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With HOODWINKED TOO! and this film, the Little Red Riding fairy tale has inspired two of the worst films of 2011. Catherine Hardwicke embraced campy romance to some degree in the original TWILIGHT film, but she has a whole forest of sap here. The only bright spots are the always-good Amanda Seyfried and her crimson cloak.

Seyfried plays Valerie, a young woman who is in love with the lowly woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez, DEAD GIRL), who in between chopping wood must spend the rest of his time in the salon to maintain that perfect “Team Edward” coif. Unfortunately she has been set up in an arranged marriage with Henry (Max Irons, DORIAN GRAY). Their village made a truce with a werewolf years ago, but the beast is back and has killed Valerie’s sister.

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Narratively the original HOODWINKED was a mess, but there were moments of general inspiration within cliché and tired routines. The sequel is just cliché and tired routines. The original was done independently on the cheap and looked it, but this one feels cheaper because it has no purpose other than to cash in on the surprise success of the original.

Unlike the mysterious RASHOMON-like plot of the first film, this picture is pretty straight forward. It’s perfectly structured as a “good” screenplay is supposed to be structured, but leaves no surprises along the way. Red (Hayden Panettiere, TV’s HEROES) is off training with the Sisters of the Hood, while Wolf (Patrick Warburton, TV’s SEINFELD) is manning the spy agency they now work for. After Red’s Granny (Glenn Close, FATAL ATTRACTION) is kidnapped by Verushka the witch (Joan Cusack, WORKING GIRL), Red is called back to investigate.

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What if simply telling the truth could get you fired, hurt or even killed? What if you went to work and your employer made you go out in a tornado just to use the alternative bathroom? What if you had to raise other people’s children while someone else was raising yours? When would you ever feel free?

Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis, DOUBT) lives under these conditions in the early ’60s in Jackson, Mississippi. She is the maid of Elizabeth Leefolt (Ahna O’Reilly, NANCY DREW), a housewife who does no house work. Like so many in her circle, she is more interested in impressing Mrs. Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard, SPIDER-MAN 3), a cruel bully who is pushing for an initiative to require homes with black help to have a separate bathroom for them. “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone, CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.) has been friends with these women since grade school, but instead of leaving high school and getting married like so many of them, she went to college to study journalism. Now she wants to write something important.

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Writer/director Mike Mills based this drama on his own experiences with his father. That touch of authenticity washes over this sad and funny film. The story takes place over three time periods. The main character’s interactions with his mother when he was a child, a few months after the death of his father and the years proceeding his father’s death starting with his announcement that he is gay.

Ewan McGregor (MOULIN ROUGE!) plays Oliver, an artist who wants to create the history of sadness for a band’s album cover when all they asked for was portraits in his signature style. The death of his parents has hit him hard and exaggerated his feelings of failure, which extend to his relationships. His father Hal (Christopher Plummer, THE LAST STATION) on the other hand didn’t die sad at all. When this man came out, he came out. He posted personal ads for sex, he joined several gay clubs and activist groups, he went to dance clubs and learned what house music was, and he fell in love with Andy (Goran Visnjic, TV’s E.R.).

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This reboot of the venerable sci-fi franchise doesn’t try to remake the original classic like the Tim Burton film tried. It takes a page from CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and starts the story with the rebellion of the apes against man, only without the time paradox element. The last part of that statement is for fans of the series, who will find great joy in this new installment. Like the original this is a film based around characters and ideas.

The film is the story of two characters — one human and one ape. Will Rodman (James Franco, 127 HOURS) is a scientist working on a gene therapy that could cure scores of brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. It’s a personal cause for him because his father Charles (John Lithgow, TV’s 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN) is suffering from senility disease. As part of his work, Will tests on chimps. After a disaster at the lab, he smuggles an infant chimp home. The young ape quickly shows signs of increased intelligence as a result of the drug his mother was given. Charles names him Caesar (Andy Serkis, KING KONG).

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“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?” If you haven’t seen Mike Nichols’ classic, you still know that line. Coming at the end of ’60s, the comedic ode to disillusionment embodied the growing resentment toward the status quo. Mrs. Robinson proposition to the new college grad Benjamin Braddock is not just a proposition for sex, but also an invitation to join the hypocrisy of the American ideal.

Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin as filled with uncertainty about everything. He’s done everything that his parents have ever asked on him. He excelled at school in both academics and sports. His privileged life has always been planned out for him, but he’s burned out and doesn’t want to play the game anymore. The real problem though is he doesn’t know any of this. His parents, played by William Daniels (TV’s ST. ELSEWHERE) and Elizabeth Wilson (THE BIRDS), are drowning him, so he runs to the best option he sees in front of him — sex.

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Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s celebrated young adult sci-fi novel is a curious production. Like Verhoeven did with ROBOCOP, he weaves dark satire and extreme violence into the story. In the way he portrays the gung-ho soldiers and the government they serve he is essentially making us root for the Nazis. For the most part it works, but is it fair?

Set in the distant future, humans have colonized planets across the universe. They are having great difficulty putting down the Arachnids species living on the planet of Klendathu. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien, SLEEPY HOLLOW), his girlfriend Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH) and best friend Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris, TV’s HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) are privileged teens living in Buenos Aires, who want to earn their citizenship. The only way to do so is to contribute to society or join the military. The threesome chooses the latter. The only problem is that Johnny doesn’t score high enough to become a pilot like Carmen or the military intelligence like Carl, so he is relegated to mobile infantry and sent to the front lines to slaughter The Bugs or be slaughtered by The Bugs.

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