Brad Wheeler

The news behind the understated drama Menashe is that it’s a rare thing, a film performed in Yiddish, covertly shot in Brooklyn’s guarded Hasidic community.

Over all, the food porn was played down, the series is getting a little road-weary and who knows what happens with these guys next. If they’re thinking about heading to France, a horny Frenchman has some good advice: Paris can wait.

Dad’s suspected infidelity is the tension in a film that hammers its nineties setting so relentlessly it could be called Sex, Lies and Videotape (and Floppy Disks and Payphones).

An oddball charmer of a motion picture about nostalgia, the pursuit of artistic passion and a coming of age bizarrely delayed and uniquely fulfilled. The bear itself is but a bit player.

This film is about giving credit where previously neglected credit is due. “You wouldn’t let us talk about it before,” Robertson says at the end of the doc. “But now I’m going to talk about it real loud.” No volume is too much at this point.

As entertainment, the film is pedantic and over-dramatic, with the string section working overtime on the soundtrack.

Well conceived, deftly comic and finely acted (particularly Evelin Hagoel as the gutsy wives’ ringleader), The Women’s Balcony overlooks nothing when it comes to addressing faith, segregation and sexism in a peppery, entertaining way.

Cross’s light-handed (but too long) film doesn’t romanticize or overcomprehend, choosing instead to concentrate on life’s non-choices.

An interrogation session involving a psychotropic drug is just too weird for words and some will find the film sentimental and too naked in its Academy baiting. That said, 13 Minutes works like clockwork as an artful (if not terribly ambitious) take on a grotesque era.

Still, the thing is almost watchable until a ridiculous reveal spoils whatever chances this film had at succeeding.

The film is dialogue-heavy, easily imaginable as a two-hander for the stage, but watching the ice-thawing process between the two enemies is less compelling on screen.

An immersive, compact and unpolished documentary from the Kurdish-born, Oslo-based filmmaker Zaradasht Ahmed.

What it is, is a delicious black-widow mystery, in which the deep-gazing actress Rachel Weisz rocks the veil.

Scored intensely and photographed vividly, the electric film imagines a small slice of doomsday with horrific believability.

The film’s director, who would make an excellent character witness for the defence, raises the questions but frustratingly doesn’t answer them in an otherwise compelling documentary.

Played adroitly by Patrick Sabongui, this guy wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or would he? A couple of nice plot twists overshadow the predictable sound-of-sorrow ethnic wail that closes the film.

A modest, hard-faced film, offering a nervous study of humanity and civil disobedience in a societal-bullying era.

Amir Bar-Lev’s excellent, definitive film on the Haight-Ashbury acid-testers is long – four fly-by hours – but there are very few wasted moments.

Although it’s a kick to see the rough conditions and the full-on roughhousing of old-world golf, the scenes on the links are repetitive. And while the ending takes a severe dogleg turn to soft-focus sentimentality and the soundtrack hounds us to take this thing seriously, the movie is easily resistible.

Handled by veteran Scottish director Michael Caton-Jones, Urban Hymn is an unimaginative drama, carried by solid acting – Isabella Laughland is chilling as the possessive, menacing Leanne – but let down by an unspectacular script.

Some might find it stimulating. Others will find it bonkers. Watching Jude Law do a slow-motion howl, for example, is certainly … something.

As for the winner and new champion, it has to be Kuosmanen, who never met a boxing-film cliché he couldn’t discreetly avoid.

The resolution of that conflict is dishonestly implausible, thus ruining a perfectly mediocre movie. The worst of it is that Fred the one-eyed cat was probably winking at us the whole time.

Sublime documentary.

For fans of horror maestros John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon, nothing fills a void like good, old eighties-fashioned gore. Which is what we get from the writer-director team of Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, unabashed fans of Reagan-era blood, slash and goo.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and others float around one another for an intense but spark-free 103 minutes, their characters barely sketched.

After 107 well-packed minutes, Dotan’s film (which curiously fails to mention current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) arrives at a pessimistic outlook. A settlement on the settlements is nowhere in sight.

Spiritual questions and thoughts on the importance of flesh-and-blood relationships are raised, but the strength of the you-can-run-but-you-can’t-hide drama is the dewy charisma of the two young co-stars.

The performances are pitch perfect; the soundtrack is evocative; the photography is artful. Nothing is overdone, and nothing is really resolved.

This is a story of villainous oppression, unfortunately told with oppressive earnestness.

Writer-director Zandvliet has crafted a handsome, affecting and questioning film about post-war revenge and forgiveness. On a tough field to navigate, he makes it to the other side, commendably.

The problem is that somewhere around the middle of the film, one begins to realize it probably isn’t going any place worthwhile.

A stunningly unnecessary comedy, Fist Fight perpetuates unoriginal characters, a preposterous premise and a half-hearted stand-up-for-yourself message.

A post-tour lawsuit levelled against “motherly” Madonna by two dancers is barely dealt with; the Express Yourself singer herself isn’t interviewed. As a result, the affecting film is absent of the truth or dare it had the potential for.

With its jazzy score and drizzly nighttime moods, where The Comedian works best is as a salute to New York stand-up scene, with looks into the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village and the New York Friars Club.

A shameless pastiche of Starman’s alien-on-Earth sci-fi, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble’s medical pathos and any number of young-lovers-on-the-run stories, The Space Between Us may set back the Earth-Mars relationship light years.

Civilization has the wealth and the technology to start dealing with the threat, but does it have the wisdom?

The problem with Shyamalan’s spin on dissociative identity disorder is that for all the dissociation, why are all 23 identities cool with locking terrified girls in a basement?

Naturally, Brooklyn is the setting for the type of old-fashioned brand of fairy-tale film this stinker aspires to be, but each time the inspirational Brooklyn Bridge is shown the desire to jump off it is doubled.

What we learn from the enjoyable punditry of siblings, art-world associates and former lovers is that the gorgeous provocateur was consumed with fame, and that everything and everybody was a means to that end.

This half-throttle documentary might better be called The Fast and the Uneventful.

Franco’s outlandish Laird dude is fascinatingly unfiltered, either when it comes to his non-stop F-bombs or his love-seeking shenanigans. It’s all a bit rompy, with a touch of the-world-is-a-changin’ commentary.

Scriptwriter Allan Loeb, the man behind more than one Kevin James vehicle, attempts Christmastime magic à la "Miracle on 34th Street," but ends up conjuring Maudlin on Madison Avenue instead.

First-time Australian director Garth Davis offers sweeping cinematic shots, with a soundtrack that is pleasingly epic, but the second act is a bit skimpy, script-wise.

Age in Being 17 comes in awkward bursts, and yet the film moves sublimely. Director Téchiné, 73 years old, is wise beyond his years.

The soundtrack is effective and overt – from the badass rock blare of Billy Squire, Bad Company and AC/DC to the atmosphere compositions of the indie musician Julia Holter to the riveting nu-blues of Willis Earl Beal. The camera work is slick, too; tricky sound-editing notions are pulled off with aplomb.

A well-layered film makes a fascinating case for forgiveness and a sharp rebuke of Bible-taught eye-for-an-eye revenge.

His story here is well-woven, with the kind-hearted voices of psychiatrists, playwrights, family members, lawyers and the gregarious McCollum himself failing to come up with a solution on how to handle an autistic, obsessive and irresponsible rail rider.

Spry, entertaining documentary.

The film is as much about Hokusai as it is about the titular protagonist, and so she defers to her father here as she apparently did in real life.

Perhaps Howard’s dutiful obligation to Brown’s treasure-hunt oeuvre will end here, with the temperate Inferno sparking a resurgence to follow. Dante wrote that “The poets leave hell and again behold the stars.” Here’s hoping that Howard has some shine left in him.

This is a prequel superior to its predecessor – we’re not bored with board-game ghoulishness yet.

The documentarian Victor Kanefsky paints a vivid picture of an entertaining rogue, one who finally gets his due with this film. Then again, Cenedella might refuse to accept the recognition. There’s no bastard like a principled bastard.

The victory of The Accountant is in the tone. The title character isn’t presented as a superfreak – this isn’t "Rain Man," in which autistic gifts are presented as powers for parlour tricks – but as a prototype and a beautiful mutant, maybe even a superhero.

Ironically, Middle School’s message is about encouraging kids and grown-ups to think outside the box and yet, the filmmakers themselves do precisely the opposite.

It’s a fantastically bonkers story told excitedly in The Lovers and the Despot, a stranger-than-fiction yarn that would make a hell of an opera.

Malin Buska – the Swedish Kirsten Dunst? – is highly watchable as the Descartes-loving ruler, but Canada’s Sarah Gadon as the sheet-warming lady-in-waiting is given little to do but look naive and dumbstruck.

Directed by veteran "Chariots of Fire" filmmaker Hugh Hudson, the semi-compelling Finding Altamira is let down by ordinary acting, way too many scholarly adages and a perplexing level of inaction.

This quirky dramedy promises little and delivers even less.

The song playing sombrely over the tail credits is Afraid of Everyone, which is a hell of a way to die, but an even worse way to live. There is no cheer to Transpecos.

The script is loose; the acting is natural and nuanced. Over the credits plays an acoustic song about lives in the how-did-we-get-here stage. If you do not leave this Netflix movie asking questions about your own paths, the failing is yours, not Duplass’s.

A home invasion story that is as artfully terrifying as "Home Alone" was entertainingly hilarious.

Brody plays opposite Yvonne Strahovski, whose femme fatale is less like Lauren Bacall and more like Sharon Stone. Unfortunately, Strahovski’s flat portrayal lacks the basic instincts of Stone, though she does uncross her legs, and that is central to the curve-balling, sex-tape plot.

Scenic, well-paced and rich in dialogue and character, the film is Coen brothers for the squares, and maybe the best middle-of-the-seat drama of the summer.

In a smartly written, evenly wrought drama, the newly discovered wunderkind Rod Paradot stunningly portrays a troubled youth who makes Eminem’s 8 Mile protagonist look like a boy scout in comparison.

It’s a tough watch, but inspiring.

Unfortunately, the script is held together with something much less adhesive than, say, Amy Adams’s "American Hustle" blouse tape.

Adults should get a kick out of Phantom Boy’s sly humour but the story and the action is for the kids.

The film is poetically structured and Lear is a spry, emotionally involved participant in a lively bio-doc that succeeds eulogistically and contextually.

Nerve looks fabulous and the pace is evenly adrenalized, which makes up for clichéd characters, a concocted premise and commentary that is a bit on the nose.

Best of all, it’s tight at 81 minutes, which means a 7 p.m. screening gets you out of the theatre while it’s still light out, thank God.

Toddlers will dig the shenanigans, but bewildered adults should root for the annihilation of this tapped-out series.

Laudable for its commentary on hedge-fund greed and a government unable to take care of its people, the well-acted film loses points for story conveniences that rob the final scenes of the emotional weight otherwise earned. A promise made is a balance owing, and The Debt fails to pay off.

A fascinating and compelling dive into an artist’s uniquely ticking parts, gives voice to a complex dude and broadens the picture.

Director Jeremy Sims probably uses a setting-sun metaphor more than necessary, but otherwise his decisions are immaculate and his film should hold audiences in thrall. On a journey of self-discovery, the metre keeps running. Might as well, Last Cab tells us, get your money’s worth.

Scratch off Lewis as a contender for the new Bond actor. As for McGregor, he may have failed his audition as well. Our Kind of Traitor is tense enough, but lacks lustre and pizzazz. Perhaps a better-utilized Harris could have popped things up.

Instead of captivating us with swagger, McConaughey chooses to go grim and dogged. Director Ross does the same.