But where’s Drive?

It’s not often you get an All-American Sports Movie that celebrates the joys of cold, clinical science over fuzzy, intangible human emotion, but then Moneyball isn’t exactly your average sports movie. The true story of a baseball squad that defeated the odds by taking emotion out of the game, Moneyball combines the frankly terrifying talents of Bennett Miller, Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian and Brad Pitt; expertly demonstrating the true potential of a perfectly constructed team.

Wondering what to fill your days with in 2012? We recommend some light viewing, considering the world will probably be over then. Here are our best and worst for next year. Prepare to be angry, then a little happy, then quite confused, and then happy again.

Take a deep breath and prepare yourself for an exhaustive year of EPIC action films. 2012 is the official year of explosive sequels, daring superheroes and hardcore fairy tales. Just make sure you have an oxygen tank nearby.

Having largely dropped the slapstick and pop-culture references for one-off masterpiece How To Train Your Dragon, DreamWorks return to what is ostensibly their comfort zone with Megamind, a post-modern take on a genre previously tapped by rival animation studio Pixar. Mindful of their past mistakes however, Megamind is another animated heavyweight that should have Pixar stand up and take notice.

Everybody knows Christmas is a time for cinema, but this year there aren’t many fresh festive treats being served up. So in the spirit of charity and knowing what it’s like not to want to talk to your family, we’ve scoured the charts for December and found the films most likely to placate your clan for most of the festive season. Did someone say ‘eye-popping CGI and childish plotlines’?

John C Reilly and Jonah Hill plod happily through comedy/drama Cyrus; it’s just such a shame that their material never quite matches their obvious talent. Though a few moments of great dark humour lift the storyline, dreadful camera work and a lack-lustre ending drag Cyrus’s high flying stars down almost to amateur level.

Get Him To The Greek foolishly promotes a supporting player – Russell Brand’s egotistical rock star Aldous Snow from the 2008 relationship comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall – to centre stage in his own film. You can have too much of a good thing and we have our fill of Aldous’s sexist outbursts well before the first hour.

Believe it or not, Baywatch: The Movie has been floating around (brilliant) for a while now, but there’s never been any word on director or cast members. However, perhaps with the announcement of the writers; Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, other news might come flooding in (somebody stop us!)

It’s always a bit awkward when Adam Sandler tries a serious role, so when viewing this comedy-drama in which he plays a successful comedian coming to terms with a cancer diagnosis, we approached with caution. Sandler actually proves his chops as an emerging dramatic actor well, and Seth Rogen is equally capable in support as the struggling amateur comic who Sandler decides to mentor. Naturally, the pairing of these two giants of the genre along with the equally impressive Judd Apatow as writer/director delivers a load of laughs, but a lack of balance in the script as a whole means it’s not as good as it could be.