Reviews: Zero Dark Thirty, Amour, This is 40, Not Fade Away and On the Road

Hey, when you've got this many films to review, it's hard to get clever with the title. Caught up with a lot of films this week, but I've gotta keep it short due to holiday madness.

Two movies - "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Amour" - were among the best I've seen this year. Kathryn Bigelow's hunt for bin Laden film is a superior CIA thriller that bears more in common with David Fincher's "Zodiac" than most war films. And Michael Haneke's Palm d'Or winner is a typically austere affair for the Austrian filmmaker, but is a more humane work than a typical Haneke outing. I don't mean that as a criticism as the filmmaker is one of Europe's best.

I dug "Not Fade Away," though it doesn't completely come together and "This is 40" is funny and charming enough, despite that it's a bit too long. "On the Road" is visually lush, but lacks the punch of Jack Kerouac's classic novel. It's not a bad film, but just an OK one.

I'd hoped to get into it more on all of these films on this blog, but as I said, it's a bit hectic as it's Christmas Eve.

Here are my Patch reviews.

This coming weekend, I'll review Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables," Gus Van Sant's "Promised Land" and "The Impossible." I also plan to see "Jack Reacher" and the critically acclaimed "Tabu." And, on Dec. 30, keep an eye out for my top 10, second 10 and worst 10 films of the year.