Frank Scheck

It's certainly an imaginative concept for a detective story, but the storyline gets so convoluted and baroque that unintentional humor sets in. By the time we learn the outlandish motivation of the time-traveling serial killer and her true identity, the twists have been coming so fast and furious that we've long stopped caring.

The documentary, largely alternating between scenes of the poets engaging in freewheeling conversations and performing their works, comes to feel talky and claustrophobic at times (cinematographer Peter Eliot Buntaine keeps his camera uncomfortably close). But it gains urgency as it goes along.

The film's relentless artiness ultimately proves more off-putting than involving, distancing us from what should be a harrowing tale.

Auggie is purposefully grim in style and execution, moving at a snail's pace and seemingly photographed in drab shades of gray. Although its running time is a mere 81 minutes, the pic seems to last forever.

The character deserves better, and so does the audience.

The high-wire tonal balancing act proves a little wobbly at times, resulting in a film that is feels less than the sum of its parts. But some of those parts work very well, providing moments of uncomfortable hilarity and genuine poignancy.

Its largely Hispanic cast and extensive Puerto Rico locations lend a unique quality to Paul Kampf's prison drama starring Laurence Fishburne as a morally corrupt warden. Unfortunately, those elements are the only original aspects of this turgid exercise in prison movie clichés which doesn't even manage to be convincing as melodrama. Although certainly well-meaning in its condemnation of capital punishment, Imprisoned is too dully executed to achieve its desired impact.

A moving and powerful portrait of trauma and recovery, Cracked Up will likely prove as therapeutic for many viewers as it clearly is for Hammond himself.

Although stylishly made and featuring a compelling lead performance by Trevor Long (Netflix's Ozark), Seeds never takes root.

While this effort from filmmaker Steven Lewis Simpson (who serves as director, producer, cinematographer, editor and co-screenwriter) is somewhat lacking in technical polish, it boasts an undeniable emotional power and authenticity. Much of that stems from the casting of Dave Bald Eagle in the pivotal role of a Lakota elder.

Striving to be an inspirational story about personal and professional redemption, the film mainly comes across as a self-aggrandizing promotional project that the famously arrogant pop star would have once sneered at.

Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel emerges as a messy hybrid that has some interesting and amusing moments but ultimately feels as inauthentic as the team it chronicles.

While The Last Photograph ultimately feels too narratively slight to justify even its brief 85-minute running time, the intriguing film demonstrates that the actor should follow in his legendary father's directorial footsteps more often.

The picture will naturally hold its biggest appeal for racing buffs but may also prove appealing to nonfans thanks to the moving story at its core.

Unfortunately, although Becoming Nobody will prove a must-see for Ram Dass' ardent fans, and they are certainly legion, the film proves frustratingly unpolished and unfocused, providing precious little biographical information or narrative context. It ultimately feels like a missed opportunity, a labor of love that would have benefited from a little more objectivity.

Featuring an excellent performance by veteran British actress Sheila Hancock (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), who is clearly up to both the challenging emotional and physical demands of the title role, Edie earns points for good intentions but never quite succeeds in managing to scale its thematic summit.

Itsy Bitsy works well enough on its own terms, providing some genuine jolts and benefiting from the excellent performances.

The unfortunate result is that you wind up thinking how much more you'd prefer to be rereading that contemporary classic than watching this tedious exercise.

This is a documentary that will best be appreciated not by fans of The Little Prince but rather by linguists and ethnographers.

To truly be effective, Angel of Mine would either have to be far better or far worse than it actually is.

While one of the first rules of writing is to write what you know, Sabet's romantic comedy demonstrates that not everything that actually happens to you can be mined for comedic gold. The picture starts out promisingly enough, but eventually sinks under the weight of its implausibilities.

The story takes place in 1953, and the relentlessly artificial-feeling film feels like it could have been made then as well.

Unfortunately, Every Time I Die doesn't quite have the cinematic polish to live up to its considerable aspirations, resulting in a frustratingly opaque viewing experience.

Ode to Joy fails to live up to its title by attempting to wring comic mileage from a medical condition that sufferers probably don't find very funny.

Socrates is a haunting slice of Brazilian neo-realism that marks its tyro director/co-screenwriter as a talent to watch.

Ladyworld proves as much of an endurance test for viewers as the central characters.

The coming-of-age theme doesn't mesh entirely well with the more lurid elements, and Coyote Lake doesn't quite achieve the narrative tension sufficient to lift it above the story's slow spots. The film is carried along by the strength of Mendes' emotionally complex, restrained performance that makes clear that Ester is as much victim as accomplice.

The movie, which will inevitably spur comparisons to such similar efforts as "Argo," works well enough on its own terms, with Mychael Danna's synthesizer-heavy score providing a suitably retro vibe.