John DeFore

The Proposal has a life of its own, beautiful and provocative. The biggest complaint one can make is that Magid, whose previous works have involved spy agencies and police surveillance, hasn't made similar features while pursuing those projects.

Using her own experience with the syndrome as a springboard, Brea offers an affecting film.

Wes Tooke offers stiff dialogue and sometimes oddly structured action, leaving much dramatic potential unexploited. Yes, Emmerich stages plenty of aerial battles in which fighter pilots plunge through hailstorms of sizzling projectiles. But those hoping to get a thrill would be better served by revisiting his Earth-vs-aliens war flick Independence Day.

Upsetting but too curious to wallow in misery (and blessed with a few grace notes), the film pays tribute to a girl who rarely indulges in the self-centeredness that comes with adolescence.

The Queen of Versailles will prompt loathing not only among the so-called 99 Percent, but among those in the top 1 percent who would like someone more sane to represent them on camera.

Trophy isn't as good at drawing moral conclusions as it is at laying out the difficult issues around hunting, conservationism and the trade in animal parts. But the film will be involving for those on all sides of animal-welfare debates.

If the film's title is an ironic use of Trumpian bluster, it also accurately represents the movie itself, which is about as far as you can get from Michael Moore-style agitprop while still having a red-blooded interest in this country's continued existence: The filmmakers avoid insulting a politician who deserves anything they might wish to sling at him, opting instead to let facts speak for themselves.

Focused much more intently on video journals Gleason made as his illness progressed, the film both documents his rapid physical decline and ponders the many existential issues it raises — especially for a married couple expecting their first child in a few months.

A deeply satisfying pop biopic whose subject's bifurcated creative life lends itself to an unconventional structure.

A delightful experience for jazz buffs and more than an eye-opener for any youngsters who barely know who Armstrong was, it’s worth applauding just for its belief that it can meaningfully touch on private life, public persona, musical legacy and everything else — even if, on each front, it leaves one wanting more.

The documentary — a polished directing debut for veteran sound editor Costin — will leave many geekier audience members wishing it were three times as long.

[A] minor but enjoyable doc.

Sharp dramatization and direct performances suffice to put the story's themes across more urgently than expected.

An English cousin to the earlier Jamaica-set films "The Harder They Come" and "Rockers" that is vastly superior in cinematic terms and just as valuable as a cultural document.

Energetic, laugh-stuffed and very colorful (it would be a feat to make a dull film about these people).

It feels like a gift from one outstanding character actor to another, but never one that indulges the thesp at the expense of the film.

Quiet and carefully made but cryptic, it relies on the viewer to complete its metaphors.

It’s a nightmare, and not one a mainstream audience would relish. But aficionados of this nearly extinct form of special effects will relish the chance to see a labor of love whose roots go back to circa 1987.

Thoughtful and less sensationalistic than its premise might suggest, it's made for arthouses and offers a fine showcase for costar Rutger Hauer.

Neither over-bleak nor falsely heroic, the movie sensitively observes a short span that, however things work out, is going to be a turning point in their lives.

Things head eventually in an abstract direction that may have played better onstage than it does here ("we must forget what we didn't see here," guests are eventually instructed), but a compelling atmosphere lingers.

Thorny, blood-boiling and finely made.

Modest but revealing documentary.

Most importantly, the pic gets laughs out of the class system without being glib about its cruelties. The gulf between rich and poor clearly matters to Huang, who poignantly shows how poverty robs even the dead of dignity.

It's not just superhero fatigue that makes this feature feel generic and cheap — lively enough to keep young kids occupied, but preferably while parents are doing something more interesting in the next room.

The essence of what made the man inspiring to so many — it's not the winning, but the effort that's important — comes through with gonglike clarity in Dexter Fletcher's film, a straight-down-the-ramp sports tale that plays to the average man's dreams of momentary greatness.

Heartfelt but clumsy.

A highly entertaining documentary revealing a serious talent behind the one-note present-day reputation.

Straight history is not the whole point here, as Nelson enthusiastically conjures a sense of what it felt like to be a Panther and to be a young black person inspired by them.

Rising well above the typical making-of feature, the documentary will fascinate buffs when shown alongside the operas themselves.

Though the emotional pull of this love triangle grows more compelling in the second half, for much of its running time November prefers to beguile us with the strangeness of its setting and characters.

While Hobson's smarts are evident here, the picture's uniformly dim visuals and sometimes overplayed sound design are static enough to do a disservice to his work with the cast.

Driven by Cummings' transfixingly vulnerable performance, the movie not only justifies returning to the source: Shockingly, it does so without even using the device that seemed key to the short's success.

As the script and performances dive inward, exploring David's ability to endure while sending Cal into memories of hunting trips with his own father (Bill Pullman), the movie uses Todd McMullen's fine scenic photography to show how stranded they are.

Costner and Harrelson both give fine performances, but when it's time for each to have his one allotted dramatic monologue, you can practically hear the movie clearing its throat: Shut up and listen while the man is speaking, folks.

Costa's inquiry into that life offers a deeply felt angle on the broader realities of life in Paraguay during the '80s; while the intimate film is unlikely to expand beyond niche theatrical bookings, it will affect many who see it.

Metalhead is uninterested in caricature or easy laughs, and its embodiment of guitar-hero obsession is one much more closely resembling someone you knew in high school, albeit someone who's had an exceptionally hard time dealing with childhood trauma.

The birds are not only gorgeous but, as they poke for food and rustle around, entertaining.

A charmer with strong appeal for video release, it is lively enough to merit a niche theatrical run beforehand.

Throughout the film, a talent-rich gang of cinematographers (many doc-makers in their own right, like Approaching the Elephant's Amanda Rose Wilder and Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo's Jessica Oreck) favor that intimacy over the big picture.

Though peppered with lots of photos and clips fans haven’t seen, rapid-fire editing ensures we nearly never see enough for a rare clip’s humor to land — instead, the montage persuasively conjures the camaraderie and creative enthusiasm we all wanted to believe in: Yes, these guys were great friends while they were transforming comedy. Then they weren’t. Now they are again.

Even working with some of the most mainstream ingredients one could possibly find (including, in a funny moment, an NSYNC video) and one of the most familiar settings on earth, Guy Maddin knows how to make things strange.

A prickly little gem by a singular artist.

Though it doesn't answer every question it raises and may occasionally confuse the uninitiated, the polished film easily stirs indignation.

Though those glimpses don't add up to what most people would call a portrait, they do evoke a life of old-fashioned female pampering, and contain just enough of Sellam's quirky personality to make those habits charming.

One of rock's underheralded pioneers gets his due in Beware of Mr. Baker, an affectionate but unfawning portrait that finds the drummer of Cream still keeping the beat despite hardships both institutional and self-inflicted (heavy on the latter).

Leonard and Foley offer enough semi-naked sex scenes here to prove that quantity is no substitute for chemistry.

Design values and Conrad W. Hall's photography are as flatly unimaginative as the rest of the film, which, in its avoidance of distinguishing features, would make a better candidate for witness-relocation anonymity than Margot does.

Though it lacks the specific argumentative point of view that might have carried it into the mainstream, its sympathetic approach to subjects offers a compelling human perspective on questions that get too little attention in debates about health care.

Amanda Knox makes for succinct, involving viewing — a true-crime doc that acknowledges the lingering debates over its subject's guilt while prompting one to ask: Why did anyone ever believe this outrageous stuff in the first place, much less cling to it for years?

The result is uniquely powerful, putting faces and human consequences to a political dispute that seemingly will never end.

Catherine Gund's Born to Fly works very well as a portrait of a maverick artistic sensibility, even if it will leave some viewers wanting more in terms of performance footage.

A perfectly chosen cast sells this unhurried comedy, which flows unconventionally but is still, by a long stretch, the most mainstream-friendly picture Bujalski has made.

Young and Whisenant hatch a finale that is corny and wonderful — a rare chance to watch someone's dream come true, and an exhortation for others to follow their own weird enthusiasms wherever they might lead.

Throughout, the film's subjects convince us they're doing nothing more than being themselves, so much so that a cynical advisor told Sutton he should market his film as a documentary. That label would prepare potential viewers for Pavilion's lack of story, but it would make a lie of the movie's patient, finely drawn loveliness.

A critique of post-millennial journalism is one of several ideas raised but mostly abandoned in this genre pastiche, which never really coalesces despite some promising elements.

Beautifully put together in just about every way, it will be potent stuff on the small screen but deserves its moment in theaters.

More than most adaptations, this is a film true to Shakespeare's practice of employing all means at hand to keep the crowd entertained.

Recounting his attempt to learn more about his great-grandfather's killing of a black man in 1946, Wilkerson is a compelling enough guide that it may be some time before the audience starts to wonder if the central mystery is a red herring.

Overall, though, the project brings enough good into this rough corner of the world that viewers can walk out with honest cause to be hopeful for its inhabitants.

Following Matt through a public transition and capturing its unique set of complications, Del Monte offers a warm portrait of a thoroughly winning subject.

Tracy Droz Tragos works to get beyond us-versus-them simplicity in Abortion: Stories Women Tell, focusing on personal narrative over politics in a humanistic look at an issue that promises to remain divisive for the foreseeable future.

The film represents another leap forward for [Morris].

Armando Iannucci's The Personal History of David Copperfield turns the author's well-loved autobiographical epic into a fast-moving yarn, sometimes hilarious and always entertaining.

Interspersing technical talk with a quick history of nuclear testing and other near-misses, the doc demonstrates how often situations like this arise.

Honest and well made but lacking a strong hook.

Visually ravishing, thought-provoking and benefitting from just enough playfulness to set it apart from the nature-doc herd, the film is eco-relevant without being at all dominated by climate change, which is only one of many subjects discussed.

Calling itself a "vision" as opposed to a "film," Icaros attempts to conquer fear — of death, of blindness, of loss — by accepting the potency of a magic it knows it will never understand.

A chilly allegory whose antihero is both compelling and repulsive.

The solution to Kyle's problems is as predictable as everything else in this cookie-cutter picture, which is only made tolerable by the surprisingly solid cast Speer has attracted.

Where it might have been an old-fashioned melodrama with credible historical appeal, instead it suggests an old-school celluloid epic whose print has lost a reel or two.

Though its cinematography is nothing to write home about, the action Alive and Kicking captures is so transfixing, one marvels that dancers can keep it up for five years, much less five decades.

A cogent, wide-ranging look at both the discovery and the nascent, soon-to-be-giant fights humans are having over it.

The story gets engrossing enough that we don't much miss what Avrich doesn't offer.

Suffice it to say that what satisfies on one level raises questions on others, and that certain plot points mightn't play as well without someone as charismatic as Johnson putting them across.

It may never be quite solid enough for us to be truly worried about its inhabitants' happiness, but watching them pursue that happiness is a uniquely diverting experience.

Very much a work of its time, the documentary offers unique perspectives for fans of both the saxophonist and the pioneering filmmaker, but is unlikely to attract a broad audience beyond those camps.

Wisely, McFadden avoids nailing things down too tightly here, being content to show the shaky ground his characters stand on.

I, Tonya spins a convincing yarn despite, or maybe because of, its surfeit of unreliable narrators.

The movie flirts with the usual mixed-signals of romantic comedy, but is on much more solid ground with sight gags (as when Drac's jello-like blob friend happily absorbs the slice-and-smash violence Ericka aims at the vampire) and character work that depends less on celebrity voice talent than on body-language animation.

Though never hard to follow, the discussion can sometimes challenge an unwonky viewer's attention span. But it contains big insights for those who wade in.

The feel-good documentary is engaging enough to draw a respectable audience at arthouses, but distribs should work for exposure within communities like the ones this school serves.

Some of these trekkers are more resilient than others, but all seem to agree there's a high, maybe insurmountable barrier between them and civilians. However sympathetic we are, they say, we can hardly understand what they've been through. High Ground makes that difficult task a little easier.

For those with only a glancing knowledge or none at all, this is as good an introduction as you could want.

A time capsule capturing the flavor of early-'70s bohemian life in Oklahoma and Texas.

Intriguing characters and elements of crime fiction prevent the film from being a dour slog, but there’s not much hope to be found here, especially for victims who, due to payoffs and court-ordered silence, can never share their trauma with an outraged public.

The picture is one part vintage Woody Allen, a few parts Screwball-era comedy of remarriage, and a vigorous shake of Gerwig herself, without whose particular spirit — "so pure," as an admirer puts it here, and "a little stupid" — this scenario might have trouble getting off the ground.

Odd, then, that [Brewer and Murphy's] Dolemite Is My Name is such a conventional-feeling biopic, one with its share of laughs and surprising anecdotes but little of the enduring strangeness that kept the 1975 Dolemite rattling around in our cultural memory

A vital, gripping film.

The fact that not every terrible thing can be remedied or appropriately punished is a tough lesson even for adults to learn, but A Monster Calls helps find the sense in it.

Sadly believable and benefiting from an unshowy performance by first-timer Gina Piersanti, it will have many viewers eager to see what Hittman does next.

A love story whose resolution remains tough to predict, Outside In respects all its characters by not pretending their choices are easily made.

It’s a visceral experience, albeit a less punishing one than some other modern war films.

First-time feature helmer Romanowsky has a hard time distinguishing between the things that draw her to Elliott's story and the things that make him pathetic.

What the film does best is bear witness to what happened on the day of the arrest and place it in the context of Bland's political life.

More conversational than journalistic in spirit, it avoids hard statistics (and the reasons those stats can be hard to come by) in favor of well-informed impressions and anecdotes. Though not the first doc to note the insanity surrounding this subject, it is easily accessible to non-insiders and holds interest even for those who follow art closely.

Talking heads aside, the movie gets a big boost from the wealth of news footage and post-standoff reportage the filmmakers cull from archives.