Helen T. Verongos

Mr. Church fully inhabits the character, making the most of Willie’s dented moral sense and his many limitations. But the film constructs some too-perfect solutions to problems and manipulates our emotions.

Bob Yari’s Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is more artifact than art.

As one Syrian character tells another, “Timing is everything in this business,” and timing is only one flawed aspect of this uneven movie.

The Wild Life is pretty to look at, with its skies and ocean, calm or stormy, and it has a driving soundtrack. But the story lacks that extra layer of complexity and meaning that parents can appreciate.

This film fails even to evoke the ’80s in costumes, soundtrack or other atmospherics.

It fails to deliver a thrill — not even a shiver, except of revulsion — rendering all that slasher gore downright anemic.

There are few feelings as glorious as spreading your wings onstage for the first time. Ruby Yang captures that rare electricity in her documentary My Voice, My Life, about Hong Kong teenagers who put on a show.

Perhaps because it tries too hard to be too many things, the movie loses its punch.

The tidbits we learn are wrapped in an unabashedly promotional tone that overestimates the global emotional attachment to this car’s muscular mythos. It’s difficult to believe that this tribute comes from the director who showed such delicacy in his appreciation of Jiro Ono’s art.

A clever film written and directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, H. keeps the viewer watchful, waiting for it to splatter into a familiar horror plot or spin off into an alien abduction.

Its tightly shot scenes never reveal much context, and the rather cryptic subtitles can lead a viewer to mistaken conclusions until the identities and motivations of the characters click into focus.

This ambitious documentary, by Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani, is largely pleasing to the eye, and it pays close attention to the eloquent activists at its core. Journalists of every stripe provide context, perhaps more than we can digest.

The title, by the way, is Trinidadian slang for being disoriented or dizzy or just a little bit crazy, possibly because of romance. And you might go bazodee over that contagious soca beat.

A parable about the contagious nature of corruption and the curse of dirty money, 1000 Rupee Note asks, How valuable is a windfall to people who live their lives largely without money?

Without the benefit of theatrical devices that might clarify the order of events, its time warps undermine the plot.

Over all, this is an exciting film if not a completely cohesive one.

A mild film, Drawing Home could use an electrical charge, or an undercurrent of urgency. The pacing is uneven, and the movie feels slow in spots and too long overall, even though it lacks detail that would have enriched it. An internet search offers a fuller idea about the real lives of the subjects.

Mouret manipulates our sympathies effortlessly as the story zigzags its way from there to its ultimately surprising and quite satisfying resolution.

The tantalizing clues, occasional laughs and lapses in reality are not enough to hold this film together.

The movie becomes a cavalcade of tired gags — less com than rom.

Although it offers a dungeon, a curse and a shocking theft, this flat, anodyne movie is unlikely to join the pantheon of holiday classics, so keep a rein on your expectations and accept that you’ll need something more to salvage the evening.

Yes, The Princess Switch: Switched Again is syrupy, and no, beyond its central gimmick, there is little substance to be found. But the same could be said for many a beloved romance film or holiday movie.