Ben Kenigsberg

Professionally comfortable with improvising, the D.J.s make for affable company, and it’s amusing to watch radio from behind the scenes. But a tinge of melancholy also hovers over the movie.

Like “Our House” (2018), Burns’s underseen feature debut, Come True is superior throwback horror marred mainly by familiarity and, in this case, an ending that feels like a tease.

Like lovingly warmed leftovers, it has its satisfactions: a charismatic cast, evocative Los Angeles location work, the sort of granular details on diamond couriering and insurance valuation that might give impressionable viewers ideas.

Framed by scenes of weeping, the narrative does not entirely pull itself into a satisfying arc, but the film nevertheless unfolds with dexterity and suspense.

Often has the feel of a film-school exercise in which the object is to wring maximum suspense from rudimentary tools.

Judicious editing helps to maintain the illusion of two actors, though the quick-speaking Wasikowska, as the twins’ flighty, mercurial object of desire, in some ways has the subtlest task—and often steals scenes from her co-star(s).

This is a love story for the time, not for the ages.

The combination of “Streetwise” and “Tiny” belongs on a short list with “Boyhood,” the “Up” documentaries and “Hoop Dreams” as exemplars of time-capsule filmmaking.

The film largely lacks the urgency its subject demands. It’s an extended news segment in the form of a feature film.

While The Most Dangerous Year can be intensely personal — Knowlton speaks of the pain she felt watching visitors to a strawberry festival sign the petition for the anti-transgender ballot measure — it is primarily an informational documentary, not a film with artistic pretensions. But it makes its case effectively.

The surfeit of subplots muddles the message.

The Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (“A Moment of Innocence,” “Kandahar”) is not known for his kineticism, but The President — which he has suggested is his comment on the Arab Spring — has surprising urgency and sweep.

The Divine Order effectively illustrates how peer pressure can influence the political process. Collective silence, whether it’s from women unwilling to publicly press for their rights or men afraid to voice agreement with their wives for fear of looking weak around co-workers, proves more of an obstacle than any opponent. That message gives Ms. Volpe’s lark a timely edge.

Both leads are excellent together, and the movie is good at showing how Anna and Ben push each other’s buttons.

Ultimately, American Promise seems split between a personal perspective and a broader one. It’s a bold experiment that’s also a textbook case of filmmakers being too close to their material.

The movie pulls the rug out from under the audience several times, but in the end there is not much underneath.

When Dead Man’s Wire ends with footage of the real Kiritsis and Hall, it is hard not to conclude that a much crazier, livelier film could have been made.

Even if this minor coda plays to an increasingly closed circle of admirers, it gives the trilogy a pleasing, moving symmetry.

In the case of The China Hustle, a documentary may simply be the wrong delivery mechanism for a byzantine exposé that cries out for detailed news reporting.

Those who want to see Armstrong sweat may leave disappointed. Calm and seemingly well rehearsed in interviews, Armstrong shrugs off years of public statements without ever seeming truly remorseful.

With a barrage of title-card identifications, 6 Days can feel closer to a re-enactment than a thriller. To the extent that the movie has a political angle, it’s perhaps gratuitously jingoistic.

Invention is committed to finding its own wavelength.

Spoor is sensationally atmospheric. . . . The structure, though, seems counterproductively, even confusingly, elliptical, and the timing of flashbacks muddles the point of view. This is a whodunit that plays tricks with the “who.”

[A] low-key, engaging comedy.

The lack of energy suggests the film might as well have been constructed from outtakes.

If the paranoia level could probably withstand a slight reduction, much of the movie feels utterly credible.

Imagine a Kaurismaki with less humor and a slower pace, and you’ll have a sense of how singular yet insubstantial In the Aisles ultimately appears.

"Southwest of Salem” proceeds with what have become sobering tropes for true-crime documentaries: a defendant saying she didn’t realize she needed a lawyer; outsiders explaining how they grew convinced of a miscarriage of justice.