The Descendants" is a heartfelt drama without histrionics. Director Alexander Payne ("Sideways") achieves in this film an evenness of tone appropriate not just to Hawaiian life, but to the everyday prose of American experience these days.

When his wife suffers a severe head injury in a boating accident, busy lawyer, family trust executor, and "back-up parent" Matt King (Clooney) must reconnect with his daughters, ages 10 and 17, and the life and the wife he seems to have been too busy to deal with. We see his connections and his history as he must deal with his responsibilities as a father, as business head of his clan, and as a husband. Adapted from the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, the screenplay does a masterful job of saying just enough, and leaving it to Clooney to convey what is unspoken, the sharp retorts that are swallowed before they can erupt.

I'll even grant a dispensation for the violation of one of my cardinal rules: show, don't tell (when a screenwriter dies, he becomes a narrator, you know), because the voice over by Matt King not only gives context, and allows the film to devote its time to him and his daughters, but in its just-the-facts plainness, provides some insight into his character and defenses. Not just Clooney, but the rest of the cast is first rate, especially Shailene Woodley as the older, recovering addict daughter. For a truly excellent film with no visible special effects, this one is my pick.