Dennis Harvey

It all seems slick, intense, and unpleasant in the same hollow way “Martyrs” did, because all the cruelty is so meaningless.

“Wojnarowicz” is impressive as a tapestry woven near-whole from preexisting materials, amplifying its subject’s own voice in every creative form it took. Editor Dave Stanke merits kudos alongside McKim for their evocative, first-rate assembly.

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

Its modest surface belies the depths of a lovely seriocomedy that concisely lays bare all kinds of uncomfortable dynamics in seemingly casual, low-key fashion.

The two leads’ clashing styles might work if the film were entirely about two superficially similar people’s inability to truly find common ground. But as we’re finally intended to judge their meeting a profound connective one on at least some levels, the chemistry simply feels off.

This uninspired detour into impersonally commercial English-language terrain for Bosnian director Danis Tanovic (an Oscar winner for 2001’s “No Man’s Land”) should provide Patterson’s fans and undemanding miscellaneous viewers with an acceptably slick if not-particularly-suspenseful crime potboiler for home viewing.

What Away From Her achieves is quite admirable-- a low-key, intelligent setting for performances marked by those same qualities.

Like last year's "All Good Things," this fictionalized take on a still unresolved true-crime case of deception and disappearance can't help but intrigue, though the execution falls short of its full potential.

Jane provides as much insight as we might hope for (in visual media at least) into a personality whose life might seem well-documented to the point of redundancy.

This adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner’s heavily autobiographical novel is ideally cast and skillfully handled.

The pic is a superbly crafted collage whose soundtrack is as complexly textured as the curation and editing of visual elements.

Getting so close to real-life mental illness, via footage that spans many years, renders Tarnation a uniquely potent experience.

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

A riveting account of how a soldier's death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies.

A concise overview's clarity and an epic narrative shape, with a happy ending to boot.

Picture's retro feel is rendered pleasing overall by scribe's linguistic flair and the enjoyable cast.

Leaves just an anecdotal impact, but handsome lensing, acoustic score and male leads’ playful rapport lend it gentle appeal.

Princess plays out an unsettling scenario of underage sexuality in enigmatic, almost dreamlike terms.

Avoiding rote inspirational notes as well as boyz-in-the-hood violence, scrupulously low-key drama nonetheless builds to a powerful impact.

A graceful, touching sampler of dilemmas few viewers are likely to have experienced, even as they become ever-more-common reality for the less fortunate in many nations.

As cinematographer and editor in addition to writer, director and producer, Vasyanovych is very much in charge of a vision whose aesthetics are rigidly controlled. The ironically titled “Atlantis” may well alienate some viewers with its austerity, but those willing to tough it out will feel rewarded.

Despite some imaginative packaging too often proves a drag in more than the sartorial sense. Taking Mitchell's sketchy book far too seriously, the movie grows leaden between its terrific songs.

Disappointing in every aspect.

A film that straddles the line between artful and arty like this one isn’t designed for a wide public. There are moments that are striking, even if the their impact is muddied by a minimalism that at times feel pretentious. “Features” is ultimately worth the sit, but it needn’t have required quite so much effort.

This first-rate multicamera transcript of a terrific show should delight musical fans (and many who think they aren't) as a niche broadcast item.

A hard-hitting, well-organized documentary grounded in the stories of five Hungarian Jews who lived through the Holocaust.

An impressive and artful cinematic thesis of palpable substance.

The definitive screen chronicle to date of homosexual persecution under the Third Reich.

This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect.

There’s an ease of intimacy to Diaz’s observations that suggests her crew was embedded for some time in the ward. The camerawork is crisp and bright, the editorial assembly likewise effortlessly engaging, capturing a sense of lives revealed in the everyday workings of the hospital.

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.

Delightful and ingenious as much of this is on a moment-to-moment basis, it becomes somewhat wearying over the long haul.

If The Dive’s final stretch feels a bit less urgent than what precedes it, one appreciates that the filmmakers did not pile on the usual melodramatic gotchas, hewing to a relatively realistic course of events.

Whatever attracted Cuenca (“Cannibal”) to this material is seldom evident in his handling of it. Yet the material itself still lends the film its genuine if all-too-modest pleasures.

Intelligent political satire this expertly acted is nothing to sneeze at.

Artfully assembled and often entertaining, the diverse whole nonetheless doesn’t quite gel, with the film finally coming off as somewhat pretentious and heavy-handed.

Structured by onscreen markers of the days passed, this nonfiction feature may not have a simple narrative arc, but the director’s unpretentious first-person narration and the intensity of the war-crimes evidence compiled make it riveting nonetheless.

Mandy has so many enjoyably whacked-out elements, it comes as an actual surprise that Barry Manilow’s titular 1974 No. 1 hit is not among them.

It’s all absorbing stuff, amply conveying the magnetism of a conflicted leader who drew fanatical adoration, yet who one suspects wasn’t easy company (especially in tandem with Love).

This Australia-shot mix of intrigue, soap opera, thriller and tearjerker never quite gels, despite enough surface gloss and cast expertise to hold attention.

This small, tough film provides no easy solutions.

It’s hard to think of a prior chronicle quite so luridly indicting as American Pain.

Portraying a cutthroat business in which little is “fair,” Don’t Think Twice acknowledges the bloodshed, but applies the razor with enough empathetic delicacy to earn its cautiously upbeat fade.

A pic that provides one hour's decent, eye-filling ride, then crashes and burns amid some of the worst writing since ... well, since scenarist/co-producer Akiva Goldsman's last effort, "Batman & Robin."

Doesn’t ultimately provide quite enough reward for a slow buildup. But it proves Lobo an able helmer (if one who could probably use a co-writer next time), eking decent atmospherics and good performances within a potentially claustrophobic premise.

The fact that the films that serve as her models often sported the same flaws doesn’t excuse this fairly poker-faced spoof’s sometimes borderline-torpid pace and disappointing fade-out.

On paper, it would hardly be expected to remain funny for eight minutes, let alone 108. But this ingeniously home-made lark never runs out of steam.

Thumbsucker (like "Donnie Darko") is more likely to prosper in the long haul as a home-format cult fave than in its initial arthouse tour. Both offer eccentric humor within a fairly somber overall tone, support-cast surprises, and (to a lesser degree in Thumbsucker) fable-like, hyperreal elements.

Crawford’s dominating performance makes David no hick but a sensitive and accommodating man a bit intimidated by his admittedly “much smarter” wife, flailing in his efforts to hold together a family unit he can’t go on without.

Takes a beautifully lensed look at the work of Scottish "landscape sculptor" Andy Goldsworthy, whose unique creations -- composed of icicles, leaves, sticks, rocks, etc. -- are often as not simply swept away by the next tide or wind gust.

Nearly two decades after the original “Blair Witch,” it’s a mystery why any filmmaker feels the need to be “purist” about the found-footage format when it’s been done to death.

Suspenseful as the actual matches are, there’s more tension in worrying just how intact these near-adults will make it to the even bigger stakes of post-high-school life, or whether they’ll be hobbled before they even leave the gate.

Shattering a glass ceiling has rarely been more engrossing — or grueling — than it is in Maiden.

Combined with hilarious physical business and perfectly overearnest delivery of pseudocool lines like, "Let your fingers do the rocking!," he (Black) pretty much single-handedly keeps the formulaic progress funny.

Malheiros’ terrific turn makes this protagonist credibly tough by necessity, and mature beyond his years. Ordakji is also excellent as the not-much-older new friend whose reluctance to be more helpful is, like other backstory elements here, only partly explained later on. Despite the film’s raw realist air, these two actors aren’t amateur discoveries, but rather theater studies graduates making their screen debuts — at no doubt the beginning of long careers.

Well-shot and edited, Anvil! is an underdog saga even non-metalheads will root for. It tows that fine line between chuckling at its protags' somewhat absurd situation and celebrating their sheer unwillingness to give up.

Anyone can pull off a jump scare or three. Graham immediately manages the considerably more difficult task of conjuring a mood of general dread, suffusing ordinary settings with supernatural unease.

The result is modest, but has an earned emotional payoff.

This now-obscure historical chapter can’t help but be silly in the retelling, and Lane surrenders whole to that silliness.

It’s a bizarre story not entirely clear in the telling — partly because we can’t be entirely sure when the subject is telling the truth — but absorbing nonetheless.

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

An alarming if ultimately inspiring David-and-Goliath parable for today.

Canadian writer-director Stephen Dunn’s first feature treads no new ground in basic outline. But the risk-taking confidence with which he weaves in sardonic magical-realist elements, not to mention his unpredictable yet assured approaches to style and tone, make this a most auspicious debut.

This tale of two elementary-school brothers plotting to end the physical separation their parents' divorce has forced on them effortlessly pulls off the naturalism and charm desired from material that might have easily curdled into calculated preciousness.

Dolores crams a great deal of information, themes, and diverse archival materials into a sharp, cogent whole.

Unfolds at a leisurely but enjoyable pace, its dramatic contrivances never pushed too hard.

While at about the two-thirds mark, Under the Sun begins to seem a bit attenuated, its obvious (if only implied) points already made, the ending is a stunner.

[An] engrossing, flavorful document.

Nothing feels fresh here — not even Christopher Plummer hamming it up as a crusty-coot grandpa — and Philip Martin’s routinely polished direction only underscores the cliche-composting of Richard D’Ovidio’s script.

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.

Broomfield's shaggy p.o.v. always troubles -- blurring the lines between tabloid and serious reportage, morbid curiosity and hard facts, objectivity and amusing, quasi-amateur stuntsmanship.

For the most part, pic’s sheer good-naturedness pulls off a not particularly inspired crusty-old-coot-thawed-by-young-scamp concept, maintaining an agreeable tonal balance despite occasional wobbles between spoof, sentimentality and silliness.

It's one of the best Broadway-tuner adaptations in recent years -- yes, arguably even better than those Oscar-winning ones.

Though handsome to look at, so-so supernatural chiller The Awakening recalls "The Others," "The Orphanage" and other haunted-house tales of recent vintage, making an impression more derivative than memorable.

TransFatty Lives is an unusually playful and emotionally involving first-person chronicle of serious illness.

Religious overtones, however, could make this the rare mainstream feature that connects with the faith-based entertainment market.

This fast-paced, well-shot doc does place its finger on the quickening pulse of an ever-wider gap between liberalizing Western social values and the Orthodox sphere that believes they are antithetical to Judaism. It’s a painful divide, but one that Sabbath Queen helps keep at least partly in the realm of civil argument.

Though the “Patient, film thyself” concept is starting to risk overexposure...Unrest is a high-grade example of the form that’s consistently involving, with content diverse enough to avoid the tunnel-visioned pitfalls of diarist cinema.

The pic is a bit clunky at times in its structure of blackout-separated chapters, and its subjects aren’t the most articulate folks, but it’s all kept relatable by their almost unshakably upbeat attitudes.

While Communion holds tight to its own private mysteries, it scores a perfect 10 in drawing out viewer empathy, leaving us hoping anxiously that things will turn out all right for its protagonists.

Beyond finding a godsend in Gellner, Rehmeier gets good mileage from nearly the entire supporting cast. They grasp the slightly warped humor he’s aiming for here, hitting a suitable range of comedic notes from the deadpan to the broadly farcical.

An entertaining if hardly exhaustive overview of how the unlikely success came to be. The story it tells might easily have filled an engrossing documentary twice the length of this competent, not-particularly-inspired one.

Following events over the course of several years, this cautionary tale has an impact not unlike watching the rise of similar anti-transparency policies and politicians elsewhere of late: dismaying, yet with all the lurid appeal and colorful personalities of any juicy public scandal.

Though the film ultimately hinges on a “forbidden” Muslim-Christian romance, almost nothing is made of the enormous hurdles that would be present in this time and place.

A charming look at the mildly eccentric man who gained modest feature-page celebrity for his familiarity with San Francisco's tropical parrot flock.

It’s to the credit of “She’s Beautiful” that it seems neither hectic nor glib despite the enormous amounts of material that doubtless had to be excluded to fit a single feature’s frame.

John Sayles’ latest marks his entry into family-pic terrain, a crossing that draws pleasant but unexciting results.

Pics greatest achievement is its sharply poignant dialogue which, despite the horrible consequences of the contest it describes, is also darkly amusing.

Consistently engaging due to the wealth of generally unfamiliar archival footage, which reveals social trends, sweeping overview should provoke healthy debate.

A slippery thesis doesn’t detract from the pleasures of this documentary from genre scholar and programmer Kier-La Janisse. She draws on alluring clips from more than 100 films, plus myriad interviews, to survey an alternately lurid and surreal cinematic (as well as television) field of mostly rural tales inspired by traditional superstitions and lore.

Combines straightforward coming-of-age narrative with Maori mysticism to most engaging effect.

Neither conventional costume drama nor abstract objet d'art, this visually ravishing, surprisingly beguiling gamble won't fit any standard arthouse niche. Still it could prove the Polish helmer's belated international breakthrough.

All this adds up to a big “whatever.” Don’t Go isn’t sure whether it wants to be a frightening fantasy or a poignantly warm-and-fuzzy one.

Beyond its sheer, intense variety and ingenuity, Abreu’s animation remains so appealing throughout because it always feels handmade.

Stays consistently interesting through some risky tonal shifts.

Neither thriller nor sentimental whimsy, Paul Harrill’s second feature (following 2014’s equally low-key “Something, Anything”) is a quietly matter-of-fact drama that utilizes a “haunting” story hook for non-religious yet affirming ends.

In contrast to most movies about serial killers, this one offers nary a glimpse of violence, let alone any wallowing in sadism. Yet somehow that makes it all the more icky — at times the squirm factor is such that you may think no shower could wash a viewer’s taint-by-association away.

Despite so much cause for grief, what’s striking about the protagonists is their cordiality and resilient hopefulness.