Brad Wheeler

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.

Rocketman is Broadway razzle-dazzle of the best kind.

Unfortunately, because filmmaker Miele also places value in discretion, his snazzy documentary is celebrative – not investigative.

Educating young audiences as it entertains just about anyone, Penguins features the droll narration of Ed Helms and some great Antarctic cinematography.

Director Barbosa's love letter to his late friend is emotionally satisfying and cinematically splendid, with social commentary shoe-horned in for better or worse.

An excellent cast (including Michael Shannon and Hillary Swank) hit the right notes in an evenly wrought family drama that rings true.

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.

The music’s evolution and crisscrossing pollination is explained well – Mr. Tambourine Man inspired Rubber Soul which influenced Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Pepper’s – but why are we watching the randomly selected couch full of Cat Power, Regina Spektor and a catatonic Beck sift through old LPs?

Fittingly, given that the film from Broomfield (who was also a former lover of Marianne’s) is nothing if not a love letter itself. So long, Marianne. So long, Leonard.

It’s a sitcom-y, Sarandon-wrapped Mother’s Day valentine.

Not once does anyone question the war or their involvement in it. We can't depend on big answers from filmmakers, but to not ask big questions seems like a dereliction of duty.

A delightful and polished stop-motion adventure-comedy and droll comment on colonialism.

This is a small, sentimental and straightforward film that offers little in the way of surprises. Instead, it wins on heart and a simple message about the value in fighting to keep one’s dreams alive.

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

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.

Open-hearted and sure to resonate with more than a few viewers, Juliet, Naked roms and coms in the most charmingly honest ways.

Jason Clarke is excellent as the complicated Kennedy, an unsure, insecure and not entirely decent man daunted by his brothers’ shadows and eager to earn a father’s respect that is not forthcoming. The supporting cast is top-notch, particularly Kate Mara, who portrays the doomed Kennedy loyalist Kopechne with a warm humanity.

[A] tender but untimid drama.

Owen Wilson cries, but audiences will more likely roll their eyeballs at writer-director Stephen Chbosky's outrageous emotional manipulations.

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.

To Dust’s humour is of the one-trick kind – an odd couple on an odd mission – but there is soul and small pleasures to its fly-by 92 minutes.

The film is a technical wonder, especially the sound design. There's also an excellent incongruity at work: Happy faces drawn in blood, viscous killers in playful masks and cheesy eighties music as the soundtrack to savagery.

Glassland is a small film with an emotional punch that wallops above its weight class.

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.

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).

We learn a little about Jett’s activism, and hardly anything about her personal life.

The film is not significant, but it is principled and sweetly subversive. And, like high school, if you’re not careful, you might just learn something from it.