I have a confession to make: I've never been a big fan of Beauty and the Beast. Even when I first saw it back in 1991 -- when it has being proclaimed hither and yon as one of the Walt Disney company's greatest achievements and made history by becoming the first animated feature to score a Best Picture nod -- I found myself wondering what the big deal was. And it didn't have anything to do with that conventional bit of Hollywood "wisdom" that boys don't want to watch movies about girls. Three years earlier, I had seen and loved The Little Mermaid and I thought Belle, the headstrong beauty of Beauty, was just peachy keen. I also liked Robby Benson's thundering vocals as the Beast and found the music (penned by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who died seven months before the film's release) quite good, though none of the individual tunes captured my imagination half as much as Mermaid's triple threat of "Part of Your World," "Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl." But aside from those elements, Beauty struck me as pretty blah -- a serviceable version of a classic fairy tale minus that crucial touch of magic.

There's a clever gag early on in The Adventures of Tintin that effectively passes the baton from the title character's comic-book origins in the 1930s to his 21st century incarnation as the hero of a lavish animated blockbuster. In the scene, investigative journalist/globetrotting adventurer Tintin (played here by Jamie Bell via the magic of motion capture technology) is sitting with his back to the audience, having his picture drawn by a flea market street artist. The illustrator puts the finishing touches on the portrait and hands it over to his subject, saying proudly, "I think I've captured your likeness." With that, Tintin turns towards the camera and we see the character's past and present in the same frame. On the canvas is a sketch of Tintin as Belgian artist Hergé first drew him all those years ago. Next to that is the version of the character the animators at Weta Digital -- the New Zealand effects house operated by Peter Jackson, one of the primary creative forces behind this new movie, along with its director Steven Spielberg -- have come up with. While these two faces aren't precisely mirror images of each other, the mo-cap figure is still recognizably Tintin. In a single shot, the filmmakers convincingly lift this iconic character off the two-dimensional comics page and turn him into a walking, talking movie star.

Like every other kid that grew up watching The Muppets in their '70s and '80s prime, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Kermit and the gang's big-screen reboot, The Muppets. It's no secret that Jim Henson's gaggle of colorful puppets lost their way somewhat in the wake of their creator's death, as classic features like The Muppet Movie giving way to embarrassments like Muppets From Space. Certainly, the creative team behind The Muppets -- which includes screenwriter and star Jason Segel, his co-writer Nicholas Stoller and director James Bobin (making his feature film debut after co-creating HBO's terrific Flight of the Conchords series) -- have been saying all the right things about their intentions with this movie, namely bringing back the same playful spirit and toe-tapping score that defined the first three Muppet features, The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and, my personal favorite, The Muppets Take Manhattan. As an added bonus, it was exciting to think that my own kid's first big-screen encounter with the Muppets (he's already been introduced to the earlier films on DVD) would be a good movie in its own right and not a disappointing reminder of the characters' past glories.

Since breaking into Hollywood in the early '00s, writer/director Nicholas Stoller has written jokes for such big-name comic actors as Jim Carrey, Jack Black and Russell Brand. But those assignments paled in comparison to his most recent gig, scribbling jokes for Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear and the rest of the Muppet crew for their upcoming big-screen relaunch, The Muppets. Paired with his good friend and collaborator Jason Segel (who starred in Stoller's directorial debut Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and served as both the co-writer and human lead of The Muppets) Stoller describes The Muppets as a "dream" assignment. He spoke with us on the phone from Los Angeles about the four-year process of writing the movie and why Kermit never, ever says anything mean.

As one-half of the New Zealand folk duo Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie has toured the world with his onstage partner Jemaine Clement, serenading audiences with such hilarious tunes as "Bowie", "Foux du Fafa" and "Robots." Now he's helping another crop of characters get their musical comedy groove on: those lovable, indefatigable Muppets. McKenzie served as music supervisor on their highly anticipated comeback vehicle, The Muppets, a job that required him to oversee productions of all of the movie's original songs, including two that he wrote himself. McKenzie spoke with TWoP by phone from L.A. about growing up as part of the Muppet generation, plans for a Conchords reunion and how he learned that Muppet chickens don't sing.

Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill -- in which he plays both Jack Sadelstein and his frumpy twin sister, Jill -- is not a good movie. I don't think you needed me to tell you that. But it is funny, though, and not in a fart-joke kind of way. I mean, there are a lot of fart jokes -- scenes entirely made up of god-awful fart jokes! -- but there are also tiny moments packed into Jack and Jill that are laugh-out-loud funny. Should you be dragged to this film by a child (it's rated PG, after all), you will not grow to hate and resent said little one for the rest of your life... that is, if you follow our handy guide on suffering through the terribleness:

I'm sure you've heard of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots: The Movie by now, but just in case you haven't, Real Steel is a family-friendly(ish) action flick set in a near-future where BattleBots is no longer confined to early '00s Comedy Central lineups but instead is all the rage in modern society -- think boxing with more theatrics. The film follows has-been Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) as they compete in the wild world of competitive robot fighting with their long-shot junkyard-found machine boxer, all while coincidentally building their father-son relationship. Now, whether you think that premise sounds amazing, campy or absurdly terrible when translated to film, you are correct. I went into the movie hoping to have some fun and see a few dirty robots get the motors kicked out of them, and I'm happy to say Real Steel delivered the goods. Here's what else I got just for sitting through it:

The first and last time that I saw The Lion King was during its initial theatrical release in the summer of 1994. I was 16 at the time and was temporarily back in the U.S. from my then-current home in Hong Kong, enjoying the extended vacation that State Department families received in the middle of four-year tours abroad. Movie-wise, it was a good summer to be stateside. While most Hollywood fare made it across the Pacific, there was generally a time delay that could range from weeks to months depending on the movie in question. In the span of our roughly five-week stay in the U.S., I saw in quick succession, Keanu Reeves piloting an out-of-control city bus in Speed, Jack Nicholson getting his werewolf on in Wolf, Alec Baldwin donning cloak and fake nose to play The Shadow and Tom Hanks eating his way through a box of chocolates in Forrest Gump. And somewhere in the middle of all that, we also made time for that year's Disney offering The Lion King, because if you came of age during the Mouse House's late-'80s renaissance, going to see the studio's latest animated feature was just something you did, like breathing, eating or picking Ryu over Ken for marathon Street Fighter II sessions.

Objectively speaking, Glee is a cash cow. It translates into anything, be it board games, apparel, books series, reality competitions... nothing is too much of a stretch to brand. When I originally heard of the concept of the Glee Live! In Concert! tour, I thought they were pushing it. And when I found out that they were slapping together a 3D documentary about the concert in a mere six weeks, I was ready to deem Glee bastardized beyond the point of return. But I was wrong: Glee: The 3D Concert Movie not only surprised me as a film, it restored a faith in the series that had been lacking for me. And as it turns out, a lot of my original assumptions going into the movie turned out to be incorrect.

The beauty of the Smurf "language" is that it is open to so much interpretation. One could translate the title either as: "This Movie Is So Freaking Great That You Leave Smiling" or "This Movie Is So Annoyingly Painful That You'll Leave Complaining" or any variation of those two. Though if you are over the age of eight, you'll probably find the latter interpretation to be the most accurate.