Andy Webster

Some movies about making movies (Truffaut’s “Day for Night,” for one) are charming. The self-references here, while intriguing, approach a comic navel-gaze. Actor Martinez has a saving grace, however: Ms. Burdge.

Deficient even in most of its set pieces, In the Blood does Ms. Carano (and Caribbean tourism) few favors. Somebody, please give her a better script and director.

Its ecological concerns, nuance and occasional lyricism place it squarely within the Ghibli oeuvre but not among its masterpieces.

There’s solid acting in Childless, but mostly there are words — torrents of them.

This film nimbly straddles biography and “Trek” valentine (Adam is a longtime television director), but also recounts the fraught if ultimately devoted ties between Adam and Leonard.

The actors are uniformly impressive, and Mr. Wheatley’s longtime cinematographer, Laurie Rose, shooting in black and white, combines stunning pastoral compositions with bursts of graphic violence punctuated by blazing flintlocks.

Meet the Patels is a tidy, easygoing documentary in which peripheral players prove more intriguing than its central focus.

There’s much sympathy but little tension in P J Raval’s new documentary.

This record of Washington State’s battle over Initiative 502, which legalized possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana in 2012, is predictably loaded with rancor. The battle isn’t over whether pot should be legalized, but to what extent.

Mr. Wirthensohn, who has known Mr. Reay since both were models, sees Mr. Reay’s life as a metaphor for the vanishing middle class. But Mr. Reay merely comes across as an aging casualty of Manhattan fashion, vainly chasing his fortune in a fickle industry that prizes youth.

The Uruguayan director Federico Veiroj’s leisurely comedy-drama The Apostate has its charms, though the story (and its hero) could benefit from a tarter approach.

Mr. D'Souza stumbles when interviewing George Obama, the president's half-brother, an activist who voluntarily lives amid squalor in Nairobi, Kenya. "Obama has not done anything to help you," Mr. D'Souza says. "He's taking care of me; I'm part of the world," George Obama replies.

Mr. Gilady, a documentarian making his fiction feature debut as a writer and director, over-stacks the deck with this belabored if artfully shot story.

Mr. Garlin has such a soft touch that at times the film feels feather-light, almost devoid of emotional traction.

Mr. Hosoda is skilled with fight scenes, and his settings — the pastel-hued Jutengai and the drab Shibuya, evoked at times with surveillance-camera perspectives and crowd-paranoia angles — are impressive. But the characterizations and conflicts here are strictly generic

For all its spectacle, The Fatal Encounter is wanting for profundity.

At 137 minutes, the film overstays its welcome with multiple concluding flourishes (and exceeds the sentiment threshold).

To its benefit, it has rich roles for, and splendid performances by, its three principal actresses. To its detriment, their characters are each in their own way pining for the same man, whose simple actions in life seem undeserving of their considerable exertions after his demise.

Kabbalah Me, which distinguishes between “narrow consciousness” and “expanded consciousness,” merely walks the middle ground.

Mr. Peng has charisma, though his moves are less convincing than those of an earlier Fei.... But “Legend” does offer the hefty authority of Mr. Hung, who at 64 can still — almost — hit, kick and do wire work with the best of them.

Mr. Klein is well served by his actors, who exude conviction, charisma and palpable ardor.

A kaleidoscopic travelogue depicting demonstrations of faith worldwide.

Though Mr. Ryoo’s taste for heightened theatricality threatens his story’s credibility at times, there is no denying his skill with a large-scale action set piece.

At length, the cheerleading...becomes a mildly taxing torrent. And Mr. Struzan, while an agreeable presence, is not an especially engrossing speaker. But then there is his artwork, an essential aid to the movies — and often their superior.

Complete Unknown is a curious hybrid, teetering between a thriller and a romance only to land in a nebulous spot that is neither.

As a screenwriter, Ms. Morgan is nimble with glib conversation, and she is fearless at playing an often unlikable character. But this movie might only narrowly pass the Bechdel test, and mustering sympathy for Annette’s affluent, insular circle is difficult. The plot resolutions ultimately feel pat, and the conflicts, in retrospect, thin.

Its willful determination to be outré proves its undoing.

Despite Mr. Yen’s impressive physical virtuosity, his stoic, often humorless presence tends to neutralize the emotional temperature.