On the outside, "Killing Them Softly" has all of the components of a good, gritty crime thriller. A solid plot involving underground crime and armed robbery, a cast of genre alums and a big-name leading man carrying it all as a cynical professional hitman. Sounds like the perfect respite from all the glittering Oscar bait scrambling to hit theaters before the year's out, right?

Yeah, not so much. Those are the smoke and mirrors they use to pull you into this strangely placid drama, which occupies a dragging hour and a half with more talking, planning and fumbling societal commentary than good, dirty action.

"Killing" kicks off with, and is driven by, an armed robbery at a mob card game perpetrated by two loser cons (Ben Mendelsohn and "Argo"'s Scoot McNairy). It's supposedly foolproof, since the same thing was pulled off once before by the game's organizer, Markie (Ray Liotta), and the suspicion is already primed to fall on him again. It does – but not for long. In an attempt to restore order to the balance in the underground crime "economy," Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) is brought in to hunt down the bumbling duo.

Again, it sounds like the basis for a legitimately good movie. What the succinct premise doesn't account for, however, is the seemingly endless bouts of aforementioned nothingness that completely gum up the works. For a bunch of "men of action," these supposedly uncivilized cons are a real bunch of chatty hens. If there's one upside to that aspect, though, it's that these kind of machismo crime movies are a last vestige of legitimately accepted inappropriateness, and it comes across loud and clear (and abundantly) in the dialogue.

"Killing" is inundated with anecdotes that aren't just a little blue, they're on the other end of the freakin' color wheel. Crazy hookups, stories from the inside, ridiculous past heists – it's all almost prerequisite for getting anywhere in this movie. It's the perfect complement to the give-no-f*ck a…

I'm not a Black Friday shopper. Years of retail have served as a cautionary tale against becoming one of the door-busting deal junkies, and I still feel a lingering moral solidarity with the poor cash jockeys. That, and I just plain hate getting up early.

Tempt my lushy proclivities, however, and you've got a whole different ball game on your hands. I'll brave wee morning hours, arctic wasteland temps and even – shudder – the shopping public if you offer me booze.

That's just what was on the itinerary this morning when, in an unprecedented show of initiative, I and two of my friends ventured out into the frozen hell that was 4 a.m. on a quest for fame, glory and Lakefront beer.

The prize: limited-edition 22-ounce bottles of Black Friday imperial India-style black ale, sold only at the brewery and only on Black Friday. It was the first time they'd done something so exclusive, and we wanted it.

So, we caffeine'd up and hit the road not-so-bright and early. We got there at quarter to 5, and it was dead.

We sat in the car for about an hour and a half and watched as the first intrepid beer monkey took his place at the double doors, followed by a handful of other brave souls – including a few who had been holed up in their cars since before we arrived – who chose to start lining up down the ramp.

I have no idea why. Call it a paranoid chain reaction on account of the 300 special-edition pint glasses up for grabs, but there were maybe 20 people, tops, freezing their hops off waiting outside for no reason.

Eventually we caved and subjected ourselves to the windy death tundra, but in the end we only waited about 45 minutes before the lovely Lakefront folks decided enough was enough and let us all in early (but not before taking a couple pictures of the scene from the warm side of the waiting room window, the teases).

We gratefully defrosted, grabbed our prize and were on our way by 8. I'm glad we got there early since the line was well down Commerce Street by…

It's been a great year for kids movies. From "Brave" and "Wreck-It Ralph" to the more tween-geared "ParaNorman" and "Frankenweenie," Hollywood's been pulling out all the stops catering to the kiddos.

This week adds "Rise of the Guardians" to that list – a whimsical fantasy about children's most famous fabled icons and their secret allegiance to protect the collective innocence of childhood.

These aren't just your average fairytale characters, however. This squadron of imaginary elite includes North, a bad-ass tatted-up Santa Claus voiced by Alec Baldwin; Bunny, a boomerang-wielding, 6-foot-tall Easter Bunny voiced by Hugh Jackman; Tooth, a chipper rendition of the Tooth Fairy, voiced by Isla Fisher, who commands an army of hummingbird-like tooth collectors; and the silent-but-deadly Sandman (Because why would someone whose job is putting people to sleep want anything to do with the ruckus that is talking? Really now...)

And at the heart of the story is Jack Frost, voiced by Chris Pine. Jack's a solitary player, a bit of a rogue, and, unlike his illustrious counterparts, he's invisible. Believing is seeing in their universe, and since people write Jack Frost off as a force of nature or a mere turn of a phrase, his interactions with them go uncredited. He finds entertainment in playing silently with kids on snow days and mucking things up for Bunny by frosting the occasional Easter egg hunt, but for the most part, he's alone – without a past and without real purpose.

As it turns out, that's exactly the same problem plaguing the nefarious Pitch Black (voiced by Jude Law). Fear incarnate, Pitch is fed up with being explained away as a simple shadow seen out of the corner of people's eyes and has resurfaced to inflict a new Dark Age on the world's children. The Guardians assemble and recruit Jack, who joins their ranks after discovering that helping them just might help him uncover the truth about his forgotten past.

"Guardians" exhibits…

I'm at a crossroads with Bradley Cooper. As much as I like him in his more serious work, I'm always surprised when he turns in a performance that strays from his name-making "Hangover" persona. I haven't been able to shake the idea that he's a born d-bag, but if anything can change my mind it's his thoroughly human contribution to "Silver Linings Playbook."

Cooper plays Pat Solitano, a teacher just released from an eight-month stint in a mental institution which he served for an outburst that subsequently left him jobless, homeless and wifeless. He's literally back at square one, living with his parents and under a restraining order from his wife, but Pat's embraced a fully optimistic outlook to get his life back on track – something he clings to with a dogged determination that's equal parts endearing and silly, especially in the face of the array of idiosyncratic people in his life.

Chief among them is Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), who is baggage personified after the death of her husband. She provides a sounding board for Pat, who up until now has been given free crazy reign over the film's emotional expression (think 4 a.m. tantrums over the ending of a book and the overall frank honesty of a 10-year-old boy). Better yet, she gives him a run for his money in the battle of wills for who's more inappropriate as a darkly comic, bitchy-because-I-can black sheep.

The evolving relationship between this Little Engine That Could and caustic cynic is what drives "Silver Linings." They connect because the rest of society doesn't know what to do with them, but their friendship begrudgingly develops as each discovers a practical use for the other – she as a pathway of communication to his wife, and he as a dance partner for an upcoming couples' competition.

Cooper and Lawrence are brilliant together, and it comes across with hilarious results. They're immature, selfish and fumbling, and this childish dynamic is only egged on by the nosy weird…