Filmmakers have historically had a difficult time capturing the true essence of the American hardcore scene onscreen. More often than not, cinematic approaches to hardcore feel inauthentic, cheesy, and occasionally even desperate. With Ten Thousand Saints, directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini approach the subject matter admirably, albeit a bit unsuccessfully, before transitioning into a predictably sweet story about the perils of young love.

As a drug-using hardcore kid growing up in 1980s Vermont, Jude (Asa Butterfield) yearns to get out of his hometown. After a devastating accident leads to him moving to New York City to live with his estranged, pot-dealing father (Ethan Hawke), Jude is exposed to a whole new world. After befriending Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld), a directionless cocaine addict, and Johnny (Emile Hirsch), the frontman for a straight edge hardcore band, Jude finds himself reevaluating his past, his present, and his future.

Equal parts redemption story and coming-of-age tale, the appeal of Ten Thousand Saints lies more in its compelling cast of characters than its plot. Extremely character-driven, the film provides a realistic look at teen life. Though it’s set roughly thirty years ago, Jude and Eliza deal with issues that are as relevant now as ever and are sure to be extremely relatable to teenage viewers.

Because the film is based around a subculture, Berman and Pulcini utilize plenty of exposition to keep the audience up to speed, but it always feels like exposition. As Jude navigates through the film, he explains the concept of the straight edge lifestyle time after time after time as if he were reading the definition off of Urban Dictionary. At times, the dialogue is borderline cringe-worthy and most of the characters don’t appear believably to be a part of the hardcore scene, which is distracting. Aside from the musical scenes, Ten Thousand Saints could easily be added to the ever-growing list of movies that don’t accurately capture the essence of the hardcore scene.

Thankfully, the film has plenty of heart elsewhere, particularly in its cast. Performances are strong across the board, with angst-filled teenagers and their equally confused parents proving both empathetic and likable in spite of themselves. Butterfield and Steinfeld share a charmingly awkward chemistry while Hawke and Emily Mortimer provide a majority of the film’s comedy. It’s an interesting dichotomy between generations, and the way in which Berman and Pulcini analyze two vastly different forms of rebellion is very sharp and interesting. There proves to be a vicious cycle as the new generation rebels against their parents who chose to use drugs in rebellion against their parents who remained abstinent and sober.

While this isn’t explored as in-depth as it perhaps could have been, it serves as the basis for the best scenes in the film—most notably one where Jude’s mother and Eliza’s mother have an emotional heart-to-heart conversation about their children. It’s a beautiful moment, wrought with sentimentality, and it sums up the entire film. Ten Thousand Saints, at its core, is about a group of flawed people who all learn more about themselves through their interactions with each other, and try their hardest to become better human beings as a result.

While certainly not a dark comedy in the traditional sense, Ten Thousand Saints consistently finds humor in plenty of tragic situations. Death, drug abuse, unexpected pregnancy, abortion, assault, and adultery are all explored during the film’s 113-minute running time; and while not a decidedly adult film, it ventures into some extremely bleak territory.

Despite not portraying the American hardcore scene in the most authentic light, Ten Thousand Saints is a well-acted, technically sound film with a wonderful ensemble cast and an adequate amount of charm.

What’s in store for the fantastical world of Tim Burton?

Aside from the incredible confirmation that he will be directing Beetlejuice 2 which is rumored to be in the works for 2016 and includes a screenplay by original screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (and for which Michael Keaton has expressed deep enthusiasm for reprising his role as the title character) he is in post-production right now for Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass, that is also set for 2016.

Burton has also been slowly but surely adding to the cast of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Based on the 2011 YA novel of the same name, the freshman work of author Ransom Riggs, it follows the story of tragedy-stricken 16-year-old Jacob, who Asa Butterfield has been cast to play. He discerns that there are clues in his grandfather’s old photographs—which, in the book, are actual professional photographs picked from archives. He is led to a former home for special children that is no longer occupied… or is it? And said former occupants might have a lot more to them than meets the eye. The book was a New York Times Bestseller and was #1 on the list for children’s chapter books for 45 weeks.

Along with Butterfield, the newly announced cast includes Burton favorite Eva Green as Miss Peregrine and the great Samuel L. Jackson as Barron.

It seems the sort of work written especially for the unusual and strange talents of Tim Burton. According to IMDB, the film is slated for an early 2016 release as well. Is there really a possibility for three movies from Tim Burton in one year? Our hearts can barely sustain it. What can we say? It sounds like it is going to be a mystical Burtonesque 2016! All we have to say is, Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!!

Ender’s Game is Gavin Hood’s (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s popular 1985 sci-fi novel about a gigantic, intergalactic war, the outcome of which relies on our eponymous hero, a pre-teen boy-genius. Hood’s film retains the thoughtfulness (however morally misguided) of the source material, homing in on the internal conflicts of the hero rather than relishing in the spectacle of war (though we’re given a satisfactory helping of that.) Hood’s is a heavy-handed thoughtfulness, though, as his symbolism lacks subtlety and finesse. Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is this year’s thinking-man’s sci-fi epic; Ender’s Game is best suited for the thinking-boy.

The people of Earth are gathering their forces in preparation for the imminent invasion of an insectoid race of aliens called “Formics”, who fifty years prior had attempted to overtake the planet, killing millions in the process. Humanity endured, barely, all due to the heroic actions of one man: Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley, trying on an awful New Zealand accent.) With the enemy’s return looming, earth is in need of a new hero to command its armies, and it must be a child (apparently, only young minds are capable of commanding the impossibly complex fleets of high-tech spaceships.)

Enter Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield, Hugo), a 12-year-old with a vast intellect and a prodigious gift for tactical dominance. He’s a “Third”, the youngest of three siblings, in a time when parents are only allowed two children, maximum (a clear reference to China’s “one-child policy”.) Kids at school bully him for this, but his intellectual superiority allows him to defend himself with ease. He’s recruited by grisly military commander Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford, who’s less growl-y than usual, surprisingly) to attend Battle School, a military academy meant to groom the next Rackham that rejected both his violently demented brother, Peter (Jimmy Pinchak), and his warm-hearted sister, Valentine (Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine herself), who he loves to no end.

We spend most of our time in the futuristic chambers and barracks of the Battle School, which are about as generic as it gets, aesthetically (lots of metal panels, neon lights, inexplicable buttons scattered about randomly). Ender begins, like a lot of us did, as a social outcast in the school halls, but strategically-timed exhibitions of talent (in a quidditch-like laser tag anti-gravity game) and fearlessness (he gives Graff lip, right in front of the others, of course) win his classmates over, inch by inch, making allies out of bullies and adorers out of acquaintances.

Ender’s social maneuverings and foresightful power plays make for the best scenes in the film, and it would have been nice to have seen this interplay receive more attention and time. His classmates Petra (Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit), a sharpshooter quasi love interest, and Bean (Aramis Knight), a pint-sized sidekick, are likable confidants, while his nemesis, Bonzo (Moises Arias), the Napoleonic leader of the bully-brigade, is a one-dimensional, but fun-to-hate villain.

Butterfield fits the role nicely–he’s a believable wunderkind, and while he’s a good looking kid, he’s also not hunky tween-bait. It’s great to see a normal-looking young man leading big-budget series, especially when you consider the film is being distributed by Summit Entertainment, the same folks behind the Twilight series. He acts with his eyes, casting stares that are at once icy and compassionate, and he shows restraint at all times–this is crucial to the role, as Ender is constantly suppressing a war-within.

Despite Ender’s uncanny ability to win his classmates’ respect, Bonzo’s pubescent ego makes his disdain impossible to budge, and he eventually challenges Ender to a fist fight. Ender dispatches of Bonzo physically, in self defense, and hates himself for it. Must he resort to destroying his enemies, like his sinister older brother, Peter? The internal war of humanity versus merciless dominance rages inside Ender throughout the film; Graff’s intent is to wipe all empathy from Ender’s nature, molding him into a cold-hearted commander that’ll do anything to save the human race, while Valentine and his friends keep the kindness in his heart from being hushed.

Card has been criticized for years for the way his novel covets the intentions of the protagonist while excusing his actions, essentially vindicating the violence. Hood makes no attempt to embellish upon Card’s philosophy (or any other part of his story, for that matter), and in fact magnifies his mixed-up morality, constantly bludgeoning us over the head with Ender’s conflict of heart and mind. There are a lot of high-concept ideas swimming around underneath the surface that should be thought-provoking and relevant to our time (training kids for war with video games is a more interesting notion now than it was in the ’80s, when Card’s novel was first published), but Hood’s too enamored with picking apart Ender’s psyche to flesh them out.

The large-scale, shimmering, spaceship battle scenes that bookend the film are spectacular, and will have kids across the country leaping in the air and pumping their fists with excitement at the sci-fi action gloriousness (I’ll admit, my inner video-game-kid was giddy as can be.) The half-baked high-concept ideas floating around Ender’s Game are a tease, but this won’t bother those who just came to see a light show.

“Come and dream with me,” a character says a one point during Hugo, which would also have been a very appropriate way to begin the film. A story about a young orphan who lives at a train station trying to solve a mystery link to his father is not be a kind of film Martin Scorsese is used to doing, but it does not show. It is a film about dreams and magical realism adventures that is entertaining for both children and adults.

Set in Paris during the 1930’s at a train station where a young orphan boy named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) keeps the station clocks running. He learned how to fix clocks from his father before he passed away. In a way of honoring his memories, Hugo continues to fix clocks and other gadgets around the station.

One item in particular that reminds him most about his father is an automaton, a mechanical man his father received from a museum. Guided by an old journal of his father’s notes, Hugo tries to complete what his father and he were not able to do which is to get the automaton working again. Standing in his way is a special heart shaped key that Hugo must find in order to unlock a secret message the automaton is believed to have.

In order to get the parts needed for the automaton, Hugo steals gears and other equipment from a local station toy shopkeeper, Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley). Melies is an old grumpy man who finally catches Hugo stealing from him one day. He takes Hugo’s father’s book of notes from him and threatens to burn them.

Hugo follows Melies home and begs him not to burn his precious notes but the grumpy old man shows no sympathy. Hugo does manage to befriend Melies’ goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), who agrees to try to stop her godfather’s actions. The two form a friendship full of adventures and discovery as Isabelle shows Hugo the world of literature and he shows her the world of cinema.

They stumble upon a book about the pioneers of cinema such as Lumieres’ Arrival of a Train at the Station and read about how the audience literally jumped out of their seats while watching because they were afraid the train was going to hit them. They soon discover that Georges Melies was actually a legendary filmmaker which begins another discovery in which they find a link between Melies and Hugo’s father.

The second half of Hugo is really about paying respect to the history of cinema. Scorsese educates his viewers on the importance of Georges Melies’ legendary filmmaking career. Starting out as a French illusionist he turned to filmmaking as a way to display his technical special effects in a new medium. Clips from A Trip to the Moon are shown many times throughout the film.

2011 was a year in which the top two Oscar winners shared one major thing in common, they both paid tribute to the lost art of silent cinema. Both Hugo and The Artist showcase the extraordinary power of silent films and both illustrate the important influences from which films today came from. As I said when I reviewed The Artist, if you appreciate and are passionate about films you will appreciate this film.

This is the second Scorsese film in a row that Ben Kingsley stars in (the last one being Shutter Island) and Kingsley certainly does a great job with the role of Melies. The role demanded him to play a stiff old grumpy man whose days at being at the top are long behind him. Asa Butterfield is excellent as the lead in Hugo just as he was for his previous lead role in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He is definitely a talented young actor as these two films confirm.

It only makes sense that a film that is largely about the preservation of old films was done by Martin Scorsese as he is a huge advocate of such thing in real life. In 1990 he founded a non-profit organization that is dedicated to film preservation called, The Film Foundation.

Hugo starts off more of a kid’s adventure film but ends up being more of a shrine to the beginning of film for adults. There are times were it was fairly predictable but considering it was aimed for all audiences it is not all that surprising. There are love stories mixed in with magical adventures as well as a history lesson in filmmaking all found in Hugo. It is an unconventional film for Martin Scorsese, one that truly shows his range as one of the best American directors of our time and it does not disappoint.