Watch a clip from "Season of the Witch" starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman.  A reliable distinction can be drawn between movies that aren't shown at all prior to their Friday opening—studios and distributors usually know when they've got a total disaster on their hands—and those that aren't unveiled until Wednesday, so that bad reviews and poisonous buzz won't destroy their first weekend at the box office. A finer distinction can be drawn between movies that are previewed on Wednesday evening (disastrousness almost guaranteed) and movies that are first screened on Wednesday afternoon (probably awful, but you never know). "Season of the Witch" was screened in Los Angeles at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, but it should have been shown around 6 or 7.  Nicolas Cage as a Crusader with occult troubles in 'Season of the Witch.'  As Crusader knights during the Dark Ages, Nicolas Cage (in full frown mode) and Ron Perlman (loved him as "Hellboy") fight computer-generated hordes, lose faith in their cause and return to a Europe that has been afflicted by the plague—not the standard Black variety, but an even more pestilential strain that may have been caused by witchcraft. To end the curse, they must take an accused witch (she's played, unbewitchingly, by Claire Foy) to be exorcised in a faraway monastery. In the course of their journey they slay digital wolves and encounter popeyed, suppurating corpses that help the filmmakers avoid any accusation of light-heartedness. (Though it's nice for horror-film buffs that Christopher Lee does a cameo as a grotesquely disfigured cardinal on the verge of death.)  The nonsense is not without its rewards. The best line belongs to an earnest priest played by Stephen Campbell Moore. In the midst of an exorcism that's lurid enough to approach certifiable looniness, the priest cries, "We're going to need some more holy water!" This film should not be confused with George A. Romero's 1972 horror flick of the same name, or Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," in which a Crusader knight, returning with his squire to plague-ravaged Sweden, plays chess with Death. Mr. Cage's knight ends up playing second banana to a digital devil. Welcome to the January dead zone.  Watch a clip from "Country Strong" starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw.  Gwyneth Paltrow deserves better than the clichés that bedevil "Country Strong," which was written and directed by Shana Feste. She plays—and sings—Kelly Canter, a fragile country-music legend plucked out of rehab prematurely by her greedy husband/manager, James (Tim McGraw). Kelly's only support in the outside world comes from Beau, a sensitive guy who worked at her rehab clinic and happens to be a talented singer and guitarist. He's played by Garrett Hedlund (most recently of "Tron: Legacy"), who is consistently likable despite his trying to be. Mr. Hedlund and Ms. Paltrow are at their intimate best in their very first scene, stretched out on a bed and trying to do nothing more than work out the lyrics of a new song.  The film works best when the music takes over. Its star sings well and looks lovely, even when Kelly is supposed to look wasted. But the intimacy soon vanishes and the star gets crowded out of the picture from time to time by a cluttered, unfocused plot that involves not just the triangle of Kelly, James and Beau, but a quadrangle created by the presence of Leighton Meester's Chiles, an ambitious beauty queen turned up-and-coming singer in the hoary tradition of "All About Eve." (Ms. Meester gives an accomplished performance that's limited only by the lack of nuance in the script.)  Gwyneth Paltrow as a singer on the rebound from addiction in 'Country Strong.'  "Country Strong" comes to spontaneous life from time to time, despite maudlin devices (a wounded quail chick that Kelly carries around in a little box) and manipulative set pieces (Kelly singing to a young cancer victim is not as charming as it's meant to be). More often than not, though, the movie observes behavior instead of revealing feelings. The most telling example occurs in a scene when Kelly, struggling with her demons at every step, takes the stage for her climactic concert, kisses the crucifix she wears on a necklace and waits in anxious silence for the music to begin. At the instant it does, the camera is back where the audience sits, watching her rise in statuesque grandeur, instead of on her face, capturing the moment of her transformation.  Watch a clip from "Offside" by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi.  Movies can move audiences—and threaten governments—in ways that we Americans have either forgotten or haven't known. Late last month an Iranian court sentenced two of Iran's finest filmmakers, Jafar Panahi and Mahmoud Rasoulof, to six years in prison, and banned them from making films, writing scripts, traveling abroad or giving interviews for 20 years. The charge was "colluding in gatherings and making propaganda against the regime." By lashing out against these artists, the regime revealed itself to be more fearful and contemptible than its harshest critics might have contended. Fortunately, the offending films can still be seen, not just in the free world but in Iran, where bootleg DVDs circumvent official censorship.  When I reviewed Mr. Panahi's "The Circle" a decade ago, I wrote that "in some parts of the world, making feature films can still be a heroic enterprise." The film (in Farsi with English subtitles, and available, new or used, for purchase through Amazon.com), is a stunning drama about the desperate state of women in Iran. It begins with a blessed event that's immediately blighted by blind prejudice. A newborn baby, certified by ultrasounds to be a boy, turns out to be a girl, which means the in-laws will demand a divorce. That's shocking enough, but it's only a preface to fragmentary portraits of women as they had never been seen before in Iranian cinema.  Watch a clip from Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof.  The director's 2006 comedy, "Offside" (I'm confining these capsule descriptions to films that American movie lovers can either buy, or rent on Netflix), also concerns the plight of Iranian women—those who happen to be soccer fans, but who are excluded from the nation's stadiums, even though they may be equal to Iranian men in their passion for the sport. While the film's subversions are delicate, and entertaining, its subjects are perfectly clear: the hypocrisy of discrimination, and the stupidity of authority.  Hossein Farzi-Zadeh in Mr. Rasoulof's 'Iron Island.'  Mr. Rasoulof's "Iron Island" (a Netflix rental) sees the ship of state as a rotting, sinking hulk. "Titanic" it's not, but this richly detailed—and improbably enjoyable—allegory is set aboard an abandoned oil tanker anchored in the Persian Gulf. The giant rust bucket serves as home—as a village, really—to hundreds of people, plus their goats and several donkeys. They've entrusted their fate to Captain Nemat (as in Nemo), a chief of state who is by turns a kindly buffoon, a not-so-benevolent despot and a visionary who wants to find his followers a home on dry land.  The floating village is made up mostly of Sunni Muslim Arabs, a small minority in Iran, so the film's political content is less volatile than it may seem. Nevertheless, "Iron Island" gives us startling images of a miniregime at odds with itself, and of a community struggling, like so many others, to get from one day to the next. Its resources include a telephone company (i.e. a kid with a cell phone, seated behind a porthole), and—subversion of subversions—a teacher who thinks his students should be taught the truth.  Write to Joe Morgenstern at Joe.Morgenstern@wsj.com
The makers of Season of the Witch work hard to avoid accusations of lightheartedness, says Joe Morgenstern. Meanwhile, Country Strong covers an oft-told music tale. Also, two Iranian masters of film have been sentenced to six years in prison.