Bob Strauss

There is a great deal of movie-backlot sleight of hand that looks fine while you’re watching, but when you think about it comes off as mostly façade. In that way, at least, Rodriguez successfully links form to content.

Funny, heart-tugging, intermittently awesome and a loving if ambivalent homage to the heyday of martial arts cinema, writer-director Larry Yang’s film may not blend tones as seamlessly as Chan’s best work from the 1980s and ’90s did. But “Ride On” is moving and thrilling enough to be a worthy capper to the Chan canon.

This sometimes clever, outrageously gory and slickly violent horror comedy is more “John Wick” than Tod Browning, and that’s just the tip of its tonal confusion.

These people seem real, even if their primary motivations are ideological. Perhaps more than they intended to, Goldhaber and the actors make the political personal. That’s a triumph of craft over appetites for destruction.

Rye Lane keeps winning you over by being a satiric-yet-sincere love letter to creative expression as much as to love itself.

Not cheesy enough to be fun/bad (the recent loss of Raquel Welch reminds us of what a hoot such junk films like her 1966 “One Million Years B.C.” could be) nor awesome enough to compete with the “Jurassic” movies of the world, this production is an in-betweener whose biggest asset is a tight, 93-minute running time.

Palm Trees and Power Lines feels like an honest story about grooming, which is not only valuable in and of itself but kind of crucial at a time when hate-mongers have perverted the concept for political ends. But then, why see a movie that’s good-for-you important and profoundly uncomfortable? Because its humanity and artistry never falter.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance may not be as dirty a delight as the male stripper series’ first two movies. It has other pleasures, though, especially for fans of screwball comedy, musicals and — yikes — serious dance.

There’s crafty playfulness to Wohl’s approach, though; dialog can be as killer as Jo’s darkest impulses, and some scenes are drop-dead funny even if they’re about wanting to drop-kick Baby out of your life.

By the time “Missing” reaches its truly terrible ending (which makes you wonder if the movie was all just a stealth Apple promotion), the feeling is one of programmed exhaustion rather than catharsis.

Like all his films of the last dozen years, “No Bears” brims with paranoia and metaphors for the trouble Panahi’s pictures have gotten him into. This time, though, he implicates himself in a complex exploration of how his work can exploit and even exacerbate the real-life tragedies it’s always so powerfully depicted.

The Drop can feel like being stuck with someone who has their good qualities, in serious ways, but that you can’t stand.

While pacing and believability issues in The Pale Blue Eye cannot be overlooked, this finely made period mystery’s virtues should still be savored.

An atmospheric and, to a degree, challenging mashup of psychological, social and folk horror, Nanny casts a spell it doesn’t put us entirely under.

It’s a remarkably life-affirming message coming from a mess of animated puppets and a monster-loving filmmaker.

Enola Holmes films are too concerned with chases, romance and flattering their target audience to even consider challenging anyone’s puzzle-solving abilities.

The result is so bursting with sight and verbal gags, Afropunk aesthetics and socially conscious subversions that it can be too much to take in. Like a bountiful trick-or-treat haul, you should probably come back to this bag of dank goodies multiple times, rather than try consuming it all in one sitting.

The real magic of “School” resides in its stars. Caruso loses Sophie’s moral direction in deliciously fun yet behaviorally alarming ways. Wylie finds Aggie’s righteousness without damaging the character’s cunning intellect; a scene involving “wish fish” has no business being as moving as Wylie makes it. Together, the young actors take this project beyond good and evil, into the realm of something real.

The film’s broad performances, undemanding humor and not-too-frightening horror are all designed to appeal to kids (and older fans of the “Haunted House” series). Adults are advised to enjoy the living Spirit Halloween aesthetic of it all, and remember that you love your children while enduring the rest of this hollow experience.

Smile is an immensely well-crafted horror movie.

An unnerving thriller that never goes quite where you’d expect, this feature writing/directing debut from Zach Cregger (“The Whitest Kids U’Know”) also does monstrously amazing things with lighting, sets and special effects makeup.

Credit to Hart, though, for trying to make every scene, comic or sentimental, as strong as he can. He reads each line that’s supposed to be funny as if it is, locates Sonny’s emotional truth no matter how ridiculous the scene is, and never lets his signature energy sag.

The filmmaker’s default setting is to tell each person’s story with dignity, a significant achievement that goes a long way.

“It’s not what it looks like” is both the marketing tagline for Emergency and an accurate description of this ingenious independent film.

While Stearns’ style is detached and clinical, he finds tender humanity in unexpected places.

The film is worth watching thanks to a flawless central performance by “Glee” alum Dianna Agron, solid elder annoyance shtick from Candice Bergen and Dustin Hoffman, and Bialik’s “Big Bang Theory” co-star Simon Helberg locating his pain and relishing every minute of it.

The thing that may be most chilling about “Master” is how its three protagonists want and need to support one another but ultimately cannot due to internal as well as external forces.

That its premise is a fundamentally corny one we’ve seen a million times before is a separate matter, but filmmaker Kuosmanen (“The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki”) and his two lead actors camouflage that well in naturalistic behavior and psychological depth.