Craig D. Lindsey

Blacklight cuts corners everywhere.

The filmmaker, who also co-edited The Novice, depicts Alex’s freshman year in quick-cutting, frenetic, anxiety-ridden fashion, with composer Alex Weston’s string-heavy score properly ratcheting up the tension and Fuhrman gamely acting like a harried but dedicated ball of nerves.

As for the story itself, it often moves with a moody, morbid vagueness that makes the film seem like a Gothic ghost story, except that everyone’s alive.

Straight-faced and suspenseful at first, wacky and almost randomly nihilistic afterwards, South Of Heaven just doesn’t know what it wants to be.

As hellaciously predictable and preposterous as Sweet Girl is, it could win over viewers nursing their own grudge against Big Pharma. Mainly, though, this is a vehicle for its star, that brawny softie Momoa.

I’ll be straight with you: This movie is awful. And not the fascinating, Alexander Nevsky (the action star/filmmaker, not the 13th-century prince) kind of awful — it’s the does-anybody-involved-know-what-the-hell-they’re-doing kind of awful.

Sure, it’s kind of entertaining to see the studly, studious Mortensen slap on a few pounds and go way out with the fuggeddaboutit talk as he tries to shoot the shit with Ali’s pedantic, closeted virtuoso. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him ham it up. But the leads mostly are saddled with literal, middle-of-the-road material.

While the movie does address white people’s thorny relationship with rap and cultural appropriation, it demonstrates how delicate satirizing that can be when it gets kind of serious near the end — a long, long end — and suggests that being the best at battle rap can also mean being the worst.

The movie lays on the melodrama too thick.

Knuckleball mostly fills up its running time by being a twisted, even more ridiculous Home Alone.

There’s something oddly fascinating (and — dare I say it! — watchable) about a movie being this defiantly dumb. I never thought I’d say this, but this guy could give Tommy Wiseau a run for his money in the best worst filmmaker department.

It’s downright sad watching Willis go all half-assed in another movie. I guess we’re gonna have to wait for Glass to come out next year to see if Willis can do a movie in whole-assed form again.

From the characters to the purposely perplexing plot, it’s all hollow and artificial to the point of being downright grating. Blue Iguana is another exercise in sarcastic, self-referential, postmodern pulp whose time has so come and gone.

All through the film, you pray it doesn’t go down the bleak routes that films like this usually go — and, most of the time, it does. Night Comes On is an assured first shot from Spiro but, damn, I couldn’t wait for this fucking thing to be over.

No Date, No Signature presents a story of flawed but generally decent people trying to put right what went so horribly wrong.

Unfortunately, the narrative focus constantly shifts and never coalesces.

China Salesman has got to be one of the most baffling, expensive pats on the back China has ever given itself.

For all its pulpy, genre-movie intentions, SuperFly is virtually crippled by its own ludicrousness. It incites more giggles than gasps.

While it’s obvious Allred wanted to make a possibly autobiographical, blatantly meta take on how insane young adults get when they fall in love, The Texture of Falling ends up being one baffling, infuriatingly pretentious exercise in indie filmmaking.

This movie is just a stockpiled compendium of terrible decisions, both behind and in front of the camera.

Overboard is a manipulative mindfuck dressed up as a lightweight, heartwarming comedy.

Boom makes the case that the scene Basquiat came from was more fascinating than Basquiat himself. Even though many of the artists, admirers, and friends interviewed for this doc praise him and his gonzo genius, several of them suggest that he strived to be more of a rock star than a punk artist.

What this tiresome, out-of-pocket-ass movie actually does is create a painfully kooky, mad world where the only good thing about it is that Rosario Dawson can still turn men into idiots with her presence.

I guess that’s ultimately what Reed and Gunn wanted to provide: a view of African Americans that’s messy, complicated, dramatic, and, most important, honest. It’s also a fascinating artifact of black people getting together and making their own art — mainly because they wanted to see themselves properly represented onscreen.

What We Started is a cute roundup of how EDM came to be, but much like the DJs it shines a light on, it only scratches the surface.

As sleek and polished as Us and Them looks, it finds Martin not only biting from more established filmmakers, but biting off more than he can chew.

Unfortunately, this movie has so many damn things percolating all through it that it ultimately seems unfocused and painfully earnest.

The filmmakers do an effective job at making a clever horror show out of postpartum depression. So it’s a shame the movie goes off the deep end in the final act, as the story literally comes to a bloody, tragic finish.

Even though The Cured doesn’t quite excel at being both terrifying and thought-provoking, at least it gave Juno the opportunity to become a horror hero.

As much as director–co-writer Mitu Misra wants to show the oppression and repression that still have a stranglehold on Muslim communities in Britain, he does what a lot of first-time filmmakers do their first time out — he overplays his hand.

A hysterically entertaining train wreck.

As much of a nightmare Mom and Dad spins in turning parents into raving, homicidal lunatics, this movie also knows how hard it is for actual moms and dads to just get up every day and try to be good parents to these little muhfuckas.

Even with all its grisly, gory absurdity, Hangman actually tries to be a sincere salute to all the badge-wearing men and women who risk their lives on the regular to catch bad guys. But you may not take a single frame of this movie seriously.

The stench of needlessly convoluted derivativeness lingers throughout this flick.

I'm thankful No Greater Love is around to make people realize how much war heroes need our love, help and support once they come back home. Just telling them "thank you for your service" ain't gonna cut it.

I’m sure the movie was made for Yeun (who also serves as executive producer) to finally have a chance to prove he has leading-man chops — and Hollywood should start giving him movie-star, action-hero gigs, like, yesterday.

Even though this dusty bit of true crime is limp and flimsy as hell, Last Rampage does give a few seasoned actors the opportunity to chew all the scenery they can in a 93-minute movie.

Palansky had the good sense to let the performances elevate the material, never letting this turn into another cheesy, predictably twisty yarn.

In the end, this relentlessly scenic travelogue/valentine is Willer literally giving her old man peace of mind.

Bushwick is a hollow, ultimately unsatisfying exercise in organized chaos.

Both Sharif and Ahmed make sure audiences leave Nowhere to Hide well aware that Iraq remains a war zone — one where innocent people remain caught in the crossfire.

It’s Not Yet Dark is an uplifting portrait of a debilitated man driven to excel by a relentless desire to live life and love those who surround him.

Christensen is impressive as a man who uses his wits and keeps cool. His straight-faced dedication is quite the contrast to the blatant disgust Willis reveals in his performance (and, really, for the whole movie). This actually makes First Kill a surprisingly fascinating study of two leading actors.

Blues is mostly a spirited, rambling trip through the history of this American music, but that journey is under the cloud of a melancholy bleakness.

Canadian documentarian Jamie Kastner (The Secret Disco Revolution) has crafted an entertainingly kitschy version of an Errol Morris film.

The Book of Henry is just a lunkheaded tearjerker that you’ll wish was even half as smart as its allegedly gifted protagonist.

Even though the movie tries to sneak in some subtext about children paying for the sins of their fathers, the biggest sin The Hunter’s Prayer commits is being too dumb to enjoy.

Like the show, it’s about an insanely attractive lifeguard crew whose members really throw themselves into their work. But the product teeters between absurdity and earnestness.

As the flick teeters between feel-good message movie and a burlesque of gay panic, the director scratches the surface in order to show how people rarely look beyond the surface of others.

Directed with a muted tone but a scenic eye by Brit first-timer Stephen Fingleton, The Survivalist, like most postapocalyptic movies, is both dire and oddly poetic.

Although Tracktown presents itself as adorably, harmlessly twee, I wished Pappas had tapped deeper into the dark side she hints at — the side that makes her protagonist more concerned about being a winner than about being a person.

Let’s cut straight to the chase: Black Rose is a bad film — amazingly, astoundingly, supercalifragilisticexpialidociously bad.

Just like high-wire showman Philippe Petit, Tower is a brilliant, dedicated artist who has spent most of his life wowing people with his talents — but is ultimately always out there by himself.

CHIPS is so all-around masturbatory, it’s hardly a surprise when we learn that Ponch has to constantly pull over because he needs to find a bathroom and rub one out. Much like him, this revved-up orgy of raunch and sweet rides never stops jerking itself off.

Tickling Giants comes off as both a fact-based look at fighting fire with funny and a prescient cautionary tale.

With Uwais choreographing the insane fights and Indonesian genre vets the Mo Brothers catching every bloody, manic minute, both fists and bullets get dished out with equal, frenetic fury — and the movie offers plenty of "Oh shit!" moments.

By the time the final half-hour rolls around, the film descends into twist-ridden, ridiculous madness. It becomes as messy and unattractive as the blood and brain matter that gets scattered throughout.

Oregon is more than a bittersweet look at a man deciding to end his life before he’s too invalid to have a say in the matter: It’s a study of how plain ol’ stubbornness can keep a family forever brimming with dysfunction.

The story, scripted by Beaty and poet/author-turned-filmmaker Jamal Joseph (who himself did five-and-a-half years in Leavenworth) dips into sloppy, melodramatic heavy-handedness, sullying the occasional spurts of fresh perspective.

Basically, Don't Hang Up is a hire-me sign masquerading as a slasher film.

For a documentary about two men who were big-time drug dealers back in the day, The Sunshine Makers is a quaint, damn-near-adorable bit of nostalgia.

Director/producer Eve Marson doesn't characterize Hurwitz as devious or nefarious. Instead, she presents him as a naïve, way-too-trusting schnook — an even more troubling diagnosis.

National Bird shows that war will always be hell, even for those who aren’t on the battleground. Kennebeck directs with a cold, distant eye, almost giving her subjects the same treatment they gave all those poor souls they targeted.

It is fascinating seeing people come to a holy place — a place that's more about love and spirituality than religion — with their hearts and minds open, just looking for guidance. And whether you believe in God or not, isn't that what we all want?

As consistently depressing as this movie is, it thankfully shows you that before you dismiss the denizens of an entire region as poor white trash, you should listen to their story.