David D'Arcy

This culture clash plays more with delightful nuances than with big surprises, but David Zellner brings plenty of American innocence to the role of a fortune-seeker brought to his knees; as they say in Texas, he’s all hat and no cattle.

Despite the sense of fatalism and some clumsy turns in Zandvliet’s script, Land Of Mine achieves moments of chilling suspense.

It has plenty of heart and lots of fighting, but could use a little more magic.

Anesthesia comes from the heart, as few films do these days.

It’s a rare inside glimpse of how a cosmic moment is stitched together.

This film is proof that, with the right protagonist, a documentary seems to tell its own story. Rodchenkov is one of those characters who, as they say, you couldn’t make up.

The 12-year project – commissioned by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation – is evidence that Timoner, who made documentaries before, can craft a nuanced dramatic feature.

The Lovers is shrewd, even if it’s not altogether satisfying.

The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic play about failed hopes and tangled attractions, is solid and satisfying in Michael Mayer’s intimate retelling for the screen.

If you’re looking for more than laughs, this comedy aspiring to drama takes you only so far.

There’s plenty of Lynch-light in dark interiors and empty staircases as Katz’s portrait of hipster La La Land winds through familiar territory. Gemini may not show too much that’s novel about that noir world, but we see new strengths in its lead actress.

Most of those who’ll see The Biggest Little Farm will be drawn by its ardent, gentle idealism, and less by its hard-headed look at the challenges of sustainable farming.

For all its empathy, Haroun’s latest can be dramatically stiff. The dialogue of his script often sounds like exegesis, with key events bursting into the story like dramatic illustrations of what seems foreordained. Yet this stolid narrative approach feels appropriate for a film that is as much testimony as it is drama.

It’s an inspiring story, acted with heart and grit by Paige and Wood, and film directed with adroitness by Rozema in a ruin of a set in the woods.

Even by cult documentary standards, this one finds absurd depths in the peddling of enlightenment.

The documentary, as it grieves for those losses, points to divisions in American society that are as glaring as ever.

Sing is colourful, yet at almost two hours, it is also long. Still, if kids aren’t drawn to one singing animal (or familiar voice), there’s always another around the corner, holding up the tentpole.

A film directed by Katie Holmes (and produced by Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal) is a curiosity, and in this case a competent curiosity - no less competent than most of the independent films out there.

The closer the documentary gets to individual musicians and their histories, the more engaging it becomes.

We’re lucky that moralists like Ponsoldt and Eggers have a sense of humor.

Soul on a String is visually stunning.

It’s a radiant debut for young newcomer Joe Alwyn, who plays a Texan war hero uneasy in his own land. It’s a shakier curtain-raising for Lee’s ambitious weaponising of new technologies.

The actor’s comic sad clown performance lifts the film above an ordinary script.

Even with uneasiness dripping from Smith as Adrian, the acting in 1985 is like the script – stiff. 1985 gets the notes right, and its foreboding look takes us back to a dark age. It’s a lesson worth remembering. Yet with all the prejudice and pain, the film still feels a lot like a sermon.

Some of the most fun in Uprising comes from its elder statesmen, holdovers from Pacific Rim who play for laughs.

Ines and Emilie have tensions between them which are uncomfortably alive, and Langseth’s script is a gnawing reminder that, even when the date of death is set, family quarrels and resentments can still be corrosive.

Both McGregor, close cropped, and Seydoux, in retro bangs, give tender performances, although there’s not much that’s new in the love story once you push the robotics aside. Tech-heads who rush to Zoe may leave the theater feeling under-charged.

Silver infuses some novelty into his Perils Of Pauline narrative, thanks to an extreme performance by Burdge, who plays the credulous lovesick naif to the hilt.