The protagonist of Simon Killer wanders the streets of Paris alone, often shot from the back so we see what he sees, the City of Lights never having looked this seedy and dangerous and menacing. Simon (Brady Corbet) has just graduated from college and broken up with his longtime girlfriend, so he decides to take a European vacation and clear his head. France is his first stop. He’ll stay there a lot longer than he anticipated.

Director J.J. Abrams steers the USS Enterprise in a surprising direction in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness.’

At the start of Iron Man 3, the usually loquacious billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is off his game. Having learned of the existence of aliens and alternate universes in The Avengers, Stark is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He’s had his mind blown, and he’s having trouble readjusting. For Christmas, he buys his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) a stuffed rabbit the size of a small building. When a terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) starts making threats on live TV and blowing up bombs, Stark gives his home address to a news crew and challenges the villain to attack him — which he does.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I mentally checked out of Terrence Malick’s torturous To the Wonder and started thinking “Wankage!” It was the scene in which Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams are standing in the midst of a bison herd and nuzzling romantically, like love-struck horses. “What if the animals suddenly started to stampede?” I thought. “Are they being careful where they step? What are they doing in the middle of a herd of bison, anyway? Wouldn’t it stink to high heaven there? Couldn’t they get a room?”

Sequels, giant robots and superheroes are hurtling our way.

The documentary ‘Room 237,’ which explores the bizarre theories surrounding the 1980 horror classic, is being screened as part of a Stanley Kubrick retrospective at O Cinema Wynwood.

Director Michael Bay uses humor to recount an incredible story involving bodybuilders, drugs and murder.

For its first hour or so, Oblivion is a visually mesmerizing, intriguing picture that doesn’t feel like the same-old: It engages your eyes and piques your curiosity. Then, gradually, the novelty wears off, the clichés start to pile up and we’re back to Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia 101. In his follow-up to TRON: Legacy, director Joseph Kosinski, with the aid of Oscar-winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi), crafts some dazzling images and beautiful designs (the movie was shot using 4K cameras and enormous rear projections instead of green screens; see it in IMAX if you can). He also teases you with the story, letting you know right from the start things may not be what they seem.

The Place Beyond the Pines, the new film by the director of Blue Valentine, does not lack for ambition. Beginning with its bravura opening shot — an uninterrupted take of Luke (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider, as he dresses in his tent and walks through a carnival to the stage where he’ll be performing — director Derek Cianfrance lets us know he’s working on a larger canvas. But while the scope of the movie is bigger, its impact is smaller. Blue Valentine was a precise, heartrending portrait of a marriage coming apart at the seams. The theme of his new movie is a lot harder to discern.

The Place Beyond the Pines, the new film by the director of Blue Valentine, does not lack for ambition. Beginning with its bravura opening shot — an uninterrupted take of Luke (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider, as he dresses in his tent and walks through a carnival to the stage where he’ll be performing — director Derek Cianfrance lets us know he’s working on a larger canvas. But while the scope of the movie is bigger, its impact is smaller. Blue Valentine was a precise, heartrending portrait of a marriage coming apart at the seams. The theme of his new movie is a lot harder to discern.

One person believes The Shining was Stanley Kubrick’s commentary on the Holocaust. Another points out clues that reveal the film is really about the genocide of Native Americans.

Where The Artist paid loving homage to the past with a wink to the present, Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves, a radical reimagining of the Snow White fairy tale, is the genuine article: a black and white silent film, set in 1920s Spain, that uses the camera tricks and effects of the era and almost never cheats. What’s more, unlike Hollywood’s recent plunderings of classic fables for modern audiences (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Snow White and the Huntsman, Red Riding Hood), Blancanieves is a true adaptation and not an appropriation. The film uses the Brothers Grimm story as a foundation for an original story, although most of the iconic elements are accounted for (the wicked stepmother, the poisoned apple, etc.).

When The Evil Dead invaded movie theaters in 1983, it detonated an atomic bomb on a stale horror-film genre overrun by masked killers and teen slashers. Made on a tiny budget, sporting Stephen King’s personal seal of approval and released unrated for its violence, the movie launched the careers of actor Bruce Campbell (Burn Notice), director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) and producer Robert G. Tapert (TV’s Spartacus: War of the Damned). Watching it in a theater was a riotous experience: The audience screamed and laughed and gasped in shock at the situations these unknown filmmakers had conjured up, making Freddy and Jason and Michael seem like schoolyard wimps.

Original director Sam Raimi and producer Bruce Campbell took a hands-on approach to the remake, directed by Fede Alvarez.

“Spring break forever!” is the mantra constantly spouted by Alien (James Franco), a drug-dealing thug whose goal in life is to be bad, always do the wrong thing and make money. Alien sports grill in his mouth, his hair dangles in ugly cornrows and his body is covered with tattoos (including a giant dollar sign on his neck). Above his bed hangs an arsenal of shotguns, pistols, swords and nunchuks. He keeps Scarface playing on a perpetual loop on his TV. And when he sees four college girls (Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine) being sent to jail after getting arrested in a raid, he pays their bail and takes them under his evil wings. He becomes their Svengali figure — a Peter Pan for these lost girls overcome by the craziness of St. Petersburg during spring break. Some of them won’t be able to keep up with him, though.

Director Harmony Korine and actor James Franco explore the dark side of hedonism.

Oz the Great and Powerful is an oppressive, bloated bore, the latest argument that CGI kills the imaginations of talented filmmakers. George Lucas fell prey to it with the Star Wars prequels. Tim Burton’s best movie remains 1994’s Ed Wood, which was ironically about a filmmaker who made cheap, lo-fi movies. Michael Bay’s pictures keep getting worse. James Cameron has become so obsessed with the technology that he’s apparently going to spend the rest of his career making Avatar sequels. Steven Spielberg was seduced with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, but he learned his lesson quickly (most of War Horse, which would have been easier to make using special effects, was shot largely without CGI).

Here is the complete list of nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. Herald movie critic Rene Rodriguez’s predictions are in red.

Academy Award nominees usually make for a stale bunch, but things are different this year

Early on in A Good Day to Die Hard comes a prolonged car/truck chase through the clogged streets of Moscow that contains some of the most impressive stunt driving I’ve ever seen in a movie. As far as I could tell, director John Moore (Max Payne, The Omen) used little to no CGI in the entire sequence. Those are real 18-wheelers and tankers and dump trucks smashing into each other, and the tactile feel of the scene, which goes on for at least 15 minutes, gets the movie off to a super-fun start. It’s an orgy of Hollywood bombast and destruction at its most wanton.

The main thing to keep in mind while watching Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Side Effects is not to take the movie too seriously or else you’ll feel betrayed by the end. The movie, written by Soderbergh’s frequent collaborator Scott Z. Burns (The Informant!), is much more Magic Mike than Contagion — the filmmakers are above all else having fun here — although the backdrop of psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies and the potential side effects of new-to-market prescription meds ground the story in a serious reality that initially feels like an exposé.

The director’s latest film is a playful puzzle - with a body count