Gary Goldstein

Director Alison Eastwood ("Rails & Ties"), despite an evident affinity for the material, takes an overly stagy approach to the scenes, when a more lyrical, atmospheric style was in order.

The film, as directed by R.D. Braunstein from a script by Daniel Gilboy, moves at a pretty decent clip and is never boring. Unstomachable at times, yes, but never boring.

Offers mostly skin-deep snapshots of various men and their grooming habits.

Tom at the Farm is strange, idiosyncratic tale that straddles a fine line between homoerotic camp and spider-and-fly thriller.

The film often defies expectations but also winds up sidestepping the kind of trapdoors and quicksand that might have made the ride more exhilarating.

Period re-creation is decent (the interiors-heavy film was shot entirely in Puerto Rico), Polish effectively peppers in bits of archival footage, and the story is often involving despite its missteps. Still, it’s hard not to wonder where the picture might have landed with a more skillful, charismatic lead and a subtler retelling.

Cinematically and emotionally it’s a mixed bag, a slow-moving visual treatise and occasional vanity piece that requires — but doesn’t always earn — our indulgence.

Once you realize what the heck it is you’re watching, you might just settle in for a more diverting — or less terrible — time than first expected. But the lower your entertainment bar, the better.

The result is a cinematic curio in search of a more conclusive theme and emotional payoff.

By turns sexy and exasperating, hypnotic and confusing, this Mexican import is an art film for the patient, adventurous and, let's be honest, forgiving.

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.

The inevitable head-butting, sexually tense banter between the super-serious (and frankly dull) Cole and the vivacious, near-magically-capable Kelly never quite takes off, nor, surprisingly, does the chemistry between the two leads.

The oddball script by Mitch Glazer ("Scrooged"), as directed by Barry Levinson ("Rain Man," "Good Morning, Vietnam"), takes so long to bring Richie and Salima together, it deprives us of the kind of fully fleshed dynamic the story so desperately needs.

That Rabe (daughter of the late Jill Clayburgh and playwright David Rabe) proves so intriguing to watch is more a testament to her acting focus and stirring, lovely presence than to the dreary role she inhabits.

Olympic Dreams is a wispy, quasi-romantic dramedy whose affecting moments are eclipsed by its overly random, sometimes awkwardly played and constructed narrative.

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.

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.

Bram, who also narrates (and writes, with co-director Judah Lazarus and Adam Zucker), may be earnest in his desire for enlightenment. But his approach feels overly self-serving; too much "Me," not enough "Kabbalah."

It’s a workable fantasy setup that’s undermined by a seemingly deliberate lack of detail about the characters, the Club and the world at large. Midway, the story takes a potentially intriguing turn but becomes more muddled than masterly.

Joyride is a jalopy of a film. This Irish-set story of a brand-new single mother and a precocious 13-year-old boy who end up on the road together is so scattershot and far-fetched it overwhelms its better intentions — of which there are many.

Despite the noble ambitions of writer-director Sally Potter (“Orlando, “The Party”), The Roads Not Taken proves a morose and baffling drama; a painful, snail’s-paced 85 minutes with little payoff.

Writer-director John Chuldenko stretches a sitcom episode premise to feature-length breaking point in Nesting.

To its credit, the script, by director Sara Zandieh and Stephanie Wu, works hard at inclusivity. Unfortunately, while a lesbian couple is fun, the gay men feel like a throwback and Alex’s bisexuality, which could have provided an intriguing and credible complication, goes nowhere.

Rothe and Shum Jr. have such nice, authentic chemistry that they should put it to good use again. Perhaps there’s a jaunty rom-com out there with their names on it.

Prolific actor-comedian-musician Tim Heidecker may have a sizable cult following but it’s doubtful he’ll find many new fans with his latest effort, the tedious and laugh-free mockumentary Mister America.

A sluggish drama about aging and holding onto your dreams.

This brief, loosely-knit film never builds any empathy or tension.

Writer-director-star David Thorpe attempts to probe the whys and wherefores of what he calls the stereotypical "gay male voice," but he ends up crafting a naval-gazing self-portrait that's unflattering, inconclusive and, at times, a bit specious.

The film contains many moments of canine uber-cuteness that although not unbearable, are definitely a bit much. Fortunately, the kids here are less aggressively adorable and feel fairly authentic.

For poker fans only.

Courageous, proves a particularly clunky, tunnel-visioned vehicle whose overbearing, overlong script nearly smothers the movie's quibble-free message.

Director Vivi Friedman's inability to successfully reconcile the film's duality undercuts an eclectic cast gamely committed to Mark Lisson's thematically ambitious, if scattered, script.

This "Theorem" is all sizzle, zero steak.

The script by Richard D'Ovidio is so packed with knuckleheaded moves and ultra-obvious dialogue ("Dad, there's something wrong with this place!") that the whole enterprise proves more risible than frightening.

Between lots of uneven acting, some embarrassingly bad dialogue ("How do you move forward when your soul is torn apart?!") and too many unconvincing, warmed-over moments, the movie, like its charisma-free characters, is a tough one to embrace.

The clumsily shot and scripted Now & Later is a hollow concoction of sex, politics and endless chatter that's just a few camera angles short of hard-core porn.

The jaunty, neo-noirish crime outing Lying and Stealing has its moments — chiefly the engaging performances of sexy leads Theo James and Emily Ratajkowski — but is too short on depth and logic to prove much more than a glossy, forgettable trifle.

Given the script’s basic dialogue and narrow characterizations, it’s fortunate that there’s such an evocative locale to help us further imagine the lives of the film’s idiosyncratic folks.

Director Dimitri Logothetis, again scripting with his Kickboxer: Vengeance co-writer James McGrath, barrels through the chockablock action with requisite energy. But dialogue and performances (including Mike Tyson as Kurt's prison mate), are often laughably subpar.

Mell never quite knows how to mine this conceit to best effect. The result: a tonal mishmash involving silly demon-trapping bits, supernatural speculation and lots of yakking that derails the film’s potential tension and credibility.

It also features deaths by strangulation and immolation as well as a nasty bit with a flying severed limb.Kids may be less put off by all that, though, than by the film's uninspired hand-drawn animation, visual flatness and elongated running time.

Although children may enjoy the animal action (there's also a fun pelican and a yellow sea turtle) and parents might appreciate the movie's genuinely sweet moments, this is exceedingly mild entertainment.

Overall, writer-director Garrett Batty takes such a tempered approach, the film lacks the kind of gritty, visceral tension that life-and-death tales such as this normally demand.

The movie, which comes off strangely wide-eyed about such “outré” things as marijuana and same-sex attraction, evokes some 1970s-era George Segal vehicle as it struggles to pair hip defiance with come-to-Jesus-style pathos, the latter of which provides a few of the film’s more compelling moments.

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.

An intriguing casting gimmick can’t mask a story — and a relationship — that’s largely unremarkable.

Daddy is the strained, at times cringe-worthy film adaptation of Dan Via's stage play, which ran off-Broadway in 2010 and the next year in Los Angeles. Based on the show's largely good reviews, something was clearly lost in translation.

The elder Makhmalbaf, who wrote and directed, puts many spins on this ethereal mood piece — it is by turns poetic, impressionistic, metaphorical and even a bit trippy — without satisfying such genre basics as structure, depth and resolution.

This follow-up to 2016’s “High Strung” has its visual dazzle and performance highs but the story and characters are just too fake, chaste and grit-free to take seriously.

Although first-time feature writer-director Julius Avery may aspire to become a sort of Aussie Michael Mann — and perhaps lays an apt foundation here to do so — he has a ways to go in developing the kind of characters and world we can solidly invest in.

An unconvincing, late-breaking tragic turn; several dubious, go-nowhere supporting characters; and a blurrily provocative ending don’t help.

This brief film often feels like an extended gripe session instead of something more profound or game-changing.

Unfortunately, writer-director Yan England never focuses on any one lesson long enough to make a complete or satisfying statement. The result: a potentially meaningful movie that hands us a double dose of despair when a ray of hope was needed.

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

The film is most acceptable when it sticks to its beauty-and-beast dynamic. Even then it’s too dizzying and grandiose and the chemistry between the lead characters is pretty much nil.

Curvature is a forgettable sci-fi thriller whose intriguing start gives way to an arcane, convoluted plot that fails to viscerally or emotionally engage.

Weakly developed characters, a lack of substantive tension and an ending that's more startling than sound round out the minuses of this earnestly motivated but undercooked morality tale.

Unfortunately, writer-director Josh Shelov's sendup of the Manhattan private school culture flies off its comic rails after an engaging start, never to land back on solid ground.

Unnerving camerawork, editing and sound design rule this nightmarish, nonlinear effort which features credible glimpses into the world of celebrity, if not the music business itself. But dialogue, characterizations and acting (Eric Roberts has a negligible cameo) feel decidedly secondary to the film's more jarring visceral elements.

Despite frequent self-seriousness, a melodramatic third act and a seeming fixation with Islamic State, this unevenly acted, Alabama-shot film is not without its stabs at humor.

Writer-director Daniel Y-Li Grove impresses with his sleek, inventive style and effective pacing but falls short on depth and substance.

It's unfortunate that Brown and company were unable to bring stronger narrative and filmmaking skills to this vital subject.

Laura E. Davis and Jessica Kaye, who co-wrote and directed, compress a lifetime’s worth of familial puzzle pieces into a few choppy days of angst and dubious behavior that never quite gels, despite being occasionally intriguing.

It’s six or so characters in search of a meaningful movie.

Its lack of originality and emotional depth may have been more forgivable had the film been legit funny. But save a few random guffaws, this whacked-out tale of a Jewish family’s Shabbat dinner that goes wildly off the rails may prompt more eye rolls and exasperated sighs than were surely on the menu.

The modestly watchable, at times intriguing romantic mystery Intersection is never quite skillful or convincing enough to forget for even a moment how many far better haunted hunk-meets-femme fatale thrillers have come before it.

Like the floundering filmmaker at its center, The Face of an Angel never seems sure of what story it wants to tell.

Director J Blakeson can't quite maintain the film's momentum while squaring its disparate parts, malleable story rules (weren't all power sources destroyed?), hokey dialogue and a crisscross of often one-note emotions.

The dreary postmortem drama Five Nights in Maine is barely kept afloat by the gravitas of dueling leads David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest.

The Fundamentals of Caring is a strained, overly familiar tale of catharsis and redemption. Stars Paul Rudd and Craig Roberts work hard but are torpedoed by writer-director Rob Burnett’s wanting script (adapted from the novel by Jonathan Evison), thudding stabs at buoyancy and sluggish pacing.

Unfortunately, there's a lack of structure, context and point of view to the largely gray, grim, hardscrabble world presented here.

Despite a few chuckles, some capable voice work and plenty of splashy color, it proves a largely empty and exhausting ride.

The Dixie-set, coming-of-age tale Krystal, directed by William H. Macy and written by Will Aldis, is too forced, chaotic and randomly eccentric to make for a fully engaging and cohesive emotional experience.

This capably acted, if unevenly paced film often lacks focus and depth.

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 a strong lead cast and good intentions, Aardvark is a drag. Writer-director Brian Shoaf may have much to say about family dysfunction and its emotional effects but never finds a persuasive enough way to mine this oft-tread territory.

The “time travel” bit kicks in for real — or rather surreal. But this half-baked device proves too little, too late and fails to jump start the film’s prosaic narrative.

Magical swords, evil doppelgangers, a sexy black muscle car, an unremarkable final showdown and lots of first-draft dialogue factor into this thankfully brief (about 80 minutes plus end credits) frightfest.

The film is undermined by choppy editing and a penchant for hoary aphorisms and forced gravitas.

The result is a chronically “meh” coming-of-age meets dysfunctional-family tale, with a particularly unsatisfying ending.

For anyone unfamiliar with physics or averse to a while-you-watch cram course, this film might prove a mind-numbing slog.

There's a poignant, powerful story lurking at the edges of Jack of the Red Hearts but, as is, the film proves a strained, implausible family drama.

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.

Unfortunately, with its on-the-nose dialogue, abrupt turns and overuse of fades and dissolves, the film can feel more like a checklist of scenes than a fully plumbed and cohesive work.

It may seem churlish to knock a film that works so hard to present everyday, well-meaning folks facing unspeakable, real-life pain. But between the picture’s uncertain tone, quirky-for-quirk’s-sake elements and such self-conscious dialogue as “What color is the sky in your world, kemo sabe?” it’s tough to be all that supportive.

Under the workmanlike direction of Jon Cassar (“Forsaken”), “Bough” breaks little new or inspired ground as it spins out its mildly effective, occasionally silly cautionary tale.

For a movie seemingly concerned with clarity and enlightenment, it’s woefully lacking in both.

For all the talent up on the screen — and one can't fault the performances — the movie just doesn't deliver.

This underdeveloped, lackluster glance at brotherhood practically demands a response of "Is that all there is?" at its 70-minute fadeout.

May please non-discriminating fans of its co-writer/director/star (and more) Jackie Chan, but will likely leave most other viewers dazed, confused and eagerly watching the clock.

This well-intentioned, sumptuously shot tale of love and war, directed by Joseph Ruben, lacks the emotional depth and romantic grandeur to fulfill its epic ambitions.

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.

This sour spin on "My Best Friend's Wedding" (crossed with a pale dose of "The Big Chill") proves unsatisfying not only because of its unlikable characters and often contrived conflicts but for the thoroughly implausible bride and groom at its core.

Unfortunately, by the end, thanks to a misguided use of a few offensive slurs against gays and African Americans, the whole thing turns needlessly ugly, undermining the goodwill Cross had mustered.

The freewheeling, DIY quality of Lost Holiday works both for and against this quasi-caper comedy.

Beyond a few nice closing emotional beats, the whole enterprise plays too desperate and slapdash to whip up the goodwill required to sell such thin, far-fetched material.

Flights of fancy are peppered in throughout but can’t make up for this concoction’s missing ingredient: romantic chemistry.

This is a tonally and visually inconsistent piece whose cracks at "Lethal Weapon"-style humor are needlessly silly or simply flat.

After a grating start, the movie, directed by Peter Odiorne from a script by Gail Gilchriest ("My Dog Skip"), finds its way into warmer, more likable territory. That is, until it flies off the rails in a third act so devoid of logic it could have been concocted on the moon.

The gimmick is marginally amusing as Max tests it out in ways both naughty and nice. But so many holes, questions and contradictions arise that it's hard to square the rules of the game.

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.

Murphy’s quietly precise performance ultimately can’t overcome the film’s chilly gravity and unsatisfying finale.

Snow is excellent, though, as she attempts to inhabit her murky character. If only we had a better sense of what the movie was trying to say about faith — or the lack thereof.

Characters and situations are painted in such simple, broad strokes, we’re asked to take much at face value.

There are ultimately kernels of truth buried amid the film’s random yakking, mini-crises and bits of forced bad behavior, but they prove too little, too late.

Eternity: the Movie, a purposely cheesy sendup of mid-1980s pop music, offers committed performances and a few chuckles, but it's a largely one-note rendition.

There’s some well-crafted dialogue and decent acting, including from Joseph R. Sicari as a besieged producer. But this overly talky and stagey film, which takes place mostly in Colt’s hotel room and trailer — and frustratingly off-set — lacks the requisite catharsis and charisma to sufficiently engage.

Bridging the Gap may mainly aim for audio-visual delight (Stephan Mussil's cinematography undeniably dazzles), but as an authentic look at a more than 500-year-old institution, the film proves less in tune.

Good intentions aside, this sluggish film never soars beyond its innate contrivances and frequently flat, knee-jerk humor.

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.

The one-sided film’s wheels come off when covering Thomas’ fraught 1991 Senate confirmation hearings.

The film, though nicely performed, rarely builds into the kind of gripping emotional journey it clearly intended.

A creaky recount of the relationship between affluent, New England-born painter Catharine Robb (Julie Lynn Mortensen) and her rural-Canadian artist husband, Peter Whyte (Juan Riedinger).

Though writer-director Bryan Anthony Ramirez keeps things moving apace, he trots out so many familiar tropes that it's often like watching a highlights reel from a lifetime's worth of urban crime dramas.

Tristan's creaky, often episodic script attempts to tackle some big topics — art, love, loss, family bonds, mortality — but does so in such a forced, talky way that it's hard to buy into the tale's earnest emotional core.

There's likely an audience for the cloying and dizzying hip-hop dance flick Battlefield America, but even the most forgiving viewers may feel like they've been underestimated - and underserved.

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

It's shame that the first film to come out of Lebanon featuring a gay theme turns out to be such a head-scratching jumble.

Unfortunately, this overlong picture rarely feels particularly authentic.

It's an intriguing setting — and set-up. But a lack of subtlety in the writing and much of the acting (particularly Circus-Szalewski and Ron Roggé as a pair of good cop/bad cop jailers) mitigate the power of the caged men's plights as well as the movie's intended tension.

Director Jack Plotnick and his co-screenwriters Sam Pancake, Jennifer Elise Cox, Kali Rocha and Michael Stoyanov fail to nail a satisfying theme, narrative or purpose.

Bits and pieces of the gay-themed drama Beautiful Something feel real and essential. But this slow-going film often suffers from a forced, navel-gazing quality that can prove exasperating.

[An] earnest but terribly ham-fisted drama.

Playing It Cool is a strained romantic comedy that seems to exist only to show how many talented, successful actors — first and foremost "Captain America" star Chris Evans — can be featured in one unworthy movie.

Writer-director David Hayter revisits much-trod territory with wan results in Wolves, a werewolf tale that quickly loses its initial bite.

Addicted doesn’t know whether it wants to be a modern-day bodice-ripper, a morality-tinged cautionary tale or a serious snapshot of sexual compulsion. Whatever the case, it fails on all fronts.

A depressingly slick and empty house of cards that collapses under the weight of its muddled intentions.

To his credit, director Andy Fickman (“The Game Plan,” “Parental Guidance”) keeps the inanity moving apace and there are a few chuckles to be had courtesy of the supporting cast. But, as is so often the case with big, star-driven studio laffers, “Cop 2” needed several more spins in the comedy punch-up machine before cameras rolled.

Although it aspires to be a kind of latter-day “Love Story,” the rote, overly earnest drama New Life exists largely on the surface.

This often risible head-scratcher never cracks the surface of its muddled ambitions, largely wasting its iconic settings on a series of motley interactions, Tinseltown trivia and self-conscious philosophizing.

It's all rather low-rent and generic, not particularly distinguished by its overused Bayou setting.

When the film, directed by Jason Winn, should accelerate, it turns sluggish, attempting to dot a few too many i's — thematically, emotionally, racing-wise — in telling its only marginally compelling story, with the lackluster Tom-Jeremy dynamic driving too much of the action.

With its deeply creaky gender and racial themes, this strained film evokes something unearthed from several decades ago, if not before.

It opts for too many broad, clunky or far-fetched beats to move the story and its requisite emotional needs forward, rather than weave a more organic, effectively lived-in and, yes, genuinely funny tale.

Tunick’s clearly budget-conscious choice to shoot largely inside the couple’s nicely appointed home compounds this routinely shot and edited film’s stagy, static quality.

The good news about After Words is that it offers Marcia Gay Harden a rare film lead. The bad news: Harden's role in this groan-worthy dramedy is so dreary and ill-conceived that even her formidable talents can't bring it to life.

This indulgent, overlong film takes a solid hour for its bigger themes of love, loss and guilt to settle in. By then, however, the movie has tried our patience to the point that many may not care.

Moms' Night Out is a hectic mess that does just the opposite of what it clearly set out to do: It makes motherhood seem like one of the most ill-conceived ideas since New Coke.

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

For all the attempted intrigue and mayhem, the film is dullsville, mired by a poky script, unremarkable action and, the hard-working Garcia aside, uninspired performances.

Unfortunately, much of the acting (save by Bagatsing and Rachel Alejandro as Quezon’s vigilant wife, Aurora) is so spotty that it undermines the story’s potential tension and emotional heft.

Casanova, Last Love, which looks at the famed 18th century philanderer’s infatuation with the supposed “one true love of his life,” is a dull and uninvolving portrait that, despite its sumptuous settings and costumes, never takes flight.

[A] tedious cinematic exercise.

Beyond the Reach is a grueling, unsatisfying thriller that fails the logic test in spectacular ways.

The film's first half is so annoyingly glib and faux-amusing, it sets a misguided tone that distances instead of engages.

This tonal mishmash is a misfire of literally gross proportions.

Despite all the mayhem, Mortimer never whips up any real sense of dread or tension.

Despite a few strong emotional beats, the crime drama American Heist proves as undistinguished as its generic title.

Sadly, there's not an ounce of tension or a single decent scare to be found amid any of this convoluted mayhem.

There's a late-breaking twist that might seem impressive if it didn't make all the previous mayhem feel so intensely pointless.

This flatly shot picture remains cramped by its homespun roots.

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

Call it a dark farce, human comedy or wartime satire. But however you slice it, the ill-conceived morality tale A Farewell to Fools is a bust.

Far too broad and simplistic to enjoy as the offbeat soufflé it so desperately aims to be.

Far too much of this plodding picture is spent on odd couple Chip and Alex's road trip transporting Mine That Bird to Kentucky. Forced atmospherics, clichéd action bits and some tone-deaf slapstick weigh things down as well.

A frantic, badly constructed, slightly offensive muddle that doesn't so much end as run out of things on a checklist.

The story might have had some thematic heft if we knew or cared anything about the characters. But all we can glean about the disastrous Kostis is that he’s had hard times, while Anna is a total cipher.

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty is a hard-working but dreary horror-thriller inspired by the classic Grimm’s fairy tale.

The historical saga can feel cursory, at times unconvincingly rendered given how many events and far-flung locales this overly ambitious film strains to cover on a seemingly limited budget.

The crime thriller Bent, not to be confused with the acclaimed Holocaust-era drama of the same name, is a routine programmer filled with surface characters, generic tough-talk and forgettable plotting.

For all its gore and violence, stabs at tension and nightmarish intrigue, the film proves a slow-going, largely unsatisfying ride.

The uninvitingly titled Chlorine is a flat, undercooked suburban comedy. Or is it a drama? Or maybe a kind of satire? Regardless, it's short on style, substance or any clear raison d'être.

Not to be glib, but sitting through the art-centric chamber piece The Time Being is truly like watching paint dry.

The movie's grandiose emotional quotient never feels any more real than its ham-fisted dialogue, dubious accents, strained "Kumbaya" moments or eclectic hairdos.

Battle Scars is an uneasy mix of military drama and low-rent crime thriller whose seamy elements, under-examined characters and forced plot turns undercut its attempted messaging about war-induced post-traumatic stress disorder.

Although writer-director Scott Walker seems committed to not overly exploiting his lurid subject matter, the movie is just too dreary, disjointed and generically creepy to be persuasive.

The underwhelming, would-be political satire Knife Fight plays more like a failed network TV pilot than the savvy feature it clearly set out to be. Think: Aaron Sorkin-lite, uh, really, really lite.

Unfortunately, the climactic table-turning here feels more mechanical than cathartic and does little to elevate the film’s undistinguished narrative.

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.

The endless sharing and chaotic conflicts that ensue among these largely uninviting men prove more tedious than convincing, with flashback bits that are more redundant than enlightening.

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.

First-time feature writer-director Morgan Dameron attempts to craft a love letter to her native heartland and to sisterhood, but falls short on both fronts, rarely digging beneath the surface of small-town bonhomie and what makes Millie and Emma tick.

Only during the movie's sweet epilogue do we get a sense of what Friended could have been had the filmmakers taken a smarter, gentler, more human approach.

For all the emotional onion-peeling here, little is revealed that's surprising, unique or particularly deep.

Self-conscious, tonally uncertain and thematically vague, The Big Ask is a premise in search of a movie, one that co-directors Thomas Beatty and Rebecca Fishman never quite find.

Convoluted doesn’t begin to describe the sci-fi drama Bliss, which starts off intriguingly enough but loses its way once it attempts to explain itself, before surprising us entirely in the end — and not in a particularly satisfying way. How this loopy film got made may prove its biggest mystery.

Contrived and predictable yet fairly tense.

The film’s narrative engine remains too choppy and clunky, and the characters too cursorily developed, to hold attention.

Shedding light on world atrocities is vital, but spelling them out in neon is deadly.

Director Jaki Bradley can’t quite pull the story’s disparate strands together to form an effective narrative, much less a lucid finale. There’s a potentially nifty gay noir lurking about, but this “Ferry” misses the dock.

[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.

First-time writer-director John Alan Simon simply doesn't have a strong enough grip on the movie's narrative, pacing or performances to surmount the pitfalls of this ambitious, budget-conscious effort.

It’s only October but your Thanksgiving turkey has arrived. It’s called She Came to Me, a mishmash of flimsy, fanciful and far-fetched notions dressed up as a screwball New York rom-com. Given its pedigreed cast and filmmaker, the results are doubly sad.

Depressing and airless.

For much of the movie's running time, I wished I were watching Mel Brooks' classic take on Shelley's yarn, "Young Frankenstein." At least that one was intentionally funny.

Schmaltzy, overlong and a bit tedious.

With its muddy timeline, kaleidoscope of fantasies, flashbacks and hallucinations, broad characterizations and sitcom slickness, the film never settles down long enough to congeal, much less feel remotely connected to reality.

Any potential enjoyment here is fatally undermined by the film's barely developed characters, self-conscious dialogue ("I will wax his tugboat!") and repetitive imagery.

Perhaps most egregiously, director Mike Sears, working from Martin Dugard's awkwardly structured, subtext-free script, builds little excitement for the game of lacrosse, which comes off here as all sticks and legs and bad camera angles.

Sure, this frequently improvised spoof isn't intended to be taken seriously, but it's also not funny or incisive enough to counter the unappealing persona the actor-comedian has concocted here: an impulsive, clueless narcissist on a journey to reinvent himself as an action star.

This poky, clichéd, slackly told picture, directed by Emilio Aragón, would've felt dated a few decades ago; now it feels like a downright relic.

A sluggishly paced collection of go-nowhere sight gags, flat-footed set pieces and incoherent business chatter that offers few laughs and little real payoff.

Streak and Cooper are meagerly drawn characters, first-draft dialogue abounds, and the story proves more tedious and head-scratching as it goes.

Writer-director P.J. Hogan may have based Mental on an actual incident from his childhood, but the crazy quilt of a movie that resulted feels anything but real.

The neo-noir crime comedy Kill Me Three Times works overtime to seem unique and clever. The result, however, is a derivative, gimmicky, at times dizzying puzzle that fails to engage.

It’s a valiant but awkward effort.

There's plenty of action, some ping-ponging romance and even a bit of tension as Silver Circle spins its muddled tale. But it's all so overwhelmed by the rudimentary, computer-generated animation (characters don't so much walk as lurch and glide) that, well, the medium becomes the message.

A muddle of tired themes, bad behaviors and gruesome set pieces.

Writer-director Norman Gregory McGuire needed to better flesh out his inconsistent main characters, clarify their goals and motivations, and deepen their journey with more vivid set pieces and fewer clichés.

Good People goes from being simply pedestrian to outright preposterous without batting an eye.

It's a no-go from the get-go with its labored stabs at humor and satire, doltish characters, utter disconnection from reality (even for a spoof) and scenes stretched to the breaking point.

The story of The David Dance might have seemed more timely and vital when first presented as a play in 2003. Today, however, the delayed film version (it was shot in 2009) feels remarkably dated. It’s also logy, stagey and overlong.

Good intentions go just so far when a movie is hobbled by such risible, place holder dialogue, contrived plot points, wildly uneven performances and awkward camera work.

The movie mostly plays so strained and corn pone that it undermines its sincere emotional core and good intentions.

The grand Mirren is, truth be told, miscast and Pesci is misdirected as Grace and Charlie Bontempo.

Your Thanksgiving turkey has arrived on schedule and it's called The Nutcracker in 3D.

A grating and witless would-be spoof of religion, male-bonding and, it seems, horror movies.

Amid the choppy action and whirl of sketchy characters lie muddled messages about revenge, greed, war, hubris and the endless ripple effects of 9/11.

Dufils vividly captures the locale’s seedy, swampy vibe, with its dive bars, shabby homes, ubiquitous convenience stores and underground fight spots. If only there were a more compelling, engaging narrative to match.

This choppy film, which is saddled with a subplot about a dogged insurance agent (Richard Portnow), becomes more mechanical than emotional, leapfrogging time, logic and process as it scrambles to its too clever-by-half conclusion.

Spotty acting and casting, many thinly drawn or over-the-top characters, weak stabs at humor, and some awkward editing and dialogue further undermine this well-intentioned effort.

It all feels forced and fabricated.

When it comes to finesse or originality the first-time filmmaker falls desperately short, relying on hoary clichés; dreadful, chicken-fried dialogue; and an often cracked moral compass.

The worthy, potentially exciting subject matter would certainly have lent itself to either a straight-on documentary or a seriously budgeted narrative feature. Instead, producer-director-editor Tristan Loraine (he also cowrote the dreadful script with Viv Young) clumsily tries to meld the two approaches - minus the big bucks.

It’s Jasmine’s inept and unprofessional behavior during the film’s climactic trial that really sends the film into absurdist territory. It’s outdone only by a final sequence of events with a horror-show twist that might best be described as bonkers.

For all its loaded potential to evolve into a gripping look at life in a correctional facility plus an atypical spin on gay longing, the film squanders much of its running time with thin, repetitive scenes of young men behaving badly.

The performers fully commit to their unlikable parts but, at least as written, even the best actors couldn't create compelling, relatable characters out of this messed-up bunch.

Just when you think the film has gratefully escaped its most inevitable turn, it goes there, adding one final kernel of corn to this ho-hum horse tale.

Spotty acting, flashes of crass dialogue, some questionable camera work and awkward storytelling — including a surfeit of phone conversations — further sink this well-meaning effort.

Brick Mansions, Paul Walker's penultimate film (prior to "Fast & Furious 7"), is a dumb and ugly action picture that works strictly as a reminder of the late actor's head-turning good looks and modest charisma.

Too many roles remain underdeveloped — if developed at all. A lack of cohesion or camaraderie among the inmates compounds the film's impersonal vibe.

Alexander Sokurov's Faust is a grueling side show of a film, a morbid, mightily uninvolving piece.

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.

The Diabolical is a tepid horror-thriller that never manages to sell, much less clarify, its potentially ambitious concept.

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

That the film looks good matters little when director Peter A. Dowling’s script, based on the novel by Sharon Bolton, is filled with so many thinly drawn characters, blunt warning signs and telegraphed plot points.

Ameer may be aiming for a profound look at self-hatred, denial or the perils of the gay closet, but his story and characters are too superficially etched to make an impact.

Treehouse is a lackluster backwoods thriller that takes far too long to get — well, not very far. There's more tension in a round of Final Jeopardy.

Aside from too many characters and story strands, the dialogue is hackneyed and the acting subpar, starting with the movie's lead.

There's such mechanical artifice at work that it's hard to do more than squirm and groan at the couple's ultimate travails.

A laughably cheesy, empty-headed follow-up that makes the mediocre prior film shine in comparison.

Momentum is a spectacularly generic action-thriller that, despite its sleekly shot and edited mayhem, lands with a giant thud.

The cast, including Jason Biggs as a dorky social studies teacher, does what it can with the toothless, painfully unfunny, thoroughly unconvincing material. How some movies get made is truly a mystery.

Director John Suits seems more concerned with plying eyeballs with creepy atmospherics, showy visual effects and sexy interludes than with propulsive pacing or roiling tension.

It's not the worst idea for a revenge fantasy, but Jim's payback is so lacking in logic and reality, not to mention tension, that it proves more laughable than cathartic.

This mission, well intended as it may be, proves a no-go from the get-go.

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

The lowbrow comedy Lost and Found in Armenia so shamelessly wallows in its broad humor, silly contrivances and retrograde stereotypes it almost dares you to be annoyed. Mission accomplished.

K-11 has the makings of a cult movie campfest but little of the authentic wit, edge or outré vision it would take to get there. What's left is a dreary jailhouse drama that somehow managed to imprison a few notable actors within its lurid walls.

There's certainly a profound and valuable documentary to be made about our eldest living senior citizens. Sadly, Walter: Lessons From the World's Oldest People isn't it.

Director Steven C. Miller, working off a script by Max Adams and Umair Aleem, keeps things moving at a breakneck pace in an attempt, it seems, to help mask the film's convoluted plotting, one-note performances and bad dialogue.

It mostly plays like a slapdash mockumentary crossed with a bad reality TV show.

Noah’s awkward, unconvincing script aside, Lewis is the true weak link here as he struggles to sell Max’s wobbly lines and emotions. This is a thoroughly painful experience.

Although this well-meaning film may appeal to its intended audience on a spiritual level, the result is a sluggish, clinical, largely dreary portrait that tends to mistake trauma for drama.

This unevenly acted yuckfest, which is as unsubtle as its title, has all the pizazz of a bad sitcom episode.

Hokey dialogue, a syrupy score, a corny use of slow motion and a slew of contrived or undercooked plot developments further sink a movie whose appeal may elude even die-hard romantics.

There are zero thrills — 3-D or otherwise — and, for all the nutty mayhem, the pacing drags.

Tension is low, pacing uneven and the acting — LaSardo's eerie work aside — proves subpar.

That the World War II-era drama Ithaca was directed by actress Meg Ryan may prove the most notable yet least successful thing about this oppressively sentimental journey.

The time-travel stoner comedy Ripped blows a potentially funny idea on slapdash filmmaking and lazy storytelling. If much of this overly broad eye-roller wasn’t made up on the fly, it sure looks that way.

With the excruciating gal-pal comedy Apartment Troubles, writer-director-stars Jess Weixler and Jennifer Prediger have created such blurry, unappealing characters that their film is hamstrung from the get-go.

With its overly arch dialogue and characterizations, airless gentility and forced period trappings it seems that the harder writer-producer Karen R. Hurd and director Barry Andersson strive for authenticity — on what’s clearly a deeply limited budget — the less convincing the film feels. The often stodgy acting doesn’t help.

This strained, often crass comedy traffics in broadness and inconsistency far more than anything smart, clever or dimensional. That might be more forgivable if the film was at least funny. It's not.

A movie of such snowballing stupidity that it's a wonder the actors could keep straight faces while shooting it (outtakes, please!).

The main achievement of The Institute is that its cast kept straight faces long enough to shoot this risible gothic chiller. A

Cavemen writer-director Herschel Faber has sketched such a thin and unfunny look at L.A. singles, it should mark the death knell for movies about child-men on the make.

In addition to flat visuals, logy pacing and lots of first-draft dialogue, "Bridge" plays host to such an uninspired — and uninspiring — circle of friends and lovers it's hard to invest in their mundane journeys.

The movie, based on the novel “Seventy Times Seven,” is so laden with hoary gay stereotypes and references (enough with “The Golden Girls”!), anachronistic name-checks (Charo? Jeff Stryker?), groan-worthy silliness, overplayed emotion and amateurish crafting it never had a prayer.

Tyler Perry's The Single Moms Club is a sitcom masquerading as a feature film... Too bad he didn't just spare us the awfulness of this flat and phony slices-of-life dramedy and go right to series, where half-hour bites might have helped mitigate the pain.

The supernatural thriller The Forest begins with an intriguing premise and fun, ghost story-type potential but quickly devolves into convoluted hokum that produces more laughs than scares.

Writer-director Douglas Mueller's tedious drama Repatriation seems unsure of what it wants to say or how to say it — much less how to effectively shoot or edit it.

There’s barely a convincing — or amusing — situation or interaction, including the film’s climactic nuptials, which also turn fatally contrived.

Save Mailer’s pushy “New Yawk” accent, the leads do what they can with their unconvincing characters and the rusty plot, but it’s a hopeless effort. Nice opening title sequence though.

The movie, filmed over several start-and-stop years (credited director Eric Etebari completed the shoot) contains lots of weak dialogue, heavy-handed faith talk, awkward voiceovers, thin characterizations and illogical plot turns. Any questions?

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.

Writer-director Dito Montiel, adapting his novel, takes an ill-conceived premise and drives it into the ground with a painful, tone-deaf approach to both social satire and romantic comedy.

Angels on Tap is an ill-conceived comic-fantasy filled with strained and creaky humor, cardboard characters, an inane framing device and, as directed by Trudy Sargent, zero cinematic style.

A fatally clueless, painfully overlong sports spoof.

10 Rules for Sleeping Around is a dreadful sex farce with barely an authentic emotion, credible character or plausible plot point in its midst.

This spectacularly dumb and unfunny film will likely bore even the staunchest fans of the “Hangover” movies, of which “Search” is a kind of distant, fatally impoverished cousin.

It's a grotesque, deadly dull piece of cinematic upchuck, a horror film minus tension or chills.

Had Daskaloff found an appropriately campy groove, he might have eked out some sexy-silly fun. As it stands, the film proves a cheesy, half-baked and decidedly retrograde effort.

Overall pacing is flaccid and too many scenes peter out when they should punch. But perhaps the movie’s biggest infraction is that there’s hardly a chuckle in it.

Ironically, the only thing that makes much sense about the DIY effort Oconomowoc is its baffling title.

The movie is disturbingly reckless, needlessly brutal and deeply homophobic. Later attempts to wedge in a few nice moments between James and Kareem fall flat.

Alternately crass and treacly, overbearing and under-finessed, the film, penned by headhunter-turned-screenwriter Bill Dubuque and directed by Mark Williams, is on life support from get-go.

Avoid this one like, well, a yeast infection.