Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972). This intricate, cerebral, elusive drama from the acknowledged master of intricate, cerebral, elusive dramas takes place at stately mansion at the end of the 19th century. A woman named Agnes, played by Harriet Andersson, is on her deathbed and is seen to by her two sisters, both returned home due to their sibling’s terrible need, and the loving household maid. Each character gets their own individual segment, usually devoted to a flashback to some terrible emotional incident in the past, Bergman scraping at their existential agony like a merciless physician slicing at a poisonous growth with little concern for the healthy tissue that may surround it. The movie is grounded in the complexity of the deep feelings that rule people, paying special attention to the ways that acrimony and love intermingle and may even depend upon each other. It’s also a feat of visual beauty, largely attributable the heroic cinematography by Bergman’s usual collaborator Sven Nykvist, who won the first of his two Oscars for this film.

The Thing (Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, 2011). The genealogy of this one is a bear to work out. It’s a prequel to John Carpenter’s excellent 1982 horror film of the same name, which was itself a remake of a 1951 film credited to director Christian Nyby but widely understood to be the handiwork of Howard Hawks. The new version traffics in so much homage to the Carpenter effort that it often feels less like a prequel and more like a gentle revamp and certainly a desperate reboot coveting some franchise legs. In fact, it clings so wantonly to the style, technique and structural foundation of Carpenter’s film that is demonstrates the sturdiness of his approach while looking all the worse for the comparison. The basis conceit that Carpenter exploited expertly–a group of regular guy scientists isolated in Antarctica face off against rampaging monsters that take on shifting, unbelievable forms while also dealing with the inconvenient problem that the creature in question can expertly mimic any of them–provides such a fine foundation that parts of the newer film work, almost in spite of the efforts of the filmmakers. The problem is that no one involved with the newer production seems capable in the slightest of injecting the characters (or the film itself, really) with any discernible personality. Without that key element, the film is just an empty exercise in mounting mayhem.

The Dilemma (Ron Howard, 2011). Even with his best films, Ron Howard’s not the sort of director who dazzles with the vividness of his authorial voice. He’s usually a solid enough craftsman, though, but The Dilemma utterly flummoxes him, rapidly turning into a muddled mess in search of any sort of consistency whatsoever. Vince Vaughn and Kevin James play partners in a Chicago design company who are under pressure to land a major contract with one of the big automakers, a stressful professional opportunity that unfortunately coincides with Vaughn’s character discovering that his pal’s wife is cheating on him. What follows sometimes wants to be farcical, sometimes wants to be shrewdly complex and sometimes wants to be darkly witty. It winds up achieving none of these things and veering all over the place in the process. Neither of the two leads really seems up to the material, but Vaughn seems especially miscast, approaching the material with his trademark motor-mouthed comic hostility in a way that completely undercuts the character’s moral wrestling.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (Paul Newman, 1972). Paul Newman, admittedly not without bias in the matter, reportedly felt that his wife Joanne Woodward gave the best performance of her career in this adaptation of Paul Zindel’s Pulitzer Prize winning play. She plays a down-on-her-luck woman raising her two daughters in a ramshackle house and making constant social missteps as she dreams of the point when she can open up her own little tea shop, an event that will surely turn all their lives around. I agree with her hubby about the performance. Woodward is ferociously committed to the role, playing this lower class woman in all her brash ugliness but also allowing her shreds of pride and dignity, a misguided confidence in herself and her own strength. The whole film is a painful slice-of-life and Newman presents it with a laudable attentiveness. This was his third film as a director, and, at this point anyway, he was demonstrating a remarkable facility with the craft. The movie, necessarily, is a bruiser.

Cedar Rapids (Miguel Arteta, 2011). This comedy is about a sheltered small-town Wisconsin insurance agent who gets the opportunity to go to a major convention in the big wild city that provides the film its title. As played by Ed Helms, the character is probably a touch too naive, slipping dangerously close to caricature as he’s pushed into tight-lipped worry by the prospect of turning over his credit card to a hotel clerk or discovering that he’s sharing a room with an African-American. There’s a humorous authenticity, though, to the scenes of uptight business people approaching their boondoggle weekend in a chintzy hotel as if they’ve just gained entry to Caligula’s pig roast and hootenanny. Like a lot of Miguel Arteta efforts, it sputters out before the end, but there are at least some charms to be found here. If nothing else, it’s very funny to see Isiah Whitlock, Jr. of The Wire switch from nerdy insurance hawker to tough-talking thug and then credit his fandom of the landmark HBO series for giving him the chops to do it (he’s doing an impression of Omar from the show), a splendid inside joke that the filmmakers apparently stumbled upon rather than orchestrated.