Gary Goldstein

A lovely, charming and gently transporting journey.

It’s a one-day-at-a-time kind of portrait that’s dispiriting, unsettling and undeniably authentic.

This frequently fascinating, frustrating study in naiveté, personal turmoil and self-discovery leaves the viewer stranded in process.

[An] engrossing, propulsive film.

Modern dance devotees and fans of legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham will find much to appreciate in the lovingly crafted documentary If the Dancer Dances. For others, the film may prove too repetitive and narrowly focused.

Unfortunately, the film, costarring Erik LaRay Harvey, Robert Ri’chard and Ian McShane, turns overly violent, raw and showy, undermining the glorious music (written, arranged and performed by Wynton Marsalis), superb period re-creation and Carr’s powerful lead turn.

Director Ben Masters’ compelling, gorgeously shot, super-timely documentary The River and the Wall should be required viewing of anyone charged with making a public case for or against a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

Masterfully directed by Martín Rodríguez Redondo, who wrote with Mariana Docampo and Mara Pescio, this brief, if deliberately paced picture, features far more silence than words: Dialogue is doled out “as needed” while those silences, which simmer with loaded looks and pointed observations, speak volumes.

Veteran performer Schull, perhaps best known as Fay on TV’s “Wings,” gives a towering, fearless turn; the other main actors are fine as well. Still, one must yield to the film’s flat shooting style, lengthy monologues, dangling questions and awkwardly rendered, dubiously earned ending.

By the time the noirish thriller Naples in Veils draws you into its enigmatic web — which is pretty much from the start — you’re sufficiently invested to enjoyably coast through the rest of this hypnotic, if ambiguous, Italian import.

An enlightening, lively, perhaps not unfamiliar outing.

A Land Imagined never congeals into anything intriguing or compelling enough to earn our required patience.

There are several uniquely impressive elements to the adventure drama Mia and the White Lion, but they’re undermined by a choppy, at times contrived and implausible script by Prune de Maistre (wife of director Gilles de Maistre) and William Davies.

Although this cleverly shot and edited picture (it began as a short, grew into a digital miniseries and was then expanded into a feature) doesn’t shy away from its eccentric side, it remains a convincing, relatable look at one woman’s inner workings and the vicissitudes of love and friendship.

What could have been a deep and rousing clarion call on the homeless crisis gets supplanted by surface characterizations and situations, us-against-them broadsides and weak story strands.

Gripping...It’s a tough, distressing film, yet in the measured hands of directors Pat McGee and Adam Linkenhelt, its emotional and humanistic qualities transcend the kind of exploitive defaults that could have made this a punishing, eye-popping horror show.

Despite sincere efforts, it too often plays more like a glorified home movie than the kind of polished, fully dimensional work the subject deserves.

The chance to view so many gorgeous, majestic tigers up close and personal is alone enough to recommend Ross Kauffman’s fine documentary Tigerland. That it’s also a stirring look at efforts to protect this dwindling big cat population makes it essential viewing for lovers of animals, nature and exotic adventure.

The plodding Out of Blue isn’t out of ideas — just out of gas.

In Captive State aliens have taken over the world (as they will), but it’s the viewers stuck watching this messy, lugubrious sci-fi thriller who may feel like the ones being held captive.

Despite esoteric subject matter, writer-director Kim Nguyen (War Witch) has crafted a smartly entertaining and unexpectedly human film with his financial thriller The Hummingbird Project.

Elba brings care to the film’s performances, period look and musical elements. But the freeze frames, needless voice-over bits and stalled narrative momentum undercut the picture’s potential power and uniqueness.

Due to the movie’s deliberate lack of narrative arc, thematic stance and clear characterizations (the soldiers feel interchangeable and Logaze’s interview style is weak), we’re never always sure what we’re watching — or why.

There’s much to explore and dissect about the intriguing world that directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher spotlight in their documentary The Gospel of Eureka, but the film, strangely flabby at just 73 minutes, leaves us wanting.

Absorbing, well-structured and superbly acted.

Stray falters in the narrative department but looks good and holds interest.

Director Ondi Timoner, who co-wrote with Mikko Alanne (based on a screenplay by Bruce Goodrich), has crafted a stylish, evocative, absorbing snapshot of creative expression, artistic ambition, sexuality and eroticism.

In 70 short minutes, directors Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch skillfully pack their Miami Beach-centric documentary, The Last Resort, with a wealth of visual, emotional, social, cultural and historical significance.

It all adds up to a kaleidoscopic, somewhat random, yet always involving approach to a major concept that, despite the wealth and breadth of Taylor’s offerings here, feels like just the first step in surveying anew where democracy stands — and falls — in our present universe. But what a crucial first step it is.

Just sit back and enjoy.

Amid the glorious music, the fine period re-creation and burnished photography, the emotionally sound portrayal of artistic endeavor and that award-worthy turn by Berkeley, The Maestro often scores.

Although it hardly reinvents the genre, the film, nicely directed by Hughes William Thompson, offers just enough smarts and charm to feel fresher than most in its class.

The Kirkes are attractive and intriguing actresses, Mendelsohn again proves one of the best screen actors around and Dornan looks great in scrubs. But it’s hard be sure exactly what Forrest is trying to say here and the film isn’t compelling or appealing enough to sufficiently care.

It could have been smarter without sacrificing pacing or chills. That’s not a dealbreaker — target audiences will likely be satisfied by its many pluses — but the film is good enough that you wish it went all the way.

There are enough curiously deadpan, cringeworthy bits in Laerke Sanderhoff’s loopy script to keep you hooked, even as you search for the point of it all.

Somehow, despite that minimalistic approach, we are emotionally swept up in Overgård’s desperate fight to stay alive.

Its timely messages become muted amid a kaleidoscope of settings, characters, brusque action scenes, blunt speechifying and wan romance.

Although this movie’s unusual mix of first-person interviews, archival footage, voiceover narration and dramatic reenactments is a bit awkward, it still makes for a gripping, involving and affecting experience.

If only this post-heist section had more tension, suspense and surprise, “King” could have been a real contender.

There’s not much story to tell in The Untold Story, a bland, rather old-hat take on male reinvention and redemption. That it’s as watchable as it is proves a testimony to star Barry Van Dyke’s committed turn.

Actions and emotions turn on a dime, chuckles are few and it’s clear this predictable film, directed by John Asher, doesn’t quite realize how retrograde and often offensive it is — which makes it all even worse.

The generically titled Beyond the Night spins out a twisty mystery that becomes more engrossing as it unfolds. But writer-director Jason Noto’s drama too often proves a drearily one-note look at small-town crime, corruption and narrow-mindedness.

[Martini's] filmmaking instincts, undercut by the script’s meandering, episodic structure, prove too self-indulgent and heavy-handed to tell the kind of emotionally involving tale about post-traumatic stress disorder among returning soldiers that he clearly had in mind.

It’s a mostly fun, logic-be-damned ride if you just stay in the moment and don’t think too deeply as the going gets tough — which is soon enough.

Despite some honest and poignant emotions and a compelling lead turn by Cybill Shepherd, Being Rose unfolds in an awkwardly constructed, herky-jerky manner that shortchanges its many characters and themes. Let’s just say the spirit is willing but the filmmaking is weak.

Propelled by lovely, engaging writing and wonderful performances, Stan & Ollie, the story of the bittersweet final bow of legendary duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, should move and delight fans of the beloved performers while enjoyably exposing the less initiated to these comedy giants.

This astonishingly bad film, adapted by writer-director Raghav Peri from a novel by Michaelangelo Rodriguez, mishmashes such big topics as genocide, homosexuality, teen pregnancy, child abuse, alcoholism and mental illness into a painful, inadvertently laughable stew.

Zippy editing, cool black-and-white photography, an excitingly used classic score and whirling, kooky performances add to this deceptively brainy film’s look-at-me fun.

Unfortunately the film, directed by Leon Marr (script by Marr and Sherry Soules) needs more pep in its step, could use some judicious trimming and, save for the chatty, wheelchair-using Charlie (Louis Del Grande), features an unmemorable, under-drawn group of resident seniors, a missed opportunity to help flesh out — and lighten up — this slender, tender tale.

Although the story can feel chilly and oblique, it gets under your skin.

It’s a valiant but awkward effort.

It’s a potentially warm and delicate story that required a scalpel, but saw the blunt end of a sledgehammer instead.

Write When You Get Work doesn’t work. Not as a romance, not as a Robin Hood-tinged caper flick, not as a social commentary on racial inequity or classism, and not as a male-buddy picture — all elements director Stacy Cochran attempts to wedge into her often muddled, under-focused script.

Sketches a provocative portrait of the prolific, trenchantly talented artist and satirist.

The story...never comes together as a satisfying whole, even if it all proves relatively painless viewing.

This fantasy, about a miniature horse aching to join Santa’s team of reindeer, works hard but underwhelms.

Despite scads of stiff exposition and constant proclamations of Salvador’s genius, the brash, eccentric, weirdly mustachioed artist remains an elusive and puzzling force. That he’s played, unconvincingly from teen years to death, by an often annoying Joan Carreras doesn’t help.

Despite a skillful use of color, lighting, framing and music, the movie’s artificiality might have played in a short film but becomes tedious and pretentious when stretched to 90 minutes.

Russell, he of the shaggy mane and those twinkly, crinkly eyes, digs into the classic role with a sleighful of energy, humor and gusto, deftly making the character his own with guidance from Matt Lieberman’s inventive, myth-bending script. His performance is a gas.

The movie engagingly outlines blockchain’s role as the underlying technology behind such digital currencies as bitcoin (which gets its own dissection), plus its growing part in accounting practices, music industry payments and renewable energy markets.

There’s a potentially smart and sexy lesbian dramedy at the heart of “Anchor and Hope” that gets lost amid idiosyncratic filmmaking and a lack of narrative discipline.

The filmmakers’ choice to focus so heavily — and, unfortunately, dully — on the odd-couple friendship between the tightly-wound, workaholic Hughes (Hilary Swank) and the brashly spirited Riese (Helena Bonham Carter) instead of on the bigger-picture legal wranglings and wider effects of the landmark lawsuit against a San Francisco hospital may point to the chapter’s cinematic limitations.

O’Rowe...evokes both a theatrical and literary sense of narrative (it’s likely no coincidence that Jim references novelist John Updike), with scenes effectively unfolding like well-honed chapters. The cast is also first-rate.

A sluggish film that incessantly tries but never quite hits its big-as-a-barn emotional targets.

A chatty and enjoyable but decidedly nondefinitive look at one of the cinema’s most acclaimed, influential auteurs.

The result, directed by Mark Dennis and Ben Foster (not the actor) from Dennis’ script, is a handful of intriguing ideas in search of a more cohesive and dimensional narrative.

Eldar and Abbas share candid, heartfelt observations about what they consider an internal culture war within Israeli society and its troubling effects.

Dumisa masterfully — and entertainingly — builds, twists and compounds the tension as events spiral out of control and lives hang in the balance.

A dreamy, compelling, often wry look at a writer.

Chiklis is first-rate as Adrian’s tough, deceptively aware Vietnam-vet father, while Madsen’s gentle, luminous portrayal of a deeply adoring mother is heartbreakingly authentic — and utterly award-worthy.

It’s a vital, singularly crafted film that simply tells it — or more specifically shows it — like it is through the eyes of a struggling African American single mother and the adolescent son she desperately wants to keep out of trouble against the mounting odds.

It’s an appalling, infuriating story.

The film covers a great deal of honest, funny and timely ground, though be prepared to revisit some of Bush and Trump’s “greatest hits” via a rehashing of archival news clips.

The radiant Danner, one of the greats, is perfection here, while Forster gives a stunning, Oscar-worthy turn as a man struggling to hold onto a blissful past to ward off a frightening future.

The aggressively awful London Fields is, once again, proof that not every successful novel should become a movie.

Ultimately, Studio 54 proves a nostalgic, sometimes wistful, other times unsettling look back at a singular period of time.

It’s a film of decided care and forethought.

It’s a film that begins as a raucous rural comedy and deftly evolves into a poignant and reflective, yet still wryly amusing, story of what becomes of a family.

Tolerating Pablo might have better suited this unremarkable picture in which the wealthiest criminal of all time’s reported charisma takes a back seat to his badness.

Sommer, who did fine supporting work on TV’s “Mad Men,” doesn’t prove a distinctive or charismatic enough presence to carry an entire film, especially one as uneven as this.

Museo is a fun, stylish, singular heist flick that’s about so much more than the theft itself.

All in all, Jane Fonda in Five Acts proves a captivating, extremely well-told and crafted, decidedly fitting tribute to a Hollywood legend, fighter and survivor who just might surprise us one day with a “sixth act.”

Judy Greer, the wonderful film and TV actress, makes an inauspicious directing debut with this unevenly paced, tonally awkward comedy.

Ultimately, it’s the social, sexual, political and artistic power of the same-sex dance phenomenon that gives the topic its unique heft and vitality.

That Hawke so closely aligns his cinematic style, inventive as it is, with the story’s disorderly, scruffily offbeat characters and settings is both a strength and a liability. His kaleidoscopic, at times ghostly, approach proves a valiant if studied effort.