Abbey Bender

Crampton’s performance, the squelchy sound design, and spurts of blood provide occasional jolts, but Dead Night ends up being muddled, never committing to either solemn supernatural horror or its elements of camp.

Even though it paints too rosy a picture, Love, Cecil fills out history with sparkling imagery.

The fact that you can sense Westwood’s disillusionment with the documentary project while watching it creates some interesting tension, but director Lorna Tucker doesn’t fully exploit it or turn it into meta commentary.

Almada deserves credit for creating a portrait of a character so often passed over onscreen: Doña is a woman in her sixties with a decidedly unglamorous life. But the relentless darkness here (both figuratively and literally — some of the shots of Doña in her home are shrouded in blackness) often proves more alienating than illuminating.

It’s atmospheric, and all the music is lovely, but unfortunately nostalgia can only do so much of the heavy lifting.

While there’s poignancy to be found in Souvenir’s depiction of aging and work, the sexual politics leave something to be desired.

While it’s refreshing to see a portrait of a woman’s unraveling that doesn’t romanticize mental illness, and that’s actually directed by a woman, it’s easy to wish Bitch probed a bit deeper into the protagonist’s pre-dog life.

The film ends with a riff on the final moments of The Graduate, a frustrating suggestion of a much better work.

Immigrant stories certainly don’t demand tragedy to be legitimate, but The Tiger Hunter, with its pastiche of fish-out-of-water comedy and pointy collared shirts, ultimately feels weightless.

The film deserves some credit for not becoming a weepie or, conversely, making Sherry the butt of a joke, but while Dhavernas’s performance and director Adam Keleman’s penchant for soft colors in a harsh world add intrigue, it leaves a frustrating aftertaste.

Manolo might be a hard sell to moviegoers who aren’t already interested, but for fashion enthusiasts, it’s an enjoyable confection.

A grating protagonist alone does not a bad film make, but the episodic, unsatisfying Lemon revels in purposeful nails-on-a-chalkboard unlikability.

The film is ultimately frustrating for the unending opacity of Paulina’s psychology.

The film could be shorter and perhaps more logical, and as the soap opera drama builds, the timeline becomes muddled. Still, there’s something pleasantly old-fashioned about its commitment to grandiose emotion.

The Fencer is ultimately too staid: It’s at its best when Nelis shows the art of fencing to his students and the elegant yet dangerous swords are wielded.

By the end, the point-blank murders might make you queasy, but Kravitz still manages to project composure, even when her face is covered in blood. All through, she’s battered but defiant.

Linder possesses a compelling, Kurt Cobain-like androgyny, but neither she nor Krill can do much to save the portentous screenplay.

Slack Bay is nothing if not anti-authoritarian, and while its anarchic energy is appealing in small doses, it becomes tiresome when it turns toward cruelty.

While racist slights remain unfortunately common, Little Boxes doesn't exactly use them to illuminate the nuances of suburban life.

The combined charms of Britishness and nostalgia often prove a potent blend for American moviegoers, but Their Finest could have delivered something more.

Dig Two Graves isn't the most original horror film, nor is it the scariest, but most of its short runtime offers passable suspense and an engaging protagonist.

Sex Doll, flat though it may sometimes be, is shrewdly aware of the countless clichés surrounding sex work.

While writer-director Evan Oppenheimer's tale of love, sport and Italian culture captures the landscape with a pleasant sheen and certainly makes Florence look like a lovely vacation destination, its narrative contains little emotional pull and too few surprises.

Miss Sloane, with all its Capitol Hill gloss, sometimes feels too much like a primetime political television drama.

It's all very tasteful, if not terribly exciting.

The film takes a few jumps in time and employs some mildly experimental techniques. Unfortunately, most of the humor doesn't stick.

All in Time is best when it's not forcing its slight narrative toward fantasy.

Jason Lew's lost-soul drama The Free World offers a modest exploration of innocence and guilt, with occasional interludes of both violence and romance

Unfortunately, The Dressmaker does not deliver on this early promise.

Chronic forces viewers to look closely at things they might rather ignore, and intentionally holds its emotions at a distance.

This is one of those films that merits a long cold shower afterwards. That might actually be a compliment — Wood wants to provoke.

While [Rachel Weisz] is a compelling performer, the film is ultimately a Hitchcock-inspired thriller without too many real thrills.

Joshy could easily be a film about loss, but it instead ends up as a prickly exploration of forced fun.

Five Nights in Maine may leave audiences wanting more grounding in the husband-wife/mother-daughter drama that is a constant, foggy presence, but the raw confusion and sadness associated with great loss shines through.

Unsurprisingly, the film doesn't live up to its Beach Boys–quoting title. Things turn out all right, but there's little real emotional force.

While Fathers and Daughters has a strong cast (including a brief appearance by Jane Fonda), it largely saddles them with one-dimensional roles and too-obvious emotional cues.

It would benefit from more focus on the music, but the work stands as an effective (if overly long) portrait of addiction.

While The American Side may not quite achieve the classic thriller tone to which it aspires, it does create an enjoyably hard-boiled world.

Rossi provides an attractive overview of the exhibition for those who did not attend it, but we are left feeling something like Wong, seeing a lot of pretty things surrounded by vapidity.

Viewers will sense that the history of these compelling figures entails more frustration and complexity than can be examined in a short running time.

Emory Cohen's performance elevates juvenile-detention-center drama Stealing Cars above the level of disturbing cautionary tale.

Jane Wants a Boyfriend offers a sweet but slight look at the oft-misunderstood subject of navigating relationships with a person on the autism spectrum.

Neither comedy nor melodrama (though bearing traces of both), Tumbledown ends up a modest study of two fairly unremarkable, prickly characters.

The directors of Band of Robbers, brothers Aaron and Adam Nee, have set out to modernize the stories of Mark Twain but end up with a cutesy caper that isn't as memorable as you might hope.

Shelter is a well-intentioned film that edges into misery porn.

Natalia Leite, here making her feature directorial debut, does have a knack for capturing a sense of place. Both the Nevada landscapes and a supermarket where Sarah works early on have a pleasing clarity and recognizable feeling of malaise. The environment says more than the characters ever do.

This debut feature by Elaine Constantine has no shortage of style, but ultimately relies a lot on cliché.