Zero Dark Thirty

I’m always fascinated how storytellers generate suspense despite the ultimate spoiler alert – a story based on actual events. You do realize Osama bin Laden is dead, right? Anyway, “United 93” might have done the best job I have ever seen with this challenge, but “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012) comes close. And it’s just a straight up, chronological retelling of the years upon years it took CIA operatives to hunt down bin Laden. You really feel the pressure of the interrogations, the surveillance, the danger. Tiny flaw: SEAL Team 6 comes off a little cowboyish (but maybe they’re really like that).

Her

Let’s say you fall in love with Siri, but she breaks up with you. Can you go back to the Apple Store for a refund? (Asking for a friend.) With that burning question out of the way, let’s talk about “Her” (2013). The plot – a dude living in a digital-media-immersed Los Angeles falls in love with his uberSiri computer operating system – is so quirky it’s almost a distraction from all the questions it provokes. At its fascinating core, “Her” wants us to ponder the nature of love, specifically, and relationships, generally, in our Facebook age. I wonder what Siri thinks.