Jason Bailey

Gellar and Goldfine manage the tone expertly, inserting little jolts of humor to keep things from getting too reverent.

The movie’s practical and special effects are a rogues’ gallery of gougings, stabbings, shavings, and scalpings; those who like to have their stomachs turned will find much to cheer about. But is it actually scary – suspenseful, tense, trafficking in more than the cheap shock of a jump scare or vivid effect? Not really, no.

Bana is one of the producers of The Dry, and it’s not hard to see why he wanted to act the role, which is uniquely suited to his specific talents – his potent mixture of brusque physicality and barely bottled emotion. Connolly is a patient enough director to let us take in the pain this man holds in his face and the quiet power in his eyes.

When Togo gets going, it goes.

The picture clangs clumsily for stretches, particularly in its second half; Selick is trying to merge the doomy darkness of “Coraline” with the high spirit and good humor of “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and they don’t always mix.

Gregg, who wrote and directed, has mostly written for television, and while this is her feature directorial debut, she’s a born filmmaker.

The problem with Fahrenheit 11/9 is that it’s Trump’s Fahrenheit 9/11 rather than Trump’s Roger & Me.

Class Action Park loses its footing somewhat in the closing passages; Scott and Porges don’t seem to know quite how to wrap things up, and the film’s big tonal shift is a turning point that is all but impossible to come back from.

The director resists the urge to make the family too heroic – in fact, his own character takes an unsympathetic turn near the end, which must’ve been a tough call. But it matters, because it renders his deeply-felt joy and pride at the picture’s conclusion all the more potent.

It’s just uninspired, a by-the-books courtroom drama, full of big speeches about justice and equality and Doing What’s Right, moved along by montages and fake-outs.

But what’s especially dispiriting, this time around, is that the film promises more. It opens with a remarkable pre-title sequence of Davidson on the highway, driving with a stern face, and listening to the radio; we’re joining him in the middle of something, and we’re not sure what. And then he closes his eyes and steps on the gas, a move of suicidal recklessness that nearly gets him (and several other drivers) killed, after which he stammers, to no one in particular, several consecutive “I’m sorry’s.” It’s not clear why this opening exists, in the context of ‘Staten Island,’ because it’s not comedic, and it’s not feel-good.

For all the impressive craft, sense of harrowing anxiety and searing performances on display, Lost Girls doesn’t seem to know how to wrap things up and it hurts the picture overall.

Hill’s basically remaking Larry Clark’s seminal 1995 film “Kids,” a picture inherently more authentic because it was a snapshot taken in that moment. And if you prefer the rose-colored lens of nostalgia, that’s been done too, in Jonathan Levine’s 2008 effort “The Wackness.”

This is an excruciatingly stupid movie, and the nicest thing I can say about it is that, at 83 minutes, at least it’s over quickly.

Summer of ’85 is ultimately not entirely successful, because its disparate tones don’t always mesh. But more than that, the carefree, romantic stuff is so enjoyable, and so sincere, that in retrospect, one wishes the entire film had lived there – both in that flush of first love (or at least lust), and in reckoning afterward with the complexities of that emotion.

The conclusion of Bill & Ted Face the Music is pure corn, and by that point, they’ve earned it. It’s a film that’s somehow both offhand and meticulous, shaggy yet crisp, and the apparent joy of its creation is infectious. I laughed through a lot of it, and smiled through the rest. What a treat this movie is.

Some of Novak’s camera sense, particularly early on, betrays his sitcom roots, and he commits the classic rookie mistake of going on three or so scenes too long, tying up inconsequential loose ends. But he crafts a good mystery, consistently engaging and entertaining, and the thoughtful turns of the last confrontation are sly, smart, and knowing.

The pacing is wobbly – it runs a too-flabby 105 minutes – and some of the filmmaking is pretty rickety . . . . But Swan Song is about its performers, and they shine.

Derrickson can build a mood and craft creepy imagery, and he moves his camera with precision. But this feels like a notebook of compelling visual and narrative ideas that never quite fit together, that can’t quite manage to coalesce into coherence.

It’s a sparse, nasty little thriller.

It’s all so breezy and light that you just want to join them and hang out for a while, even with all the drama they’ve got brewing.

Confess, Fletch is an absolute pleasure – the mystery is a corker, and I giggled from beginning to end.

A fairly vapid and shallow affair, even by the low standards of the celebrity bio-doc subgenre, Wolfgang provides copious archival montages of “the first celebrity chef” (Julia Child apparently didn’t count), but precious little understanding of what actually makes him tick.

The kind of brainy, absorbing, all-out thrilling cinema that’s in dangerously short supply these days.

Herzog’s latest is one of his weakest. Part of the problem, shockingly, is in the filmmaking; there are basic, unfortunate amateur missteps throughout.

Even its weakest pieces are still entertaining, and the good stuff is exceptionally so.

In the Earth isn’t a complete washout; there are moments of bleak humor, genre fans will enjoy the striking imagery and gross-out shivers, and the director has an undeniable gift for setting and maintaining a mood (he gets a big assist on the latter from Clint Mansell’s synth score). But ultimately, it’s kind of a slog.

Lee knows exactly how it wants to look, yet it has little that’s new or interesting to say.