Moneyball ****

A business case study masquerading as a sports story, "Moneyball" uses the conventions of baseball movies to construct a drama as interesting as it is emotionally satisfying. A baseball movie like no other baseball movie, "Moneyball" tells the true story of Oakland A's manager Billy Beane's endeavor to put together a baseball team with little money by using a quantitative analysis of the characteristic performance of players who would fit together, rather than paying big bucks for all-around stars. Brad Pitt as Beane turns in a characteristically workmanlike portrayal that is pitch perfect. Jonah Hill as the number cruncher Peter Brand, a Yale graduate in economics who came up with the analysis, is just as good and believable portraying the walking, talking baseball computer and encyclopedia that Brand was. It may sound like a marketing cliche, but you definitely do not have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this well-made movie.

Drive ****

"Drive," a Los Angeles-set film noir starring Ryan Gosling and directed by cult favorite Nicolas Winding Refn ("Bronson," "Pusher," "Valhalla Rising"), is all about style. There is a spareness, an economy, an unhurried pace that allows actors long silences that nevertheless communicate, a dreamlike use of slow motion and lyricism that is operatic in its concentration of emotion that is the mark of a true master. It's no wonder that Refn won the Best Director prize at Cannes this year for this film.

Gosling plays a movie stunt driver and mechanic who moonlights as a getaway driver. All cool control, his competence is all we know about him. Then he meets a neighbor (Carey Mulligan) who has a young son, and he starts to show some signs of feelings. Then the violence of his moonlighting world and her past change everything. The violence that comes is brutal and shocking, but his cool command continues.

"Drive" is an unsettling film, but beautiful in its way, and full of sharply drawn characters from the underbelly of L.A.

Contagion ****

With considerable economy despite a large number of characters and story lines, director Steven Soderberg masterfully tells the story of a high-mortality world-wide flu epidemic in "Contagion." Starting with Day 2 of the outbreak, the film follows a visitor to Hong Kong who turns out to be patient zero in the outbreak. Soon ever-widening effects involve her family, the CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO), Homeland Security, Internet rumor-mongers, and authorities and first responders at all levels. Taut at 106 minutes, and grippingly suspenseful, carefully-chosen characters played by truly stellar actors represent very personal and relateable stories, sometimes for the briefest of periods. The main story lines follow patient zero (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her husband (Matt Damon); CDC head (Laurence Fishburn), field investigator (Kate Winslet), and vaccine researcher (Jennifer Ehle); a WHO investigator (Marion Cotillard); and a health and alternative medicine blogger (Jude Law). It's a reality-based story with real science underpinnings, not another cinematic Armageddon, which, in the end, only adds to the drama.

The Debt ***

A tense and intense but unusual suspense thriller set in two time periods, "The Debt" jumps back from 1997 Israel to a mission in 1966 when three Mossad agents, now older and widely respected, were sent to East Germany to capture a notorious Nazi war criminal. There is clearly something about the adulation they have lived with that doesn't sit right, and a shocking event forces the older Rachel Singer, masterfully played by Helen Mirren, to remember the events in East Berlin as they closed in on their target. The remarkable Jessica Chastain ("The Tree of Life") plays the young Rachel, working with the leader Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington). The raw dynamics of the trio affects their work and their lives forever, and the older Rachel must undertake to set things right. Beautifully realized in both time periods, and provocative in its implications, this movie is both a well-crafted work of art and an incitement to debate. It's the kind of serious movie many want, but seldom find.

Our Idiot Brother ***

"Our Idiot Brother" is humorous, touching, almost fable-like, in its study of the effect that an innocent can have on lives that are too caught up in the less than innocent schemes and posturings of every day life. Three very normal sisters, normal, that is, by contemporary middle-class American standards, deal with the trials and failings of their brother Ned, who is something of a throw-back to the 'sixties, a resolutely, nay, adamantly trusting soul. It's hard to imagine anyone else than Paul Rudd playing Ned. The child-like purity he projects rings true, and creates the perfect foil for the driving ambitions of his sisters, convincingly played by a trio of talented actresses: Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, and Emily Mortimer. The extended family, from Mom to husbands, boyfriends, and girlfriends are sharply drawn, but quirky and real, while the villains are suitably one-dimensional, and more to be pitied for their lack of depth than hated. It's a sweet film that will excite laughter and a knowing smile or two.

The Whistleblower ****

A gritty drama based on the true experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia, "The Whistleblower" recounts the story of a dedicated officer uncovering and finally exposing the involvement of the U.N. in very troubling sex trafficking. Rachel Weisz plays the part of Bolkovac in a very straight-forward manner, both as one sworn to serve and protect as well as a mother concerned for the treatment of women and young girls in the male-dominated, brutal conditions she finds in her assignment. The movie covers a lot of ground, from her background in the U.S. to the origins of the exploited girls, to the web of involvement and cover-up she confronts, but manages to hold it all together. Basically a dirty-cop story, writer/director Larysa Kondracki takes a very intimate, personal approach to her subject. Weisz, as usual, delivers outstanding work, and supporting players, which include Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn, are solid. Overall, it's an excellent, serious movie well told.

The Guard ****

An enjoyable, intriguing, funny cop story with a thriller edge that pits a free-thinking, prejudiced Irish cop with authority issues (Brendan Gleeson) against an uptight visiting American FBI agent (Don Cheadle) in a drug smuggling case. The Irish setting makes for interesting local color, although the heavy brogue might make it a better Netflix candidate so you can replay the dialogue when necessary. The script, by John Michael McDonagh, who also directed, for me has echoes of "In Bruges." And not just because of the towering presence of Brendan Gleeson, but in its self-conscious and ironical tone and movie and pop culture references. Like that earlier movie, it has heart and lots of laughs.