David Lewis

What makes the film emotionally satisfying, beyond the stirring music, is that we witness the healing and enlightenment of chorus members, some of them bearing scars from their oppressive red-state upbringings.

The Idol, a feel-good film about a Palestinian boy’s improbable ascent to pop stardom, takes place mostly in Gaza, a place not associated with feeling good. But out of the war rubble emerges one of the most irresistible movies of the year.

A formidable exercise in storytelling. Even at the end, when the inevitable goodbye toast occurs, there is a twist awaiting us.

A bit icky yet full of charm, the engaging documentary Rodents of Unusual Size introduces us to the nutria, a furry antihero that’s a cross between a huge rat and a beaver — and that has been damaging Louisiana’s delicate wetlands for decades. The film serves as both an environmental cautionary tale for other states (including California) and an interesting slice of Cajun life.

Director Byung-gil Jung, a trained stuntman, is an expert in staging action set-pieces, and for fans of dazzlingly violent shootouts on motorcycles and buses, this brutal revenge tale should be right up your alley, even if the proceedings often get sidetracked with a confusing back story.

Apocalypse also doesn’t excel in the teen angst department, because the characters are not fleshed out enough. The love triangle is not convincing, and except for Anna and her father, we don’t care a whole lot about what happens to the characters, perhaps because we didn’t get enough time to know them in the beginning.

A thinking person’s action movie - as long as you don’t think too much. Even if it has its share of preposterous moments, it crackles with nonstop tension, combat scenes and double-crosses.

It’s hard to deny that Shyamalan remains one of our most prolific, longstanding filmmakers, and that his work continues to make an impression on our culture. His tense, never dull “Knock at the Cabin” makes us uncomfortable at times, and few punches are pulled. Perhaps he’s found a formula that will take him to new, interesting places.

From time to time, there are the requisite cutesy boy-and-his-wolf moments, but for the most part, the film is harrowing, suspenseful and gritty — and a perfect vehicle for impressive 3-D effects that bring to life an exquisitely beautiful but unforgiving land.

It’s not easy to make an amusing, accessible diversion that mixes LGBTQ positivity and national politics, but “Red, White & Blue” passes the test with flying colors.

This film doesn’t know exactly what it wants to say.

We’re supposed to be taking a fun thrill ride here, with a little existentialism to boot, but Copshop can’t escape its arrested development.

For a film about an unexpected reunion between two daughters and their long-lost mother, there is shockingly little talk about family. We have no idea what these women see in each other, let alone want from each other. This strips the film of the emotional authenticity that it ultimately craves.

A movie that moves slower than it should and that keeps us detached for long periods of time. Most of the problems can be traced to the script, which does a poor job of establishing the characters and giving us a sense of how they relate to each other.

Both Parsons and Aldridge surrender to the material, and we are moved as Kit and Michael come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of their love for each other.

It all gets a little unwieldy at times, but Shooting the Mafia is far from boring. We can’t take our eyes off it, just like a photo that’s out of focus, yet somehow remains arresting.

It’s a wild ride from beginning to end, thanks to a fearless performance from Finnish actor Elmer Back, who is a perfect match for Greenaway’s mischief.

Clearly, this is not a film for everyone, but even though the routine gets highly repetitious, some of the heavy metal numbers are stirring.

Though the ambitious Outlaw King doesn’t always fire on all cylinders, moviegoers deserve this chance to see it on the big screen, before it starts showing on a laptop near you.

Both McAvoy and Horgan handle the rapid-fire dialogue with gusto, and for a while, their devastating banter is amusing. But eventually the effect begins to wear thin: These vocal diatribes need a more developed story to hang on.

The unconventional Joseph Beuys, one of the pillars of the modern art movement, gets an unconventional tribute in Beuys, a zigzagging documentary that is both illuminating and opaque.

Intelligently made and contains some impressive set pieces.

As we watch these four pros in action, we find ourselves wanting fewer flashbacks and more time with all of the folks in one spot. That would have been a satisfying meal in itself.

In a film that should be dripping with drama, there is surprisingly little tension.

Even the brilliant Juliette Binoche, a welcome presence in any film, is reduced to whipping up empanadas and looking wistfully beyond a fence — basically standing there and doing nothing. And this is one of the most developed characters in the movie.

He (Connery) hasn’t made a film for the ages, but it’s on par with other decent historical sports dramas.

Almost Christmas would have been less clunky if it had focused more on the family’s loss of its matriarch, and allowed the comic elements to naturally arise as the characters struggle with the new family dynamic. Instead, we get too many slapstick set pieces and extraneous subplots that bog down the proceedings.

JT Leroy is on safer ground when Albert and Knoop are matching wits, mainly because it’s a pleasure to watch the perfectly cast Dern and Stewart on the screen. It’s easy to understand what attracted these fine actors to these roles, but the script allows them to only scratch the surface of this maze-of-mirrors story, where the truth remains deliciously elusive.