Amazeballs

Some films put you in a vice and tighten, click by click, until you’re not sure if you’re gasping from shock or from the giddy pleasure of being so expertly, so utterly manipulated. “Gone Girl,” that lurid psychothriller by David Fincher, wears its heart (if one can call it a heart: more like a bloodied, glinting knife) on its sleeve. This is the rare mainstream film that seduces us into collusion with its sociopath, pats our leg, and whispers, “Let me show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, don’t be squeamish, darling, it’s just your happily ever after with its throat slit.”

The Hundred-Foot Journey isn’t so much a movie as it is a lavish buffet—one of those spreads where you get a little giddy piling your plate high, knowing full well it’s all been sweetened for mass tastes. Lasse Hallström, who has become a sort of cinematic caterer to the comfortable (he’s given us Chocolat and enough charming Swedes to fill a Volvo), brings his gentle hand to the story of culinary warfare in a twee French village—warfare here meaning a territorial pissing match with garam masala.