Mini-Review: When compared to something as truly rule-breaking as Shuji Terayama's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (admittedly, quite arbitrarily), this feels like a minor work from a director with a great deal of ideas but without the same feel for experimental filmmaking as his New Wave contemporaries. Matsumoto's later Juroku-sai no senso and Demons both feel like more complete works, as well -- perhaps inspired by the films of the aforementioned Terayama and by the brilliant Akio Jissoji.

Mini-Review: When it's not trying to be serious -- "If we can't save Earth, you can be damn sure we'll avenge it" -- or to inject romance (Black Widow and Hawkeye, I'm looking at you) and focuses strictly on kinetic action and humor, The Avengers is plenty enjoyable. Let's be honest, though: while Whedon isn't a GREAT director, he's still much better than this material. And why does every comic book movie have a one-dimensional villain out to rule or destroy the world? Just once, give us something different.