Dennis Harvey

Competently mounted yet plodding, it’s manifestly a labor of love that becomes a bit of a labor to watch.

Paranormal succeeds in staying unnervingly "real."

While no doubt a more evenhanded documentary remains to be made on this issue, the Takatas’ effort is polished and convincing on its own terms.

Well-made if not particularly insightful docu should be catnip to Phishheads, while the previously unconverted are likely to stay that way.

While Carpinteros is strong enough in atmosphere and assembly, it’s limited by characters who aren’t developed with great complexity, and a climax that pours on a little too much credulity-stretching hyperbole. The result is a drama that, while OK, falls short of being truly memorable.

The sense of immediacy and excitement is contagious.

Never less than gripping as an account of what happened and what went terribly wrong.

American Woman isn’t dull, but the narrative feels more over-stuffed than surprising, and the packaging busy rather than evocative. There’s no unifying directorial tone or stylistic tact to lend the film the symphonic grandeur it sometimes appears to be aiming for.

What makes this involving beyond its subject's slightly freakish fascination is helmer Ilana Trachtman's capturing of a complex family dynamic in which Lior isn't the only intriguing personality.

Despite its handsome look and good thesping workout for Sam Rockwell, the story stretches a bit thin over feature length.

Winningly unpretentious tale uses a wispy romantic narrative as a vehicle for attractive original tunes.

What keeps the film from being anything more than an enterprising but minor diversion is that, with Shawn being is such a loud comic character from the get-go, scares and laughs alike don’t have much space to build. Winter gives his all, entertainingly so. But the performance is also dialed too high, too soon, its ultimate payoff diminished because we’ve already had so much of this protagonist screaming, bragging and sniveling.

It’s all quite nicely handled by Adams’ direction and his script (co-written with Jeremy Phillips), though the latter ultimately somewhat disappoints.

This superficially diverting tangent is too convoluted and tonally wobbly to leave a lasting impression.

Though lacking the emotional depth and almost epic scope that made “Henry Fool” loom so large after Hartley’s anecdotal, idiosyncratic early features, Ned Rifle is a far more satisfactory extension of its memorable characters than the misbegotten “Fay Grim.”

Providing an inspiration for active retirement, the ex-Harlem Renaissance chorus girls profiled in docu Been Rich All My Life are still shaking booty while most of their contemporaries can only shuffle their walkers.

Aesthetically, too, Norbu’s film offers steady, muted levels of intoxication, giving constant pleasure while never quite tipping into flamboyance.

Lacking any obvious thematic or emotional arc, compilation pic succeeds as a pure exercise in visual stimulus, its narcotic effect much amplified by Michael Gordon's thunderous, dissonant orchestral score.

Unpretentious, funny and touching, Edge of Seventeen rates as a quintessential Amerindie sleeper.

This Midsummer Night’s Dream actually works. It’s charming, funny and moderately sexy, with witty use of the disconnect between modern manners and melodious prose. And yes, the actors can speak the language — which, as many a movie has proven before, is never a given.

While the personalities spotlit here are easy to root for, what emerges is less an upbeat look at female enterprise than yet another case of corporate money and political mechanizations killing off community-based small businesses to further enrich their deep-pocketed, invasive new rivals. It’s an ultimately depressing trajectory, though the film itself remains engaging and well crafted.

“Brothers'” script hardly provides enough to hang a short on.

Forsaking the usual anime fantasy terrain for a straight suspense plot that might easily have been executed in live-action form, director Satoshi Kon's debut pic, "Perfect Blue," is a psychological thriller that intrigues without quite hitting the bull's-eye.

Annika Iltis and Timothy Kane’s debut feature documentary finds plenty of rooting interest and colorful characters in a competition whose willful perversity brings an inevitable, generous side helping of gallows humor.

What starts out looking like a prank run amuck gradually grows more sinister, with director Chris Peckover (“Undocumented”) nicely handling the swerves toward dramatic peril and fatal consequences while still maintaining a confectionary “family entertainment” veneer of antic doings in a glossy suburban setting.

If the overall narrative arc is less than inspired, however, the milieu and personalities depicted do have real character.

The audacity of de Silveira’s concept — in which enrollees at an upscale Christian college indulge in secret, moralizing vigilante mayhem — and her deliberately over-the-top aesthetic render Medusa a compelling mixed bag. It may miss the bull’s-eye, but not for lack of intriguing ideas or style.

Good-humored but not campy in its regard of some genuinely fascinating research, and full of trippy visuals, this science-fair bonanza would have been a midnight staple in the era of “The Hellstrom Chronicles.”

In one of the most accessible versions of Hamlet yet committed to film, Campbell Scott's self-helmed Great Dane is more than ever a man for our time.

All the performances are very nicely turned in a movie that deliberately excludes any significant adult presence in order to immerse us fully in an adolescent world.

While imperfect, Bloody Hell does entertainingly offer food for thought via an important overall point made in non-preachy form: Nature indeed does have room for variation in gender and sexual norms, no matter how loudly political or religious conservatives these days protest otherwise.

A modest charmer.

It’s a decently acted and crafted drama that nonetheless seems built on a foundation of phony pathos, revolving around doomed lovers whose fate seems more a matter of contrived miserabilism than authenticity.

With filmmakers Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia granted extraordinary access to one facility, they make for a bizarre and entertaining documentary.

The story is somewhat predictable in its beats, and arrives at a free-at-last conclusion that’s not entirely convincing. But the Sault Ste. Marie-shot film is ultimately ingratiating and slickly crafted enough to rise above those limitations.

A suitably unfussy tribute to a band that disdained even the slightest rock-star flash, We Jam Econo tells the story of the Minutemen, whose regrettably brief but brilliant career did much to expand punk's parameters during the early 1980s.

Lazin has without question skillfully assembled an entertaining, strongly narrative nonfiction package.

This thriller about a lesbian couple whose weekend takes a drastic turn is less one-note as a narrative conceit than “It Stains the Sand Red,” though it too ultimately stretches inspiration a tad thin. Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining and well-crafted effort.

Midnighters is brisk and eventful. Yet as a thriller driven by constantly worsening straits, it’s not as cleverly twisty as it would like to be, nor are the well-played characters granted enough dimensionality for their dynamics to be all that surprising or convincing.

Cheerfully embracing his status as cult B-movie genre megastar even as he sends it up, Bruce Campbell's sophomore directorial excursion, My Name is Bruce, is a big in-joke of definite if limited appeal.

A film whose charms are odd and indefinable by design.

It’s a chirpy heart-on-sleeve confection that’s populist in a somewhat generic way.

There’s nothing particularly inspired about Mitchell’s treatment here — he’s directed a lot of DVD extras, and this first feature feels like a plus-sized version of one — but there’s considerable entertainment value in its subject.

Even at two full hours, “Take Every Wave” must do a lot of condensing. Still, as ample and awesome as Hamilton’s exterior doings are, one gets something of a classic “authorized portrait” vibe here in that he’s not about to let us get too far into his head.

Clara’s Ghost is determinedly quirky, but its ideas are seldom all that original or funny, too often degenerating into rote scatological humor. Nonetheless, there’s a formative creative sensibility that seems on the verge of defining itself — something that never quite happens before the film ends, its anecdotal story having drifted nowhere in particular.

OC87 serves both its subject and its viewers well by chronicling a process that is actually insightful, entertaining and apparently successful.

Given their evident talent for packaging (as opposed to content), Hillege and van Driel might next consider doing something of a more purely genre-based nature, where depth or its lack thereof won’t matter much.

[An] engrossing documentary.

Basically "Diner" in wading boots, it feels very familiar in conceit and unadventurous in execution, but offers the undeniable pleasures of a well-observed, well-played modest seriocomedy.

Clearly, director Nolan is aiming for something else. But the delight in sheer gamesmanship that marked his breakout "Memento" doesn't survive this project's gimmickry and aspirations toward "Les Miserables"-style epic passion.

Gyllenhaal, in her most substantial role since "Secretary," does a fine, unshowy job of limning Sherry's faults without alienating the viewer or pleading for sympathy.

Emerges a surprisingly in-depth, wistful look at outgrowing a youth-only subculture.

While seemingly insoluble divide between personal identity and collective belief lends the documentary an intense focus, it's also a narrow one.

Surely the least excitable beauty-meets-Bigfoot film ever made.

Though the darker tonal shift toward the end is a bit jarring, director/scenarist Gilady demonstrates a deft, confident hand with the storytelling, cast and general packaging, and makes assertive use of the dramatic desert setting.

Undeniably entertaining for its zippy presentation.

Well-crafted picture has a nice sense of place and rudderless youth, though in the end, simply too little happens for the story to have much resonance.

Prows and company don’t simply play the often outrageous (and occasionally grisly) content for tasteless sensationalism, comic or otherwise. They treat it with an interesting, empathic yet slightly detached tone somewhere between the respectful and the droll.

Mixes satisfying dollops of fun, tears, travel, romance and lesson-learning in a handsome package whose two hours pass faster than many a grownup entertainment.

The film’s edge, if not its worthiness, is slightly dulled by an over-slick approach that in the end makes it feel less like reportage than a first-class fundraising video.

The modest pic’s laughs get bigger as it goes along, and so does its surprising warmth.

Despite some strikingly accomplished elements, the awkward whole never quite gels, sewn-together parts from “Red Dawn,” “Independence Day,” et al., failing to cohere amid major logic gaps, not to mention lead characters more off-putting than interesting.

A pleasant romantic drama that works best when focused on the romance -- or on the waves, since the principal characters spend a lot of time surfing.

Plays out in quite a different offscreen context than did last year's similarly themed sleeper "Startup.com."

It goes down as easy as a cherry Coke.

A most enjoyable flashback. Laura Archibald's documentary about Ground Zero for the 1960s folk explosion -- and its enormous influence on the shape of rock music to come -- isn't assembled in a particularly distinctive manner, but the materials and voices culled offer more than enough reward in themselves.

While this free-ranging agenda might easily have seemed overly random or pretentious, Olson’s confessional tenor lends it all a stream-of-consciousness intimacy.

Little in the way of a unified theme emerges to turn Joseph Levy’s feature into something more than a semi-random survey of restaurant life.

What’s ultimately less impressive is Stevens’ script, which to varying degrees draws on the templates of “The Amityville Horror,” “The Shining,” “Eyes Wide Shut” and other conspicuous predecessors, but lacks the original fillip or three that might have turned an enjoyable exercise into something really first rate.

Eden Lake doesn't feel like torture porn so much as a rural-jeopardy thriller in extremis.

A real-life inspirational comedy that should beguile viewers regardless of their operatic taste (or distaste).

It’s another effective use of a simple premise and modest means to create a nicely nerve-jangling thriller.

Cutter Hodierne makes an accomplished feature debut with this very well-crafted, empathetic hijacking drama.

Those already well-versed in Georgia’s recent history will get the most from a series of real-life character sketches occasionally cryptic for their lack of contextualizing explanation. But the docu’s ample human interest and handsome lensing, despite much visual evidence of a struggling economy, will hold interest for most viewers.

Daryl Wein's engrossing portrait of Richard Berkowitz is freshly engaging largely due to the subject himself.

An eerie suspense exercise that starts out looking like a supernatural tale — one of several viewer presumptions this cleverly engineered narrative eventually pulls the rug out from under.

While many movies these days feel stretched too thin to sustain their few real ideas, Rounding emerges in the end as a project that ought to have shed some surplus ideas to better focus on a few. Either that, or the compact pacing should’ve been eased to allow them all more breathing space.

Despite its new thematic wrinkle, the five segments here feel familiar in ideas and unmemorable in execution. It’s a middling addition to a variably inspired anthology brand that will no doubt trundle on through more installments yet.

There’s a lot to look at here, and nary a dull moment. Still, the cumulative impact is less than “great” — hobbled by too many confused, confusing layers in an overstuffed second half.

Whose Streets? is not a movie intended for those seeking an explanatory recap, let alone “balanced” analysis, of the original case itself. What it does offer, however, is a pulse-taking of one community’s response — variably constructive, occasionally chaotic — to perceived institutionalized abuse by law enforcement.

Endearing nature of the personalities involved makes a fine argument for weighing parental suitability on terms more profound than the prospective parents sexual orientation.

A conventionally enjoyable making-and-breaking-of-the-band saga.

Even the most deliberately airy amusement can use more ingenious structuring and assertive personality than Pineiro is inclined to provide at this (still early) stage in his career.

Sorta doing for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"-type slashers what "Shaun of the Dead" did for zombie pics, "T&D" offers good-natured, confidently executed splatstick whose frequent hilarity suffers only from peaking too early.

When it comes to the film’s overall success, these wildly amusing situations take a back seat to the contributions of an excellent cast.

Haaga and crew aren’t aiming for realism (let alone plausibility) in their raw-luck tall tale, but they straddle cartoonishness and cruelty evenly enough that what some will find hilarious may strike others as just gratuitously mean-spirited.

This amiably dumb feature debut for New Zealand writer-director Jason Lei Howden could have used some additional polish on the scripting side to bump its bad-taste humor up from the routinely to the inspirationally silly.

Crisp handling, some clever twists and a welcome streak of dry humor hold attention throughout

Masterful as he is at creating the stuff of nightmares, Morgan (as well as co-writer Robin King) is much less assured handling the character actions, psychology and dialogue outside his heroine’s fevered psyche.

More antic and likable than it is laugh-out-loud funny, Adventures in Public School is handled with skill on modest means.

If the satire feels familiar, and the dramatics often contrived, there's rarely a moment here when something funny, intense or cleverly interconnected doesn't keep one's synapses firing on overdrive.

Deals in sometimes queasy areas of underage sexuality and emotional extremes; again, deftness and confidence ultimately put across a screenplay (this time by Anthony S. Cipriano) overloaded with sensational incident.

Corbett Redford’s film channels and sustains the energy of restless youth while communicating the distinctive qualities of a community that carried collectivist 1960s ideals into a new generation, even as it rejected any vestige of their hippie parents’ music.

This is a quietly powerful drama about psychological manipulation and damage.

Long, relatively low-key but always engaging, I Am Not Madame Bovary wears its expansive scale lightly.

If Basir and Samantha Tanner’s screenplay ultimately feels like less than a full meal, its intelligence and restraint — particularly in resisting the lure of a heavier-handed message — are nonetheless admirable.

While “Autopsy” lives up to its title, providing plenty of grisly medical gore, the forensics induce less squirming than the exacting yet playful way Ovredal keeps making us anticipate more unnatural acts as the Tildens realize something is seriously amiss.

The result is a diverting-to-a-point curio whose nice atmospherics and good performances ultimately don’t add up to quite enough to satisfy the constructs of horror, allegory, satire — or anything else.