Zero Dark Thirty begins in darkness, not the pitch of night or space; rather simply, it starts with the black frame and voices. Instantly, we recognize the voices as those belonging to desperate callers on Sept. 11, 2001.  

The “story” of Roger Michell’s new film, Hyde Park on Hudson, derives from the personal letters of Daisy (Laura Linney), the nominal protagonist who happens to have been a distant cousin of President Franklin Roosevelt (Bill Murray).   

Two shots. That’s all it takes for Anne Hathaway to deliver what could arguably be the greatest performance in movie musical history.  

This Is 40 is only the fourth feature film directed by Apatow (following The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Funny People), but he has tickled our funny bones onscreen as a producer (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Superbad, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Bridesmaids) and a writer (Fun with Dick and Jane, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Pineapple Express).  

Consider this a mission or statement of purpose for next year’s film coverage. The seed of the idea began at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where I decided to go, as I stated, where the frames took me.  

I’ve long had a soft spot for books about the movies. My space-challenged loft features a shelving unit, embarrassingly overstuffed from floor to ceiling, dedicated to the topic — from collections of critical essays and reviews to interviews with or biographies on filmmakers to wide-ranging histories of an art form that’s still in its relative infancy.  

Director Sacha Gervasi attempts to frame Hitchcock as a love story between the director and his wife Alma, a rekindling of their passion for one another without actually presenting evidence of the initial spark or the carefully laid foundation between them.  

Right off the bat in Lincoln, director Steven Spielberg gives us one of his signature moments, a framing device in the story that is supposed to be based on historic facts that smacks of pure invention and threatens to derail our investment in, not just the individual moment, but the film as a whole.  

Slowing down, in the Buddhist way, is all about opening oneself up to the cacophony of life. Audiences should keep this notion in mind during screenings of The Sessions, the new film from writer-director Ben Lewin, featuring John Hawkes in one of those quietly human performances.  

I’m not certain when the feeling set in for me, but at some point during the Flight screening I attended, I was overcome with the sense of observing the dark days of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the virtuoso Texas guitarist who died in the early 1990s after years of working as a sideman (most notably with David Bowie on his 1980s classic Let’s Dance) and taking center stage with his own band.