Daniel M. Gold

This film maintains its anxious themes throughout, which makes for some tedious stretches because the tension never breaks. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Gabriel is unexpectedly absorbing.

At slightly more than an hour, the film may not be definitive, and its chronology is a little fuzzy. Even so, Rubble Kings is a fascinating, valuable work of social, music and New York history, a celebration of a peaceful revolution by those who helped birth it.

United Passions is one of the most unwatchable films in recent memory, a dishonest bit of corporate-suite sanitizing that’s no good even for laughs.

As the film makes abundantly clear, if left untreated, contagions — of ignorance, fear and conflict — will spread wherever they can.

Know How is a robust, youthful call to be seen, heard and appreciated — to be a little less invisible.

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.

Watching Elliot and his fellows stumble determinedly through shoots, pleasantly delusional about the movie’s prospects, is mildly amusing, a testament to indie film’s appeal for a certain hardy strain of dreamer. But the joke sours, and the documentary, filmed over two years, turns darker.

No role is sketched out beyond brush strokes, and no relationship is meaningfully examined.

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.

A fascinating account of off-the-books diplomacy in the 1980s, “Plot for Peace” is that rare documentary that both augments the historical record and is paced like a thriller.

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

This vivid and haunting essay steps away from the debate about illegal immigration.

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.

A labor of love and respect.

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

As this smart and sympathetic profile shows, Dock Ellis didn’t need a no-hitter, stoned or otherwise, to define himself; he was his own best work.

For a would-be skin-and-horror treat, though, Cam2Cam is surprisingly prudish. It doesn’t really traffic in sex; the camera mostly averts its gaze from the murders, preferring blood spatter patterns; and the acting is predictably wooden.

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.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball is an affectionate scrapbook of a documentary.

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.

As travelogue, this is a persuasive introduction.

The Hornet’s Nest lets its soldiers do most of the talking. The action — the rapid fire of automatic weapons, the crack of a sniper’s shot, the medevac rescues — is vivid.

The movie’s grittiness — the director, Jim Taihuttu (“Rabat”), shoots Wolf in black and white — its intrigues, its graphic violence and Mr. Kenzari’s performance make for a worthy addition to the annals of gangster films, Interpol edition.

While the detached, deadpan tone and occasionally stilted acting might leave some viewers flat, there’s no doubting the fierce intelligence behind this admirable puzzle box of a movie.

A bit too true to a frugal indie philosophy, where winging it beats reshooting, the film gets more woolly and unfocused; many scenes feel improvised and only occasionally hit their marks.

The director Emilio Aragón wisely trains the camera on Mr. Duvall. A Night in Old Mexico is his baby, and he rocks it.

What elevates the film beyond a video scrapbook, though, are the glimpses of the routines and slow rhythms of the nursing home before and after this adventure.