Daniel M. Gold

Directed by Matthew Hausle and Steven C. Barber, “Never Surrender” frustrates with its lack of focus.

Other People tries to lighten its heavy load with mixed results.

Mr. Records (the child actor in “Where the Wild Things Are”) is nimble and unsentimental in playing a character who is playing at normal, supported by a solid cast in a well-filmed indie that doesn’t let its low budget get in the way of some true chills.

The wooden dialogue gives Liam Neeson little to do beyond bite on his corncob pipe and berate subordinates who dare question him. Still, in perhaps the only instance when this is a compliment, he’s no Olivier.

None of the concoctions left me salivating (a basic, I’d think, for any food porn), and the exercise seems silly if not decadent. But foodies with a refined palate might differ — de gustibus, after all — and other viewers can appreciate the manic creativity that drives Mr. Redzepi and his crew.

Free to Run prefers nothing more than an easy jog down memory lane.

The sensibility is more grindhouse gore than spaghetti western, perhaps hoping to mine the same vein as Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” but lacking Mr. Tarantino’s lively dialogue and wicked sense of humor.

By the end, the accelerating plot twists and turns — love, obsession, family obligations, personal honor — become tangled and knotted; a few threads are simply ignored or discarded.

A chronicle of obsession ought to provide some insights.

Refreshingly free of jingoism, that detachment unfortunately winds up working against the movie, which doesn’t engage emotionally.

Mr. Trammell’s drug-induced stammers and tics don’t by themselves add up to a compelling portrayal, nor is this drama of the down and out at all gripping.

The movie touches on some worthy topics — sex, age, ego, desire, reason, insanity, death — but never focuses long on any of them: Some bits are amusing, most are simply tedious.

What starts eerie becomes strictly cartoonish.

Less a documentary than a glittering souvenir, but it’s still a record of a legend.

The director, Robert Lusitana, who ran for Larsen himself, has assembled a touching celebration of a coach and mentor.

The movie is thin on true narrative, preferring to study Irene without shedding quite enough light on her background or tracking her development.

Mi America is not just about a murder case but about how residents of divided communities share a history and deal with one another, sometimes hopefully, always warily.

The film opts for a somber if gentle tone that, given the story, is equally ill suited.

The Wildlike landscapes are exhilarating, but when the film works, it’s because of the interiors.

Mr. Gotardo uses long, slowly unfolding shots and extended close-ups to aid our familiarity with each set of characters — almost by osmosis, we grasp their domestic dynamics, the rhythm of their routines.

Fever doesn’t come to a neat ending and ultimately feels unsatisfying. Before then, though, it’s an intriguing and intelligent update of a true crime still chilling more than 90 years later.

Directed breathlessly by John Erick Dowdle (“As Above/So Below”), the movie is filled with jittery shots from hand-held cameras, and hurtles along at a pace that is especially helpful in racing past the holes in the paper-thin plot.

The film tries, unsuccessfully, to walk the same eerie, atmospheric trail as “The Village” by M. Night Shyamalan, or any number of Stephen King works.

The title of this biopic, Paulo Coelho’s Best Story, is apt: His own life might well be his greatest work. A pity, then, that the film, directed by Daniel Augusto, doesn’t chronicle his evolution better, leapfrogging among decades instead.

The movie is choppy and rushed — a bumper-car ride that somehow fits the rough-and-tumble era it recalls.

This slow-paced, cut-to-the-bone drama ought to be gripping, especially as the jungle and its beasts make their presence felt. But curiously, Ardor lacks tension, maybe because the actors are playing archetypes: Little is said, and there are few surprises.

The only sketch that’s inspired is the final one.

In touching lightly on themes without committing to any of them, the movie falls flat. What should be sweet is saccharine, what might be profound seems trite.

This low-budget film is often static and awkward... Smaller scenes, though, like those when Guinevere interacts with her tough-minded lawyer of a sister or an old classmate from high school, have a realness to them.

This tribute is overlong and too reverent, conveying little sense of Xiao Hong the person and even less of her talent.

Some of this seems like stoner’s paranoia, and some of the film’s talking heads, mainly comedians, don’t make the best advocates. Over all, though, its experts... argue forcefully for decriminalization.

Hollidaysburg is a pleasant if unremarkable coming-of-age film.

While 14 Blades grinds on perhaps a half-hour too long, its ambitions and energies show that for a fresh take on the western, go east.

Written and directed by Chris Hansen, this romance has its authentic moments. As it happens, Mr. Brumlow and Ms. Vander Broek are married, but their familiarity hurts as much as it helps.

Applying ghoulish special effects and atmospheric slow pacing, the film also maintains a dark palette of blacks, browns and ash grays, the better to serve as a backdrop when the blood starts spattering.

With jokes and computer-generated spectacles diluting the action, this is not one for fight-film purists.

It’s cruel but must be said: Presented in hushed, reverent tones, Jobriath A.D. often comes across as mockumentary material; each ghastly career move is followed by another. Hampered by limited video of Jobriath, the film lacks a sense of him or his music.

A small, gentle riff on the eternal tug of war between small towns and big dreams.

The movie covers almost three decades choppily. But Mr. Camarago and Mr. Miguel convey the stubborn commitment that made the brothers so revered by the tribes.

Unfortunately, Linsanity, following the conventions of the sports bio genre, ends at its peak, with only a brief nod to these events. Lin raised his game’s possibilities; you just wish that Mr. Leong had raised his.

The Time Is ... Now is a well-meaning if congenitally flawed bit of uplift about how to endure catastrophe and violence in a world that has no shortage of either.

As entertainment, this is vintage potboiler fare. But the movie is also revealing as fantasy, an artifact of 21st-century China’s youth culture transfixed by its rising fortunes and Western ways.