Glenn Kenny

Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain, named for one of its signature songs, is an often engaging chronicle of the group (which has sold more than 20 million albums), one that is probably best appreciated by fans.

The movie’s depictions of landscapes both sere and fertile, and its all-but-palpable portrayals of isolation, have echoes of the best work of Werner Herzog and Lucrecia Martel. But de Righi and Zoppis here show more genuine affinity than affected influence; they’re moviemakers worth keeping an eye on.

My own taste runs to different modes of poetic cinema, but I credit The Girl and the Spider for the seemingly paradoxical clarity of its mysterious vision.

Looking as if it was often shot in complete darkness or something like it, Agent Game is murky nonsense that aspires to get by on what it considers to be a trenchant cynicism about geopolitical chess.

The director carries out his ultimately banal aims with commendable dispatch, and it’s always interesting to see Moreno play a character who’s not a living saint.

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.

Even if this documentary directed by Lisa Hurwitz had nothing else to recommend it, it would be worthwhile as an excellent source of Mel Brooks.

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

The gloom is practically enveloping. But, in the end, is it really all about hope? Black Crab is more than sufficiently gripping to make you want to see it through and find out.

The documentary posits him as a pioneer but struggles to pin down how he was unique.

This affectionate portrait is also well grounded. Finley is remembered as a hard worker among other hard workers.

This gangly picture isn’t a lost masterpiece, to be clear. But it’s a magnetic curio, a fascinating relic of a vanished strain of European cinema.

Feature-length failures as abject as this one are almost frightening, in part because one worries about what kind of a snit the director will be working out if/when he gets a second shot.

“Stories” does have a handful of funny and affecting scenes. But it’s most interesting when McGee, after sobering up, makes an ill-advised alliance with Tony Blair.

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

This is a nuanced film, one that doesn’t lay itself out in what we would consider a satisfyingly linear fashion. But it’s the sort of thing that gets a grip on your spine when you’re least expecting it.

Another season, another “Liam Neeson Has Skills” movie.

The movie’s prefab on-screen graphics are just one reason “Worst to First” has such a limp tone overall.

Kirkby does keep up a jaunty pace. But he also seems preoccupied with impressing his inner hipster, as with an attitude toward race that dares you to call it cavalier. And his again edgy music choices.

This restless film is hardly content to present a portrait of an icon, instead insisting, with compassion and clear eyes, that icons are all too human too.

Allen’s direction, with Vittorio Storaro lensing, is typically fluid. If you’re at all inclined to view this movie, you’ll find it’s very easy to take in.

Clean has some real craft, but doesn’t quite satisfy as it toggles between bloodbaths and bathos.

An observation that when you’re running away, it doesn’t matter where you’re running to as much as it matters where you’re running from. “Compartment No. 6” has an always energetic sense of place even when it’s keeping to the confined space of its title room. Combined with the committed acting, it makes for a worthwhile journey.

One thing is certain: for all the strain the movie exerts, it never comes close to touching the hem of the writers it purports to depict. And it leaves the mystical and erotic dimensions of their lives and works far outside of its belabored vision.

While keeping a stalwart female perspective, Simple Passion follows an arc so standard it could be called banal.

As an arraignment of the systems that ultimately rule human interaction regardless of the superficial societal differences between Europe, the Americas, and the East, A Hero is a chilling demonstration of how, as the song says, money changes everything.

There’s some comedic value here.

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.