2012 is like a 1970s disaster film on steroids. Instead of a towering inferno or a sinking cruiseliner, we have the whole planet Earth getting destroyed. Because that, ladies and gentleman, is how Roland Emmerich rolls.

2012 is a lot like Emmerich’s other apocalyptically-inclined gems—Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow—except the special effects are better and the film may even be more treacly.

Yes, buried amid the rubble (and the tsunamis and the giant earthquakes that cause whole cities to split in two—neat!) is a message about caring for your fellow man. Kumbaya, brother—and watch out for that flying Eiffel Tower.

2012 has everything you would expect from this sort of big budget, high-minded schlock. Some humor (much provided by Woody Harrelson as a conspiracy nutcase who just may be right this time), some serious-sounding scientific jargon (brought to you with appropriate “run the numbers again!” dismay by Chewetel Ejiofor), some familial bonding (still-lovable John...

When I saw the trailer for The Men Who Stare at Goats, I got pretty excited. A military satire based on a true(ish) story about a secret branch of the army that tried to develop human super powers, staring Jeff Bridges as its baked commander and George Clooney as a wild-eyed true believer? Count me in.

But here’s the problem: The trailer is better than the film. The trailer lays out the storyline and shows some of the film’s best jokes—men trying to rush through walls and drive while blindfolded; George Clooney giving a death stare to a goat; Kevin Spacey expressing his regrets about a couple’s divorce at their wedding—but the movie itself is glib and unfocused. Sad to say, it works better edited down to four minutes.

Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a recently divorced reporter looking to prove to his ex-wife just how macho he is. He goes to Kuwait where he meets Clooney’s Lyn Cassady who tells him about the First Earth Battalion, a classified military program started in the ’70s that practiced mind control...

The trials of Job in 1950s Midwestern Jewish suburbia. That might be the best way to describe the dark comedy A Serious Man, which many are saying is the Coen brothers most personal film to date.

What, then, to make of the film’s protagonist, Larry Gopnik, played by New York theater vet Michael Stuhlbarg, and clearly a stand-in for Joel and Ethan’s dad? Yes, Larry is a decent man—his quest to be a serious one is open to debate. But he’s also a total doormat.

Early in the film, Larry’s wife (Sari Lennick) tells him she’s leaving him for family friend Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed). Somehow she manages to turn this announcement into a harangue—she’s annoyed at Larry because he forced her to cheat on him (or something like that). Sy, on the other hand, wants to prove what a mensch he is by comforting Larry. “It’s going to be okay,” he repeats unctuously, enveloping Larry in an unwanted embrace.

At the university where Larry teaches physics, a Korean student (drolly funny Danny Kang) tries to blackmail Larry into giving him a passing grade. Larry is outraged,...

I had something of a revelation about Michael Moore during  his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story: The man just can’t help himself.

Many of us watch Moore’s films and think: If only he’d be a little more temperate, if only he would lay it on a little less thick, if only he could avoid the easy mark or the knee-jerk sentimentality—then he could successfully deflect all of his critics.

But then, I realized, Moore wouldn’t be Moore. His mournful over-identification with the plight of the working man—and his sense of himself as their champion—isn’t manufactured or cynical in any way. It is who he is. It makes him great. It also, let’s face it, makes him a bit of a pain in the neck.

So it is with Capitalism: A Love Story, which is not Moore’s best work (I’d vote for Bowling for Columbine), but carries his usual sense of impeccable timing: America is just about as fed up with capitalism as he is.

Moore is grappling with his favorite themes here: Greed, government collusion, the exploitation of...