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To Rome with Love is nowhere near the level of last year's Woody Allen masterpiece, Midnight in Paris. Even so, I like that Allen is wandering around Europe, admiring all the architecture. If he wants to do several more themed city movies such as these, I am all for the idea. To Rome with Love is a sloppy affair with several low points. Still, when I recall the send-up of celebrity, done better in this movie than in Allen's own Celebrity, I laugh. And the singing in the shower bit leads to an illogical but hysterical conclusion. Overall, I enjoy To Rome with Love enough to recommend it.

Lockout is something of a first for Guy Pearce. He always portrays these precise, measured characters who are in control of their environment at all times. In Lockout, Pearce tries something altogether different and the result is mesmerizing. This movie is his Snake Plissken in Escape from New York, his Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China. This is Pearce playing a callous rogue who can quip with the best of them. I absolutely love the movie and consider this to be one of Pearce's most impressive acting gigs. After years of sameness, he really surprised me here.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a blueprint example of how a producer can win at romantic comedy simply through the casting. This premise, while novel, is not the least bit noteworthy. An uptight fisherman is tasked with the relocation of salmon to a hostile environment. That's it; that's the movie. With Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor as the romantic leads and Amr Waked as the motivated Sheikh, there are three root-worthy characters in this movie. Throw in Kristen Scott Thomas in a role akin to In the Loop and suddenly a dull premise becomes an engrossing feature. I don't think this will wind up in my top 10 for the year because 2012 has been great thus far. It will be way up there, though.

I committed the cardinal sin of film criticism by having a specific expectation for Savages. All of the early conversation about the film said that it hearkened back to Oliver Stone's 1994 release, Natural Born Killers. That's a title I disliked due to its pointless violence. I expected more of the same from Savages. To my surprise, there are only a few such elements in the film. Otherwise, this is a Traffic-esque tale of how a woman becomes the leader of a powerful drug cartel. That's on the evil side. On the hero (or at least anti-hero) side, there is a fascinating story that could just as easily have been the basis of Wall Street 3. A pair of dynamic businessmen create a product everybody wants and so big business (or in this case a big drug cartel) tries to buy them out. They are reticent and everyone winds up in court. Okay, since it's not Wall Street 3, everyone winds up firing guns but the point remains. Savages is not the movie its reputation would indicate and I quite enjoyed it.

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