Abbey Bender

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.

Anonymous haters on YouTube can say Gigi is fake, but her enthusiasm here, and the enthusiasm her teen girl fans have in meeting her, is totally genuine.

Kung Fu Yoga is a proudly silly cultural melting pot in which kung fu and Bollywood meet amicably.

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.

While not the most formally adventurous or action-packed picture, it is a film of compelling urgency.

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.

The perfect storm of homophobia, racism, and moral panic that sent the San Antonio four to prison is almost too much to cover in a ninety-minute documentary, but Esquenazi paints a tragic and humane portrait of the women who ended up in its center.

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.

While the narrative is familiar — athlete from rough background trains fiercely, with the sport as a means of salvation — directors Zackary Canepari and Drea Cooper make sure the story is all Shields's, keeping her charisma at the center.

By focusing on the small details of Byong-man and Gye-yeul's life — from their humble, secluded home to their touches and glances — the film paints a sweet yet tragic portrait.

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.