Journey 2: The Mysterious Island opens with the adorable Josh Hutcherson riding a motorcycle, evading the police, and crashing in a pool after having just broken into a satellite center to receive an encrypted message from his grandfather, who has been lost for goodness knows how many years.

For a Natalie Portman fan, 2011 was an up-and-down year. After rocketing back into the minds of audiences and critics with her captivating, Oscar-winning performance as a troubled ballerina in Black Swan, Portman became one of the most in-demand stars of the year.

There are several inherent problems with films that are "based on a true story." For one, the phrase is something of an oxymoron—stories usually imply fiction, so how can they be a "true" fiction? But the bigger problem for me is how close to the truth is that word "based?

Denzel Washington is the type of actor that you can set your watch to. Virtually every time he graces the silver screen, the audience is assured that he will give a genuine performance.

Where Have You Gone, James Dean?

One year after his untimely death at the ripe age of 24, James Dean had accomplished what few actors had achieved in the history of Hollywood.

By 1956, the defiant icon had been given two posthumous Oscar nominations, one in the previous year for his debut screen role in East of Eden and the other for his final film Giant.

As another attempt at the "found film" genre, Chronicle is a unique twist on the classic superpowers-type movie. The film revolves around Seattle suburbs teenager Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), who begins documenting his life with a high quality camera.

Very few movies about whales have made their mark on pop culture history. In fact, only the Free Willy film series has had a remarkable impact. Simply put, whales are incapable of carrying movies, in the way that dogs, cats, or even penguins can.

The Woman in Black tells the story of a small town that has the misfortune of being haunted by—you guessed it—the ghost of a woman dressed in black. When she was alive, the townspeople took her son away, and now her revenge entails taking away all of their children

A Note On Memorable Soundtracks

I've always jokingly told my parents—at times half-serious—that I have almost no memory of my life before middle school. Aside from random recollections of crashing enemy Star Wars figurines together or sliding around the frozen lake hockey rink with my old dog Sota (yes, that's short for Minnesota), there are very few memories I still hold on to from my preteen years.

One for the Money is an action comedy following the first bounty-hunting escapade of Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl), a 30-year-old Jersey girl who is down on her luck with no job and no man in her life. What starts as a simple bounty turns into a bigger mess as Plum gets in way over her head when her complete lack of experience comes up against hardened criminals.

Liam Neeson fights wolves. If The Grey could be summed up in this one simplistic phrase, it would be worth seeing for the spectacle alone.

Sifting Through the Oscar Snubs

At the beginning of the week, I was having some trouble deciding on what to write for this column. Then I woke up on Tuesday and saw the Oscar nominations.

Spielberg’s New Epic Fails To Live Up To Previous Hits

The last time Steven Spielberg set out to direct a war movie, it became the cinematic masterpiece known as Saving Private Ryan. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including the prestigious Best Picture, the film was a gritty look at the lives of soldiers on a mission to save Private James Ryan, whose three brothers had already succumbed to the war. Known for its intense opening battle scene depicting the arrival of U.S. Troops at Normandy, the movie has become a permanent staple in most film and history class curriculums. The chances of Spielberg's latest war epic, War Horse, having the same impact on film culture, however, are significantly slimmer.

9/11 Drama Loses Steam

When a film is adapted from a best-selling novel, it is unavoidably vulnerable to comparison and criticism, but when that novel's driving plot is the sensitive, tragic disaster of 9/11 (as in Jonathan Safran Foer's 2005 novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), it is an even greater challenge to create a film that will please rather than offend the majority of viewers.

It comes as no surprise that history's greatest leaders make fascinating fodder for film, but the only thing more interesting than a great leader is a controversial one. Past films about Malcolm X and General Patton call for the audience's support as the true-life figure leads a well-known group toward a noble success.