I’m not sure what to make of this latest edition in the annals of Texas Chainsaw lore.   

The “story” of Roger Michell’s new film, Hyde Park on Hudson, derives from the personal letters of Daisy (Laura Linney), the nominal protagonist who happens to have been a distant cousin of President Franklin Roosevelt (Bill Murray).
  

Much like Inglorious Basterds, his revisionist take on Jewish revenge on the Nazis, Quentin Tarantino tackles the curious American institution of slavery in Django Unchained.  

Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) sure knows how to set the bar a notch or two higher, just to challenge himself. He follows up his Academy Award winning film by diving headlong into an adaptation of a beloved musical and pushes his all-star cast (featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway) to record their vocal performances live.  

Fluffy family friendly alert! Old school grandparents (Billy Crystal and Bette Midler) agree to take care of their three grandchildren when their daughter (Marisa Tomei) and her husband (Tom Everett Scott), a high-achieving new millennial working couple, are forced to jet off to high-pressure assignments.  

For fans of the live Cirque du Soleil experience, complete with example after example of grace and athleticism, it would seem to be a no-brainer to construct a narrative and capture the wonder as only film can  

Screenwriter Dan Fogelman (Crazy, Stupid, Love.) and director Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) team up behind the scenes of this tag-team road trip tracking an overbearing mother (Barbra Streisand) and her son (Seth Rogen) as they cross the country.  

Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), a hardass military investigator, is the creation of author Lee Childs and, like James Patterson’s Alex Cross, a franchise-in-the-making, so it seems worth asking why screenwriter-director Christopher McQuarrie (The Way of the Gun) hitched his wagon to Cruise who, at 50, might be approaching the period of his career when it would behoove him to settle into a more dramatic phase rather than the frantic running and gunning of the extreme action thrillers.  

This Is 40 is only the fourth feature film directed by Apatow (following The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Funny People), but he has tickled our funny bones onscreen as a producer (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Superbad, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Bridesmaids) and a writer (Fun with Dick and Jane, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Pineapple Express).  

While contemplating the latest call for the end of time, I realized that if, indeed, this truly is the end, then I might be a bit more prepared to just sit back and say that it has been one helluva ride.