1 What do you do when your heroine is tough but emotionally hurt, bright but glib, grown but immature? Make a film about her that is both painful and uplifting. Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), protagonist of "Wild," is a wild one, a hotheaded, quirky collection of foibles seen through a squirm-inducing telescope. She leaves her Minnesota home, pursuing recovery through a mammoth novice hike up the Pacific Crest Trail. On film, "Wild," based on Strayed's Oprah-endorsed memoir, seems faithful, witty, better balanced, focused and photographed with crystalline grace.

3 Music mogul Berry Gordy is hardly a sympathetic character to build a musical around. But the music he delivered at his Detroit record label in the 1960s and '70s helps to transform "Motown: The Musical," playing the Orpheum through Dec. 28, into an unstoppable hit. The cast is large and deep, with Reed Shannon perfecting a young Michael Jackson, Jarran Muse mastering Marvin Gaye and Allison Semmes doing a drop-dead Diana Ross, speaking as well as singing. hennepintheatretrust.org

2 "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" concludes the six-film story in high gear, offering a level of nonstop tension and forward motion few other movies can equal. It's designed to leave the audience drained and exhilarated, and from its opening scenes of exploding awesomeness there's no looking back. With a 45-minute combat conclusion and a really big finale, Peter Jackson's film is a roaring blockbuster of a war movie that manages to have great thrills and be totally ridiculous fun at the same time.

4 A master of gloomy introspection, Brit singer-songwriter Nick Drake became a beloved cult figure after his death in 1974 from an overdose of antidepressants. His ever-growing legion of hipster rock fans will be fascinated by the coffee-table book "Nick Drake: Remembered for a While." It features family photos, tributes from friends, family and admirers and even passages from Drake's diary. This look at his private pain gives insights into why he's been called a pinup for depressives.

5 Eighteen artists are represented in "Untitled 11," the 11th annual juried show at Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis. The show's most unusual piece, Adam White's "The Second Will," consists of hundreds of tiny conversation bubbles mounted in overlapping, 3-D lines within a picture frame. Clipped from a comic strip or graphic novel, the bubbles read as a stream-of-consciousness murder mystery in some far-out dimension. Other pieces include photos, sculpture, paintings, graphic designs and animated films. soovac.org