Dennis Harvey

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.