G. Allen Johnson

The movie is predictable at times, but also winning, with a thumping soundtrack and smartly written characters. Ortega, with his Peter-from-“Office Space”-deer-in-the-headlights look, is the movie’s appealing center.

I don’t want to give too much away, but Amoo’s direction is strong, and his film moves in unexpected directions. Stil Williams’ cinematography is divine. Adewunmi and Ikumelo are excellent, and kudos to Pinnock, Tai Golding as young Femi, Denise Black as the foster mom, Demmy Ladipo as a gang leader and Ruthxjiah Bellenea as a potential love interest who shares Femi’s love for the Cure.

Even worse, Deerlaken, Wis., is supposed to be the “real” America, but Stewart has little interest in depicting an honest version of Midwesterners, or their problems. No actual issues that affect the town are discussed. (I have no idea what the economy of the town is, if people are struggling or what.)

Athlete A gives us the story behind the story. It’s a terrific journalism movie, but it’s also a story of young women who persevered and found justice against the odds.

A mostly absorbing but strangely inert espionage drama that could have been a heart-pounding thriller.

Even though the movie’s engine sputters at the end, it’s beautifully shot, the actors are fun to watch, and the story is decent in fits and starts.

It is so narrowly focused on neurotic obsessions that the quest for finding that fundamental nature of ultimate reality is sidetracked. What kind of approach is that for a Buddhist? Ferrara takes the easy way out.

It is quite simply one of the great “making of” documentaries of all-time — a short list that includes the George Hickenlooper-Eleanor Coppola documentary “Hearts of Darkness.”

For the most part, The Painter and the Thief seems authentic, a very real portrait of two unique individuals. It not only explores the artistic impulse, but also issues of relationships, addiction and rehab. It also provides an interesting glimpse into the Norwegian prison system, which is geared toward rehabilitation rather than punishment.

Lucky Grandma isn’t a feel-good comedy at all, but has a parched-dry dark comic approach, keeping Grandma Wong at an emotional remove.

Scooby-Doo, where are you? The real one, I mean. The rest of this mess is just a series of nonsensical action sequences.

After watching Spaceship Earth, which was completed before the coronavirus pandemic, one can’t help but think about the current experiment conducted by Biosphere 1. As smog clears across urban landscapes due to stay-at-home orders, the vision — and the warnings — laid out by Biosphere 2 remain relevant.

Most of Arkansas — Duke’s home state, by the way — just falls flat, despite individual scenes here and there that work.

On its own, Driveways would be a sweet, understated masterpiece, simply told, of human connection. But with the death of longtime distinguished stage and movie actor Brian Dennehy on April 15, director Andrew Ahn allows us to say a proper goodbye to the big fella, who gets the final six minutes of the movie all to himself.

With a sense of eccentric macabre that recalls Roald Dahl and Charles Addams, The Willoughbys arrives on Netflix with a winning, eclectic energy that should have kids — like the animated moppets in the film — bouncing off the walls. In a good way, of course.

In watching The American Nurse, I saw myself not so much in the nurses but in their patients. It occurs to me the nurses are always there, from our birth to death and in between. That in the current pandemic they would need to beg for personal protective equipment is on us as a society. They are our better angels.

Overall, Dolphin Reef is spectacular. The filmmaking team does an excellent job of detailing the delicate ecosystem that supports these creatures. Although Echo and his fellow dolphins are the stars, there is a vast supporting cast of humpback whales, sharks, razorfish, sea turtles, mantis shrimp, parrotfish.

Bolt tries mightily to make this weighty subject digestible to the average civilian, with some fancy, intricate animated sequences to show us how CRISPR and DNA manipulation work, and while I can’t say I came away from this film being able to coherently explain it, Human Nature works as a glimpse into possible futures and a moral dilemma that doesn’t have easy answers.

Because there’s nary a situation that seems reality-based and uncontrived in this movie that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, filled with over-the-top cardboard characters that seem sneered upon by their creator. If Mirabella-Davis doesn’t believe in his characters, why should we?

Director and co-writer/producer Gavin O’Connor’s meticulous drama feels authentic all the way around. The basketball feels real. The high school kids seem real. Jack’s relationship with his estranged wife Angela (Janina Gavankar) is very believable.

A quite interesting and irresistible movie, a sort of cross between Paul Schrader’s recent film of spiritual crisis, “First Reformed,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can.” An impostor as anguished priest.

Even if the film seems slow at times, there’s always something to look at, including Miroshnichenko and Perelygina, who are able to find grace and dignity in two such odd, hollowed out characters. Maybe, just maybe, these two veterans working in a hospital can heal each other.

This is a funny and moving crowd-pleaser — a South by Southwest and Sundance selection, it won the audience award at the Napa Valley Film Festival and was an opening night film at S.F. IndieFest — and it goes down easy.

The biggest betrayal of The Traitor is its crime against the usually compelling Mafia movie genre. This is an offer you can refuse.

Chinese Portrait is a great art installation, but a thoroughly unsatisfying film.

That’s a strength in this documentary. It becomes clear that it’ll take a strongman to bring down a strongman, at least in this case.

Color Out of Space is a trashy, ridiculous science fiction/horror film. It is silly, poorly written and, well, I liked it.

It’s essentially an animated film, fronted by a live-action Downey and Michael Sheen’s one-note villain. Only Antonio Banderas, in a small role, truly seems to be having a great time.