Mini-Review: There are few movies I make a point of watching every year. 'Elf', along with 'Die Hard', 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall', is one of them. It's an odd list, but there's a quality to all of those choices that you can't find in anything else. Buddy's joyful exuberance is so infectious, it's hard not to light up every time he's on screen. Sadly, the movie derails in the end, seemingly unsure of what the stakes should be with the random intro to the Central Park Rangers.

Mini-Review: I'm willing to give 'No Strings Attached' a bit of a break. It's definitely not groundbreaking in the realm of romantic comedy, but for a flick that doesn't even attempt to stray from the formula, it's still pretty enjoyable. The characters remain pretty genuine with one another, with the exception of a line from Adam at the climax (pun intended). Everyone more or less serves their purpose in getting things moving towards the obvious ending. What's important here is that it's fun getting there.