Glenn Kenny

It’s all pretty predictable . . . This has the effect of making the finale, which actually takes an exit ramp off triumphalist clichés, genuinely surprising.

Some of the details about female characters that Silver and the screenwriter Jack Dunphy choose to foreground...indicate that the filmmakers share with their male characters a strain of artsy-bro misogyny. The movie is nevertheless striking and stimulating in some respects.

Over all, this movie is less “you are there” than “you had to be there.”

Despite the performance’s credibility, few things are more irritating, artistically and historically, than the stranger-in-a-strange-land interloper who hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing.

In the shift from comedy to drama the movie goes wobbly.

The realization that Jayanti is using these things to buttress a fiction — albeit a fiction that could perhaps become true in the blink of an eye — is disquieting in a way the filmmaker might not have intended.

The movie is most effective in detailing how disinformation campaigns work.

The interactions between these real-life characters are here recalled with fondness and rue by the surviving participants. Taublieb’s approach is straightforward, but also a little pedestrian.

If the movie doesn’t go more than skin deep in interrogating questions about interventions both military and journalistic into the Middle East, it does succeed in opening up Mr. Hondros’s contradiction-filled world.

Curtis shows up late in the picture, and her grounded presence helps Powter’s hard-luck story resonate more sympathetically. The documentary ends not with the promise of a comeback, but with a resolution to restore some, well, sanity to Powter’s life.

Directed by Charlie Hoxie, "The Grand Unified Theory" is a moderately engaging documentary that credibly portrays Bloom’s indefatigability.

As much a joy as this movie . . . is to behold, its scenario is more than a little overbaked and overdrawn.

That Summer, a new documentary directed by Goran Hugo Olsson, sheds further light on the Beales with footage shot before the making of “Grey Gardens.”

The performances are conscientious and earnest.

The interview sections are fascinating, and scenes of the pope’s travels, during which he frequently washes the feet of those who come to him, are moving.... Less welcome are Mr. Wenders’s brief attempts at depicting the life of St. Francis himself.

It’s loud albeit harmless japery, best appreciated with your air-conditioning cranked to movie theater levels.

In the final half-hour, things start picking up, not just because of the impending surprise victory of Donald J. Trump and the way these players react to it.

This new cinematic imagining of Carlo Collodi’s classic fantasy tale is alternately enchanting and befuddling.

For patient or forgiving fans of idiosyncratic thrillers, “Disappearance” may deliver satisfactory spills and chills.

River of Fundament is often a commanding, engaging and certainly challenging experience. Nevertheless, by the end of the piece I felt deliberately alienated, and to a nearly infuriating degree.

The keen affinity the actor David Oyelowo has for his fellow performers is the best thing about The Water Man.

[A] hardly epochal but largely pleasant documentary.

Clay Tarver, a veteran of the TV series “Silicon Valley” (and a founder of the postpunk band Chavez) directs with an eye and ear that’s a cut above what one usually gets with this sort of fare.

The lessons here are old, and at one point, the filmmakers use the phrase “the house always wins.” But there’s hope, because there’s always hope in such tales

It’s never boring but a trifle diffuse. If you’re a Miyazaki fan, you’ll want to see it anyway.

The movie’s grave commitment to its own quirkiness is admirable, I suppose. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to recommend it.

The movie, written and directed by Hailey Benton Gates, wants to be a lot of things at once, including a satire and a dark rom-com. It bites off more than it can comfortably chew. However, the cast, also featuring Tim Heidecker, Chloë Sevigny and Channing Tatum, is charismatic and at times piercingly funny.

When the movie isn’t straining, the go-for-broke performances of Dyrholm and Lindh give it a specific, unusual tension — like the feeling you get when you’ve over-tightened a corkscrew and know the matter around it is about to crumble.

This is one of those movies that proves, when they’ve got a mind to, they can still make them like they used to.

Mr. Pearce is also well-versed in staging and shooting decent action scenes, and building suspense enough to keep Hotel Artemis diverting in its overstuffed ambition. Add to that Ms. Foster’s welcome return to big-screen acting after a five-year layoff and you’ve got a movie almost worth seeing.

The performances are excellent, and Ingelsby’s dialogue largely rings true. But while the movie is indeed considered and conscientious, it’s also careful. It doesn’t risk going over any edges itself. And it shows more than a few instances of fussy and telegraphing Conspicuous Direction.

Directed by Lauren Miller Rogen, it’s a predictable comedy of reconciliation. But it boasts substantial pleasures, largely on account of the performers.

The superb cast provides mild pleasures, as do some aspects of the elaborate mystery itself. And that’s all, folks.

If this movie leaves Cage adrift, he doesn’t seem at all uncomfortable about it.

Jodorowsky’s patients express gratitude and relief. But there has to be an easier way to alleviate stuttering than rubbing red dye on your genitals, putting on gold lamé hot pants, being body painted and walking the streets of Paris talking to oneself.

Kim’s Video, co-directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin and narrated by Redmon, is less a retail history than a shaggy dog story. One that actually appears to be true. Go in knowing that and you might get a kick out of it.

This is an undeniably fascinating film despite, or perhaps because of, the repellent actions Mr. Zahedi depicts himself taking.

The film is worth seeing because it’s a moving and remarkable story and it represents a great cause. Mr. Carlson often puts a directorial foot wrong.

Mr. Collet-Serra’s busy visual style, which uses a lot of fast-cutting, willy-nilly variations between slow and fast motion, and illogical but vivid point-of-view shots, seems at least somewhat apt under the exhilarating circumstances.

In the Company of Rose is a pleasant portrait of an admittedly rarefied world, but one that doesn’t transcend its vanity-project origins. Perhaps it doesn’t intend to.

Viewers who press play with intent to scoff may be surprised with how genuinely caught up they become.

The script by Nicole Jefferson Asher toggles between sharp observations about wordcraft and some “Dynasty”- or Tyler Perry-level soap operatics. RZA’s direction lacks visual personality, but he keeps the narrative moving and elicits strong performances from his cast.

Liberation Day, a documentary of preparations for the concert directed by Mr. Traavik and Ugis Olte, is a consistently understated chronicle of Westerners who are very carefully playing with fire.

Her insistent imagery and sometimes oblique narrative approach don’t always deliver the dividends sought. But the movie identifies Ms. Shortland as a talent to watch.

It’s hard to settle on what’s more bombastic: Carrey’s admittedly virtuoso double act, or the teeming computer graphics gadgetry of death and destruction spilling out of every corner of the screen.

There’s some grim stuff here, but very little of Willeford’s mordant humor. A small and potent quantity of this quality is delivered by the larger-than-life rock star Mick Jagger in the role of Cassidy. Jagger shows a refreshing lack of conventional vanity by allowing both Bang and Debicki to tower over him.

Ms. Wells is appealing onscreen and is a smart writer. She gives Emily some good zingers.

Devoted Feifferites, not to mention fans of Mr. Rash and Mr. Koechner, who get to flex their muscles nicely here, will be well sated.

The movie’s depiction of age — specifically, age as it affects movie stars — has real potency. This extends beyond its ostensible message, delivered by Kal: “We live and die by the stories we tell each other.” The stronger statement Last Words ends up making is that we die no matter what.

This picture is well acted (one of the cast members, Manuel García-Rulfo, has a growing profile in Hollywood; he was seen last year in “Widows” and “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”) and maintains narrative interest without ever grabbing the viewer by the lapels.

The movie depicts Mr. Ducasse’s sweeping streak — he prepares food for the homeless in Brazil and concocts a deluxe restaurant at Versailles — competently if not brilliantly. A screening of the film accompanied by a tasting menu afterward, though — that would be something.

While Mr. Reybaud has exemplary artistic confidence and an interesting vision, this is a movie that in many ways defines or justifies the “not for everybody” critical hedge.

There’s some comedic value here.

The documentary is shot and edited like an infomercial, although it wanders from issue to issue to the extent that a viewer can’t be sure just what it’s pitching.

While Juan Salvador is a shameless exhibitionist, Coogan’s performance is understated; he conveys Tom’s softening without nudging the viewer too much.

The result is dramatically wonky — and eccentrically thought-provoking.

Potter delivers her vision here in a form that’s perhaps too raw, too undistilled. There’s precious little lightness negotiating with the dark. Her lack of compromise is, as always, admirable — as is her way with actors.

To this viewer, it is a spectacular whiff.

Grabinski has both wit and energy, and these qualities, along with a game cast, help keep “Happily” afloat for far longer than most made-in-L.A. dark domestic comedies. But the movie wants to do too many things, and grows diffuse.

The movie doesn’t always work, but it’s never boring.

It’s an earnest account of a religious movement that still resonates — Whitefield’s practice was instrumental in the growth of the Methodist church, and his sermons and lectures are still in print today.

The Death of Dick Long, until it meanders into a semisincere dramatic dimension, manages to pack in a good number of laughs for a significant amount of time.

There are a good number of funny and pointed individual scenes and bit parts here (Alec Baldwin is droll as an inept therapist).

The movie really comes alive when it is recreating the recording session for the song, showing how the ace studio keyboardist Paul Griffin transformed the tune with his energetic gospel-style piano.

Given the aesthetically confrontational nature of the piece, one can understand why Mr. Rossi did not attempt an undiluted cinematic translation of the complete Bronx Gothic. But something about his approach (which I assume was approved by Ms. Okpokwasili, as she is one of the movie’s executive producers) feels, finally, like an evasion.

A repetitious feel begins to take over. For some viewers, quietude may yield to boredom.

Peirone’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink directing does tend to head butt her thin writing, but the movie eventually coalesces as a sly, bitter parable against chasing-your-dreams optimism.

But when they settle into a groove that aligns with the novel’s, the movie delivers great unsettling jolts that approximate the power of King’s vision.

“Hockey will teach you what you need to know about life” is a cliché, and while Underwood’s delivery of the line almost redeems it, James’s work makes you believe it.

Mr. Lindon, who carries his powerful masculinity with canny reserve, is superb as a man inquiring into a faith he had previously thought had nothing to do with him. But Ms. Bellugi is a real find; she inhabits her character, who, even as she hides her secrets, is so genuinely beatific that you can hear it in her breathing.

Mueller’s direction is patient and sensitive, the cast is accomplished and committed, and the picture’s comedic aspects sometimes earn a chuckle. But Small Town Wisconsin is not sufficiently distinctive to rise above the standard-issue cinematic contemplation of the arguably poignant state of the white male American screw-up.

Its story line is clean; the live-action actors, particularly Rose Byrne (as Bea, an artist who paints portraits of the bunnies), bring their onscreen-appeal A game; and the computer-generated animals are charming, albeit lacking in the particular gentle winsomeness of Potter’s originals.

Burr is skilled at this, for sure. And Woodbine and Cannavale, who are better actors overall, slide into Burr’s mode with ease. The results will prove satisfactory and maybe cathartic for his fans.

Adam Wescott and Scott Fisher, Ms. Lazzarato’s management team, are executive producers for the film, and to a great extent “This Is Everything” seems to follow an agenda set by them in tandem with the movie’s subject, which is largely commendable in its pitch for acceptance and against bigotry.

There’s some fascinating and provocative material in The Capote Tapes that is diluted by the director Ebs Burnough’s insistence on teasing a question that, arguably, has a self-evident answer.

There’s much historical material here that’s of high interest, and Ms. Swinton’s performance of Bell’s letters convey Bell’s skills as a writer, but the movie is ultimately too conceptually labored for its own good — or that of its subject.

If Billie gives short shrift to its subject’s artistry while underscoring her life’s squalor, it still offers pockets of valuable insight.

The documentary’s raw material arguably could have yielded a more powerful fit with a tighter edit. Nevertheless, this is a mostly engaging portrait.

Only intermittently stimulating.

The most interesting thing about Ibiza, not to get too highfalutin, is its positive treatment of female desire.

In a way it’s kind of neat. In another way it’s kind of dopey. The movie toggles between those two states throughout.

The whole enterprise is so fundamentally good-natured and fluffy that it’s sometimes hard to stay annoyed by it.

Harvey is detail-oriented, good-humored, intimately involved and encouraging of her fellow musicians. The tunes she crafts for the resulting record are intricate and eclectic, but still honor the raw directness of her early work.

Crow herself is a more than interesting subject. She’s a musician whose Rock-with-a-capital-R cred — her guitar playing is ace, her voice is soulful and her ear for a hook is unimpeachable — is sometimes overlooked in favor of her pop appeal. And her story has a lot of twists.

An energetic, visually attractive but ultimately irritating comedy-drama.

Kier is unfailingly captivating in the film, which makes it all the more bothersome that the film itself doesn’t match him.

The narrative conceits of Nine Days, while exquisitely constructed, are intricate to the point of laborious. At times the movie almost sinks under their weight.

Rhoads comes off as a pleasant guy (never a big partyer; he tried to counsel Osbourne on his excessive drinking) and a genuine ax savant who died with a lot more music in him.

Because it is a French film, or rather the kind of French film that wants to serve its sentimentality with a dollop of prestige, The Midwife doesn’t offer an entirely shameless version of the “dying free spirit imbues uptight caretaker with a new lust for life” scenario.

At the end Ms. Maclean forsakes all the unsettling subtlety and nuance she has had so clearly in her command to serve up a finale that I found frankly confounding, despite its having been foreshadowed.

The movie is written and directed, with undeniable sincerity, by Todd Robinson. While its story mechanics are creaky, the valor of Pitsenbarger is evoked cogently, in well-executed battle sequences

This is one of those pictures where the actors outdo the conventional material they are given to work with.

As this pleasant but ultimately inconsequential movie’s narrative thins out, it emphasizes again and again that there is, as of now, only one operating Blockbuster store in the world. Luckily its proprietor is the warm and ingratiating Sandi Harding.

It’ll work best with viewers whose funny bones are of the dry variety.

This is all pretty conventional. But then the fighter’s story takes a twist.

Hoss’s work is impeccable and illuminating, and the movie’s foursquare, frank, brisk approach is salutary. But its final scenes lean into triteness and frustrating evasiveness, which makes the picture a less than entirely satisfying experience.

This stuff is best appreciated by rock mavens. Many of the other bands telling their stories (including the Boo Radleys and the Charlatans) didn’t have much of an impact in the States, so Anglophilia helps, too.

While the whole thing is ruthlessly well done, it also sometimes seems to lean into a kind of moral relativism.