John DeFore

Katz is much more interested in observing Jake's newfound emotional core — and probably a bit too confident that a moist-eyed Kroll can turn this quite likable but slight family reunion into something more touching.

An involving and ambitious fictionalized look at Rob Ford's downfall that is far from satisfied with gawking at that Toronto trainwreck, Ricky Tollman's Run This Town also intends to make points about racism and sexual harassment; to lament the slow-motion death of journalism; and to give voice to a generation of young adults who've been maligned by the oldsters who, as the movie sees it, made them the way they are.

Easygoing and always likeable but hardly packed with laughs.

An engaging performance by veteran Argentine actor Miguel Angel Sola is the main selling point here, helping put across some, but not all, of the story's more dubious developments.

A solid primer that augments exposition with a powerful sensual streak, Mark Hall's Sushi: The Global Catch aims to be a comprehensive look at the raw-fish phenomenon.

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.

Choosing it for his debut as director, Bateman demonstrates the same knack for timing and fine shadings of attitude as he does onscreen.

Moviegoers who don't get a kick out of spotting athletes on the screen may be less than enthralled by the otherwise formulaic comeback flick, but sports-loving viewers will likely be more enthusiastic.

Along the way, though, 2U throws enough wrinkles into the first film's action — if you don't remember it well, rewatch it before seeing this — to engage us.

Money for Nothing feels less prophetic than generally handwringing -- it's just enough to produce vague worry in the unschooled without moving policymakers to do anything they're not already doing.

A gore-for-broke affair that strips the flesh off Sam Raimi's cult-beloved comic-horror franchise and exposes the demons at its core.

The Story of Luke suffers all the flaws associated with disability films and more. Familiar faces in the cast may attract notice in niche bookings, but no one involved will benefit from the exposure.

Despite a premise with broad appeal and a script boasting plenty of laughs among its misfires, the high school fable falters.

While the film suffers from its own occasional sluggishness, it picks up as the lawmen watching our hero grow as strained as he is.

Hubby captures an artistic personality that could manifest big ideas without a shred of snobbery, could deflate pomposity while still inviting deep thought.

A great deal of human drama underlies all this, but not all of it makes it to the screen.

The action never stops being fun, and it eventually does make excellent use of the heavy machinery Nels' job requires. Cold Pursuit just gets a little winded, like a 66-year-old action hero working hard at high altitudes.

An affecting drama made more poignant by honest-feeling autobiographical elements.

It's more breezy than bittersweet, more about acceptance and forgiveness than a movie made in 2020 has any right to be.

Gilbert is less interested in the ups and downs of Gottfried's public life than in showing what we've never seen.

Foley's cult may never grow as big as his most ardent fans would like. But Hawke and Rosen and Dickey have given the man something better than posthumous record sales.

One unfortunate effect of the jumbling is that it cools off Statham’s slow-boil performance, and prompts us to question the logic behind H’s plan.

Laurent walks between pulpy suspense and a more serious grimness as she presents the action.

Modest but revealing documentary.

A look at how a post-industrial ghost town became home to one of the world's largest contemporary-art venues, Museum Town also exemplifies a problematic category of documentary: the project whose makers are close enough to the subject to deliver an attention-worthy film, but too close to make a comprehensive one.

It's a high point for everyone involved.

A character-driven take on true-crime fare, Alex Karpovsky's Rubberneck marks a solid dramatic turn for a filmmaker best known for playing comedic parts in indie films like "Tiny Furniture."

More polished docs like "Restrepo" have covered similar ground in less scattered fashion, usually giving more coherent pictures of military operations while they're at it.

Nelson's amiable comedy occasionally gets fixated on things that don't serve its overall purpose and is too self-conscious to really shine. But it's a more competent, accessible film than its stealthy theatrical release suggests.

Art doc's stylistic quirks detract slightly from a sometimes fascinating portrait.

Star Daniel Radcliffe will be the biggest draw here, but the pic's focus on planning and genre mechanics over personalities may limit its appeal for his fans.

The doc's poignant heart is in observing how ACORN's most dedicated members have pushed to continue doing good after it was forced to close its doors.

Though hardly a failure, the serious-minded work is less affecting than it might've been, relying sometimes on hints that are needlessly ambiguous and on symbols that don't quite click.

Byington's two-chuckle-a-minute script is mostly interested in Larry's constant, evasive patter, which continues whether the target of his words appears to care what he's saying or not.

There's a good deal of pleasure to draw from some of these bonding moments, especially among vets who haven't seen each other for years, but not enough to justify overshadowing the movie's other elements.

Although Weigert is convincing as Abby, Passon's attitude toward the character is hazy.

If the part of the film devoted to endurance lacks the harrowing power of, say, 2013's All Is Lost, it at least gives Woodley the opportunity to convincingly sink her teeth into a plum dramatic lead role as a young woman fighting fiercely against the forces of nature (instead of a dystopian civilization).

A niche theatrical run might draw fans of Goldthwait's previous work, this effort isn't likely to get as much help from critics as those sometimes did.

The doc has little to say about the Michelin ranking system that hasn't been said, but offers enough behind-the-scenes interest to entertain foodies and inspire a few additions to their dining-experience bucket lists.

Bad Match clearly only aspires to be a thriller with a surprise or two up its sleeve. On that front, it's adequate.

Overlong, willfully obscure and scatologically extreme, the film will elicit a variety of negative responses despite offering some individual elements that, on their own, would surely impress any of Barney's admirers. The work simultaneously is more fully realized and less creatively inspired than the Cremaster cycle.

Teasing the viewer with ambiguous evidence is one thing, but the film doesn't seem to know what truth is behind the curtain. Luce the man remains unknown, and Luce the movie a missed opportunity.

Taken on its own terms, it's a solid if hardly revolutionary thriller that bodes well for the filmmaker's future in genre films.

Fate delivers exactly what fans have come to expect, for better and for worse.

A sober drama that makes class central to the story without ever sounding like it has an agenda.

A clever DIY comedy that could be this year's "Humpday" for art house audiences in search of characters they recognize from their own lives.

Another deep disappointment for fans of the raw, exciting "Ong Bak."

Healy knows exactly the mix of comical bumbling and psychological tension he wants here.

The audience it manages to reach will find it as vicerally satisfying as a doc on this subject can be.

More a tone poem or gallery installation piece than a verite outing.

This is all passably satisfying, but would be vastly better if the screenwriters weren't lazily explaining every single detail in voiceover. Grillo generally excels as a man of few words, but here his disembodied voice is a wall-to-wall shag carpet, dampening the fun we'd be having if we could just focus on the mayhem Carnahan delivers.

As she flails through a few dubious choices, the character may be on the kind of self-discovery path we've seen in countless other films; but Winstead makes the outcome seem far from preordained.

Though Carell and Rudd are both saddled with characters that just aren't as interesting as many they've played in the past, the movie benefits from having drawn many gifted comedians to supporting roles.

Less outrageous or provocative than puzzling, it will appeal to a very specific sort of irony-hungry moviegoer and leave most others shrugging.

Though its even-tempered account may be more thorough than print and TV coverage at the time, the doc doesn't offer anything dramatic enough to draw many eyeballs at this late date.

Earthlings is rather scattered in both its portrait of Van Tassel as a man and its explanation of his cultural impact.

Laughs come less frequently here than in Humpday and Your Sister's Sister, but the writer-director's empathy for floundering characters is intact.

As it is, the family pic's light tone never lets its themes of addiction, abandonment and poverty hit home, instead focusing on its hero's unlikely accomplishment and the brotherhood of sport.

For those ready to view it on its own terms, its gentle focus on family and persistence should go down easy.

While Freeland's plotting is graceful, there are occasional moments of stiffness in the dialogue itself, brief rough patches her largely neophyte cast can't fix in the delivery.

A feel-good raunch-com whose dirty-talk plot comes from a convincingly female perspective instead of feeling like cut-and-paste Apatow.

Laughs do not exactly pour forth from this dreary and frequently insulting picture.

Though its structure doesn't always work to maximum effect, the grim picture gets more involving as it goes and benefits from a hell of a cast.

Viewers who can take it at face value may find a chill or two here, but ultimately Old can’t escape the goofiness of its premise long enough to put its more poetic possibilities across successfully.

Fall is Pretty Woman for socialists, a Capital-conscious fairy tale in which a nice guy not only attempts a perfect crime but wins the heart of a prostitute hitherto moved only by American dollars.

Neither a no-nonsense delight like "She Loves You" nor the White Album-style head trip its premise might suggest, it's more of a "Yellow Submarine" sort of film: crowd-pleasing and sometimes enjoyable, but pretty damned dumb when you stop to think about it.

Where the final minutes of the movie suffer from clumsy storytelling, most of what precedes them sits well within the romantic finding-oneself comfort zone, and Solo, while not able to imbue her character with Amelie-like spark, helps keep things from getting treacly.

The picture survives its excesses thanks to winning chemistry between stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, who animate banter-heavy dialogue and click so well one wonders why they haven't shared the screen before.

Despite some promising moments, the project never quite takes flight, partly thanks to mismatched performances that don't seem to agree on how quirky this film intends to be.

Despite the story's elements of suspense, loss and determination, though, the picture has a mundane, low-stakes vibe that fails to make the most of its inspirational content.

Unassuming but warm and thoroughly involving.

Rounding up all the original's stars and throwing several more surviving human characters into the mix, the pic is plenty entertaining for those of us who, paradoxically, find zombies comforting in dark times.

This portrait of influential U.N. diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello benefits immensely from two magnetic leads, Wagner Moura and Ana de Armas, whose onscreen chemistry is undeniable; but its deft sense of structure is of equal importance, making it an engrossing picture even for those who know next to nothing about its subject or settings.

There's no way for all this to resolve that isn't fairly absurd. But Morelli's light touch generally keeps the goofiness from becoming tiresome, especially given the help of some quirktronica compositions by Kid Koala on the soundtrack.

What begins as an examination of middle-class-mom exasperation — in which demanding some marital equality makes one not just a figurative "bitch" but a literal one — turns into a more commonplace bad-dad parable in Marianna Palka's off-kilter, largely off-target satire Bitch.

A perfectly adequate family film for kids who love watching things they've seen many times before (which is to say, most kids), it offers plenty of chuckles for their parents but nothing approaching the glee of that first Lego Movie.

A portrait of the short-lived artist that will move fans while letting the uninitiated witness enough onstage highlights to leave them wanting more.

The picture is deeply weird, with an entrancement factor almost entirely dependent on the performance of Michael Parks.

Moving to Charlottesville, Lough puts viewers in the action. We don't talk to journalists or politicians about what happened the weekend Heather D. Heyer was killed; we stand in crowds and watch the events unfold.

Lopsided in its balance between sentiment and scares, it's a very peculiar genre pic that will make the most sense to those familiar with the films of two of its producers — Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, whose trippy sci-fi outings like The Endless also balance the fantastic and the intimately human.

The film is focused enough on relationships not to sound preachy.

Ersatz local color aside, suffice to say that Song to Song is not designed to win back onetime admirers who felt Malick's To the Wonder and Knight of Cups drowned in their own navels. Though offering the occasional radiant moment (usually involving scenery), it is of a piece with those films.

The shtick sticks in The Mind's Eye, which lovingly apes period details, this time with psychokinetic warriors instead of alien invaders. But where the first film was dour, this one works so hard at its ultra-grave air of menace that it eventually turns (intentionally, one hopes) comic, building to third-act violence that will leave the right kind of audience howling with delight.

The film will frustrate viewers who insist on knowing which interviewees are recounting real experiences and which are perpetuating fictions hatched by the game's creator, Jeff Hull. But mystery is part of the appeal.

Managing to make the lore of snuff films not just repulsive but mind-numbingly dull, the horror film Gut offers two characters -- and, one imagines, a filmmaker -- who should have put splatter films behind them many years ago.

The picture is mildly unsettling even if its ingredients don't add up to as much as they promise to.

A commendably restrained loser-turns-winner tale offering an unexpected second showcase for Terri star Jacob Wysocki, Matthew Lillard's Fat Kid Rules the World is less colorful than its grandeur-deluded title suggests.

A pulpy and fun fight flick that is better in some respects than it needs to be, Retaliation may not do for Moussi what the original Kickboxer did for Van Damme, but it won't send fans home disappointed.

This stranger-in-a-strange-land adventure has enough appeal to sustain its limited theatrical release.

As puerile and go-nowhere as the script is, Clement and Berry are more successful than their costars at making the dialogue their own. Clement even gets a laugh or two. But be assured that the pic's big reveal is not worth the wait.

While some thriller addicts may embrace the resulting misanthropic action, others may find their minds wandering — to the many real-life cases of fraternity hazing, gang-rape and run-of-the-mill antisocial behavior that inspire deeper feelings of dread than this unconvincing outing.

The picture struggles to find a satisfying rhythm as the members of this multinational, co-ed team get slooshed up by Calvin or suffer related lethal mishaps.

Competent on all fronts but never dazzling, it should please genre devotees.

The movie's soul, such as it is, remains unimproved, and at 242 minutes, very few of them offering much pleasure, it's nearly unendurable as a single-sitting experience. If it were watched in parts — title cards identify six chapters and an epilogue, and some rumors suggested it would be released as a series — those segments would fail to deliver the shapely balance of energies and pacing that one expects these days from even a merely competent TV show.

The screenplay finds ways to make this more involving than the average flee-the-monster storyline and, by the genre's standards, direction and performances rate reasonably well.

While he's not hinting around at the kind of systems of control he'll expand on to surreal effect in Dogtooth, The Lobster and elsewhere, Lanthimos enjoys provoking us visually.

In his 4:44 Last Day on Earth, the auteur imagines the apocalypse from an aging NYC hipster's perspective, hitting melancholy notes that may ring true for a small segment of the art-house audience but, without the compelling presence of Willem Dafoe, would have little hope at the box office.

Less an introduction to the green-burial movement than a portrait of one man who embraced it after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, A Will for the Woods is more sentimental than journalistic.

Although laughs do come... the film is happy to observe wryly as boredom and failure threaten to overwhelm the men.

Some of these gags are hilarious.

Stockholm, which gently massages actual events to serve as a fine vehicle for Noomi Rapace and Ethan Hawke, is far from the first movie to believably show a crime victim coming to sympathize with a criminal. But it's a funny and agile one.

Despite the assistance reality continues to give it, making an annual rite of government-sanctioned racial violence seem less far-fetched by the day (or by the tweet), Gerard McMurray's The First Purge still fails to establish a persuasive connection to our own moment in time — its occasional winks to current events serving as limp zingers instead of stinging commentary.

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.

Redlegs marks the promising directorial debut of film critic Brandon Harris.

The question of decades-old torture is an important one, of course, but hardly makes this a must-see doc when there are so many present-tense stories of police misconduct to investigate.

While Big Boys addresses the extent to which journalists (particularly in the U.S., Gertten believes) too readily accept the claims of powerful entities, the film misses the opportunity to explore this issue in a more universal way.

Despite occasionally shaky storytelling, the doc sticks to its mission even as the most fundamental obstacles arise, producing a dramatic account that will make all do-gooders think twice about how they spend their charitable dollars.

Captivating for a long stretch.

Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln bring dignity and seriousness to what might've been a painfully sappy tale of rebirth.

It suffers greatly from obeying the imperative the first sequel established: Trying to blow minds and up the ante the way that FX-pioneering adventure did, this one offers a series of action set pieces that go from big to huge to ludicrous, even as the script's additions to fear-the-future mythology underwhelm.

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.

Occasionally stupid (stretching even fright-flick conventions) but scary nonetheless, the picture should please horror fans.

While it hardly sells Wrinkles as a culture-shaking phenomenon, this modest documentary will play best to those who enjoy being creeped out by him enough to suspend their disbelief.

It alternates between too simplistic and incomprehensible, spending much of its time in between those poles in the "I understand, but I don't care" zone.

Galland's film plays more like a cable-ready mystery than a cult film in the making, offering just enough chuckles to stay afloat.

Dog-lovers are the obvious target here; but the slow, meditative doc holds appeal for some of the rest of us as well.

This film, looking so little like its indie contemporaries, nurtures our appreciation of small details, emotional accomplishments most films would breeze right past or bring too sharply into focus.

Subjects Bill Andrews and Aubrey de Grey are colorful in quite different but complementary ways.

In the end, the whole clean-up project is as shrug-worthy as most of the "Unrated Director's Cut!" edits that go the other direction on home video, promising more nudity and gore but changing little of consequence.

A melodrama benefitting from excellent performances but suffering from a too-obvious script.

Enjoyable heist pic is more talk than action.

Cartoonish hyperbole aside, the investigation does have its high points.

Mike Mendez's shamelessly Corman-esque Big Ass Spider! does almost everything just a tiny bit better than it needs to.

The protagonists here aren't as insufferable as those in the first Unfriended, but Susco's plot gets harder to buy by the minute; as a first-time director, he doesn't get much out of his cast; and boy, does this Screenlife gimmick grow thin quickly.

Burning Man takes its time getting us to feel for a troubled character but gets the hook in solidly once it decides to.

A supernatural action comedy that can never live up to its exciting opening scenes, Don Coscarelli's John Dies at the End mixes horror-tinged mayhem with smart-alec laughs but loses momentum early and gets bogged down in exposition.

A satisfying action pic that finally realizes the potential of its pulp-meets-sociopolitics conceit.

It quickly spins its shaky premise off into an unconvincing study of emotional need and an even harder-to-believe revenge thriller.

A capable cast helps the pic rise above its formulaic nature (take out a drunken hookup and some language, and this is a thoroughly mainstream family film, at least for families of non-homophobes), but doesn’t make it a must-watch by any means.

Feel-good documentary gathers great interviews but isn't sure what they add up to.

Has clear appeal for heartland Christians who are more concerned with uncomplicated edification than with storytelling. It would be more at home in the rec rooms of churches than in movie theaters.

It has little to offer a well-informed viewer.

The filmmakers get astonishing access, eventually earning enough trust that they get to visit Guzman's family home and interview his mother, who proudly recalls how fascinated he was with stacks of play money as a child.

A film that flirts and flirts with explanations for its action without ever delivering.

The pic relies almost entirely on the subtle comic gifts of its two leads, finding little in the way of plot to kick its characters into laugh-generating action.

Good-looking but not very effective adaptation of the seedy classic by "Grifters" author Jim Thompson.

Though Marceau's artistic ideals are central to the film, Resistance happily avoids novelty, making its hero one credible human among many in a wartime tale that, though largely familiar in its feel, dramatizes a question that has become urgent for many in recent years: How does one best resist hatred — by fighting its proponents, or rushing to assist its targets?

Even Gandhi (maker of 2016's Obama-early-years feature "Barry") admits that what he hoped would be a cautionary tale is probably just one more way for the infamous celeb to get the attention he craves.

Sensitive performances only go so far toward generating sparks in the slow-moving film, which never becomes the crime-and-punishment nail-biter it might've been.

Diverting but not enough to expand Kevin Hart's fan base much.

A too-rare instance in which a gifted young actor signs on for a fright flick without coming away tainted, The Awakening places Rebecca Hall in a convincing historical setting and gives her more to do than widen her eyes in fear.

A pervy premise and top-flight cast yield a mixed-bag spy flick.

But the synthesis is underwhelming on screen where it might have resonated in Lipsyte's book. Here, Measure becomes a mildly nostalgic, mildly romantic entry in a genre that, more than most, requires that the viewer feels a personal connection to the misfit protagonist on screen.

Silly, overstuffed and as sweet as anything Adam Sandler has done.

Sumptuous and romantic in an attractively old-fashioned way despite a hitch designed to give some contemporary American idealists pause -- the writer's lover is married, with no interest in divorce -- the film satisfies in a wholly commercial way.

The leads all take this as seriously as possible, and Lennon goes the extra mile by investing scenes with Edgar's parents with believable emotional baggage.

Kline remains a pleasure to watch, surviving the character's deepening self-pity and making his suspiciously unwriterly carelessness with words (he refers to the trophy head of a wild boar as a "cow") almost charming.

A crowd-pleaser despite its missteps and occasionally because of them, the pic enlivens some stale conceits about killers-for-hire and the women who love them.

Likely to inspire heated arguments about the ethics of nonfiction film, the diverting but not really satisfying pic makes weak lemonade from lemons that might have yielded something tastier.

[A] tender but unsentimental take on a story that benefits from finesse.

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.

Though hardly groundbreaking in either its content or its aesthetics, the film is more serious than it initially lets on, and can only benefit from the VHS nostalgia that has, often irrationally, taken root in some quarters.

As allegory, the picture requires viewers to connect most of the dots without assistance, offering a preachy bit of dialogue once or twice but failing to use action or the camera to say much about non-sanguinary addictions.

While the two young thesps acquit themselves nicely, much around them conspires to prevent their debut from being a memorable one.

It's a wobbly but amusing pic that only really raises eyebrows at the end.

Beyond the obvious complaints about objectification of women, this second feature from the Canadian who calls himself Director X is just a bore.

Successful to a point (though seemingly unaware of the chuckles it produces in between shrieks), the movie has strong prospects with genre audiences but won't spawn a phenomenon resembling the filmmakers' previous franchise.

This would be a very different movie in most other hands, and in many cases, a worse one. Still, there's something missing in this look at a happy life's destruction.

Given its focus, viewers might forgive Mia for its clumsy direction of actors, its contrived plot or its on-the-nose dialogue. But training impressionable kids to identify with a girl who sneaks into lions' cages is a cinematic flaw that could have heartbreaking real-world consequences.

McKinnon dives head-first into every imbecilic scene, and Kunis stoically pretends to believe her BFF is sentient. But the movie around them is a wreck, and no amount of cloak-and-dagger will keep that secret for long.

Even those who know Mirza Sahiba may have a hard time reconciling the way this decorous present-tense melodrama is juxtaposed with pompous period flashbacks to that story.

Though some plot elements are pushily therapeutic, they're offset by others whose novelty distinguishes Rudderless from movies of its sort.

A rare film dealing with Christian evangelism in a realistic way that neither mocks nor proselytizes, New Jerusalem quietly observes as a man tries to comfort his troubled best friend by bringing him to Jesus.

Self-consciously button-pushing pictures like this one usually leaven their transgressions with at least a bit of winking irony, but no humor is to be found here, from the opening frames (slo-mo shots of pro-life and pro-choice factions shouting at each other) to the last.

The pic musters just enough dark-comic energy to recall early Sam Raimi — albeit without the frenzied camerawork that helped make Evil Dead a classic.

Sensitive readers should be informed that Kuso is not for you; even those with a strong tolerance for monster-movie gore are far from guaranteed to accept its warm, clumpy bath of repugnant ickiness.

Bayona not only nods to the histories of classic monster movies and the legacy of original Jurassic helmer Steven Spielberg; he brings his own experience to bear, treating monsters like actual characters and trapping us in a vast mansion that's as full of secrets as the site of his breakthrough 2007 film The Orphanage.

A technically polished but mostly unmoving example of a genre (the watch-kids-do-something-hard doc) assumed to be inherently charming.

Though cheerful and highly polished, the doc's storytelling is less effective than it might've been, a failing balanced by the likability of its lead characters and the scrappy spirit of their project.

Elliptical and teasingly (but beautifully) photographed, it can give the impression of an experimental work but ultimately has a direct story to tell, one whose specificity doesn't in the least diminish its broader relevance.

Mild fish-out-of-water humor and an element of mystery may satisfy fans of Novak’s work on the again-popular The Office, but fall short of proving he has much potential as a big-screen auteur.

Hugely entertaining for much of its short running time before a third act that's problematic for various reasons, the film benefits from a top-notch cast and some sharp dialogue but will leave many viewers scratching their heads.

An amiable but wholly unnecessary movie that plays like a feature-length version of those reels one watches while eating rubber chicken at a banquet honoring a much-loved artist.

Not as committed to its spacey perceptuo-metaphysical premise as it seems at the start, the film seems more interested in whether one woman can convince another to buy into a project she doesn't understand.

The result is very pleasing, even for moviegoers who don't pine for the Western's return, and represents a big step forward in the directing career of D'Onofrio.

Director Bao Nguyen doesn't try to dig too deep, leaving serious behind-the-scenes lore to the SNL obsessives who've been poring over backstage accounts for years. Focusing on talking heads, almost all of whom say nice things about their experience of the show, he offers a puffy remembrance just a couple of notches more substantive than the supplemental doc in a DVD box set.

Chipper and fun if occasionally superficial, the doc finds its subject too large to address in a way that satisfies the most curious outsider or devoted fan. Everyone else will have a good time, though.

Engrossing on a moment-to-moment scale thanks so some very fine performances, the film doesn't click together in the transformative way such stories occasionally do, and does less with themes of wealth and class than it surely intends to.

Remains mostly fascinating even in an amateur storyteller's hands.

A surprisingly uncritical doc from a filmmaker whose rep is built on skeptical investigation, Joe Berlinger's Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru doesn't seem to know whether its title is ironic or not.

Rawson Marshall Thurber's Skyscraper is one of the most idiotic action movies to come down the pike in some time. It's also a lot of fun if you're willing to go with it, and getting viewers to go with things is one of several fronts on which The Rock routinely earns the money he gets paid.

Annette Bening captivates as the self-delusionist, with Ed Harris ruggedly irresistible as the object of her fantasy.

Though its tone is amiable and its performances are (mostly) professional, it's hard to care if these four people live happily ever after or never see each other again.

A small but scrappy road-tripper whose solid sense of place and sure-handed blend of poignancy and unsentimental humor should earn it fans on the arthouse circuit.

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.

[A] modest but heartfelt picture. ... Lost Transmissions tells its story without engaging with foolish cliches about creativity and madness.

Damici more than holds the screen, too gruffly determined to be upstaged by a monster, and the script slips a clever trick or two up his sleeve.

Listening to one of Smith's speaking engagements would be a much more entertaining way for a fan to spend 115 minutes, and non-fans or fence-sitters will likely find this piece too puffy to be very useful. But few will deny that Smith is good company — an always-likable guide happy to make jokes at his own expense while he works to be the "Kevin Smith-iest" Kevin Smith he can be.

The doc delivers enough arresting Neapolitan moments that many viewers will consider tracking down the source material — still in print, nearly four decades after Lewis published it in 1978.

Perhaps because it wants to play to both sides, the film's viewpoint is awfully muddied when it addresses conflict between traditional DJs — who know how to handle turntables, read a crowd's mood and do their thing for many hours at a time — and those who premix a whole set to a USB stick, hit play and just bounce up and down onstage.

Sincere performances and well-intentioned scripting should help it with vets eager to see their stories told on-screen, but the film's dreary, secondhand feel is hard to overcome.

Handsome and weighty-feeling but less substantial than it seems.

Despite a low-rent aesthetic that (like Grant's all-caps-happy website) doesn't sufficiently distance it from the tinfoil-hat world, Soaked presents evidence one has a hard time dismissing.

Instead of exploding into crime-clan war, the picture trickles into a kind of shrugging, "it is what it is" look at life on the wrong side of the law.

A good-natured cross-cultural romp in which you can barely be expected to take any human interaction seriously, save for those in which humans smack up against each other with force.

Goold's work never feels stagey; a smart and varied visual sense opens up even settings as basic as a jail's visiting room. But what happens in that room isn't as convincing as might be expected from these actors.

It's a misfire by just about any measure, but it earns some warm feelings for its determination not to be like anything else currently in circulation.

A dicey blend that generates viewer goodwill but can't make its conflicting vibes gel, A Bag of Hammers will play best with the most soft-hearted viewers provided they don't mind rooting for unrepentant felons.

Funny but less successful as comedy than as a cry of you-screwed-us-up solidarity.

Neither Gan's screenplay nor his direction of the cast quite sells this scenario, but once he introduces some accidental violence, the picture can ride the familiar logic of crime-gone-wrong storytelling.

Its high-octane but low-stakes action might be just the thing for moviegoers weary of summer's operatic superheroes.

Sometimes tender, sometimes frantic and always funny, the film's surprising coherence is exemplified in a climactic scene that pairs credible heartbreak with pure slapstick.

While Leather Bar will surely make some viewers itchy, its most compelling subject isn't whether straight guys can stand to watch one man pleasuring another. More interesting is the question of what would make this project art as opposed to porn.

While the personalities engage the viewer, the film's story is a diffuse one.

Offers just enough B-movie pleasure to keep genre fans busy for a weekend or two before heading from theaters to vid.

The film spreads itself too thin to offer a thorough political portrait.

A capable cast abets the director, but the film's slow pace and half-hearted perspective shifts don't generate the gravitas that's clearly intended.

A fantastic cast doing fine work can't make this feel-good hokum believable.

Ruhm's lively pace keeps the plot's essential silliness from growing tiresome, even if it never kicks into the high-octane farce the picture seems to seek.

A handsome period piece that plays more like a scant-clues mystery than like the psychological thriller it intends to be, Andy Goddard's A Kind of Murder turns to the work of Patricia Highsmith but finds little of what made Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley such nail-biters.

As a sympathetic look at two likeable lovers who don't know what's good for them, it's enough to give us a rooting interest — even if we're rooting for the two protagonists to accept the consequences of their mistakes and move on.

Will charm many arthouse patrons, though some highbrow-leaning art lovers will find the subject unworthy of such attention.

Viewers who don't mind the lack of dramatic tension may appreciate Dorff's credible take on his modest, gentlemanly character.

Though it doesn't quite hit the target, Plotnick's vision of the future of the past is peculiar enough to resist quick dismissal.

Initially a sluggish stalker flick whose undergraduate moral debates are tiresome instead of provocative, it eventually transforms into a patriarchy metaphor as obvious as, well, all those Greek-lettered paddles that decorate both the frat's and the sorority's clubhouses.

Estes finds a way to twist things up, organically adding a Groundhog Day element. Time's still moving forward toward Ashley's death, but the detective work gets more interesting.

A lovable underachiever unwittingly spawns his own village in Starbuck, Ken Scott's crowd-pleasing comedy exploring various meanings of fatherhood in the modern age.

The doc is so eager to tell you who's visited the hotel and eaten at the restaurant (JFK allegedly trysted here, which didn't keep his widow from enjoying the Cobb salad) that it shares very little about the hotel's origins and operations.

It's the kind of serious but broadly appealing, modestly scaled picture that people love to say doesn't exist any more.

Diehard fashionistas will likely want to see it, but few others will take notice.

The pic works best when it's least self-referential, focusing on romantic attractions in many stages of development. Though it won't do for its authors what Swingers and Good Will Hunting did for theirs, Loitering is smartly written enough to further their off-camera careers; thanks to predictably winning performances from Marisa Tomei and Sam Rockwell.

The most compelling thing here by far is the film's vision of Assange, by all accounts a man of enormous self-regard and slippery ethics. Benedict Cumberbatch has the character in hand from the start.

The wild card in all this remains Seann William Scott's Steve Stifler, the rampaging id whose indignation at his peers' maturity provides most of the film's real laughs.

While the movie itself may prove nearly as unmemorable as its hero ostensibly wants to be, it’s anything but inconspicuous.

The film offers some diverting background on the man.

More a filmed haunted house than a movie, the picture is in love with the cobbled-together monsters on offer and will engender similar emotions in many horror buffs.

While its protagonist is believably eccentric, the people surrounding her look more like transparent plot devices the more of them we meet.

This is a very enjoyable middle-of-the-road adventure, especially for moviegoers willing to see just about anything starring Rudd.

A sustained balancing act between dry upper-crust cynicism and pent-up passions, Donald Rice's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding maintains its uneasy stasis long enough to frustrate some romance-hungry viewers while tantalizing those for whom withheld pleasure is the whole point.

Writer/director Nick Sandow finds a tailor-made lead in Vincent Piazza, who both looks the part and makes sense of his character's ridiculous aspirations; with Patricia Arquette playing the girlfriend who stood by his side, the picture of debased ambition is almost too convincing to enjoy.

Degan's first film, the effort often suffers from hazy storytelling, but its real difficulty for many viewers will be its protagonist, who isn't the most sympathetic proxy for Americans curious about the plant extract's suitability to treat depression.

A workmanlike but fan-pleasing picture.

Endearing performances buoy predictable film about love in the wake of divorce.

Star-stuffed, well paced and very funny.

Being haunted by a ghost here is less like a horror movie than like many of the other secrets teenagers share -- working out matters of life and death that no one around them has a clue about.

It's a role very well suited to Liam Neeson, whose righteousness fills the screen and sometimes seems all the movie can offer.

Well cast with actors who help the film overcome an obviously meager budget, Phoenix is as rough at the edges as its protagonist, and will inspire a similar kind of sympathetic response — especially among viewers who've been through a few reversals and know not every rebound has to take the form of a glorious firebird to be worthwhile.

The rest of us will likely fall into one of two camps regarding this well-intentioned film: those who praise it for drawing attention to the suffering of helpless children, and those who find it sufficiently lacking in cinematic value to decide there are better ways of helping those kids than spending 90 minutes watching it.

Convincing in its depiction of late-20s romantic anxiety (if not of that age bracket's real estate realities), it is broadly appealing without bowing too deeply to formula.

The event-stuffed screenplay seems frightened of the running time associated with historical romances, though, excising any occasion for reflection or distraction; as a result, the picture moves with a mechanical predictability that would be considerably more annoying with a less watchable cast in front of us.

A history lesson that holds some pleasures even for those who know its material by heart.

The film does develop the chemistry between the titular alien and the human he’s forced to inhabit while inside Earth’s atmosphere. But the distinctiveness of this buddy-movie bond is often drowned out by giant set pieces of CG mayhem that feel exactly like those found in the good guys’ movies.

A slow burn often works in creep-outs such as this, but here the pacing is a deficit, despite an especially good performance by Harper (of NBC's The Good Place) as the worker whose partner may be turning against him.

The movie plays quite well for a while but begins to run out of steam in its second half, its occasional laughs not coming quickly enough to keep us interested in the unfolding lore of 19th century murders.

However polished the doc's tech and score, it simply doesn't find drama in this familiar template.

An intriguing but iffy look at alternative therapies that ignores some questions about its subjects.

This doc seeks the vulnerability in subjects who live in pursuit of iron-man ideals many of us find ridiculous.

The untrained actor is the weakest link in an already hit-and-miss cast, and few viewers will respond to Ben's unearned bravado.

Less twisted than Natali's last film, Splice, it's sufficiently novel to uphold his reputation as a filmmaker not content telling conventional fanboy stories.

While Lee leaves some of Park's more memorable outrages behind, he and screenwriter Mark Protosevich find one or two ways to up the taboo-testing ante, small surprises that retain the tale's edge without pushing into the realm of exploitation.

An underwhelming attempt to turn a tight little thriller into a sequel-spawning franchise, Adam Robitel’s Escape Room: Tournament of Champions lacks many of the original’s strengths while failing to improve on its more underdeveloped aspects.

Though not as fresh or funny as its predecessor, this feature directing debut for actor Jay Baruchel stays true to its spirit and will please its most enthusiastic fans.

If Ainsworth is ever turned off, you won't know it: She and DP Ben Ainsworth make everything look interesting, if not necessarily appetizing.

The story gets a bit more involving as it goes, though some elements that might've been memorable (a musical number from a dog played by Janelle Monáe, for instance) fall flat.

Less music-stuffed but more conceptually ambitious than the average music doc.

Sans a compelling marriage of danger and eroticism, much of the third-act suspense fails to captivate

Compared to other thrillers that treat webcams as a structural gimmick or visualize social media in ways that look corny even by the time credits roll, Videophilia casts a singular spell.

A likeable if familiar underdog tale.

The film offers a privileged perspective on crucial moments in Johnny Cash's career, and serious fans will likely warm to it on the small screen.

This is a creature feature, whose gory jump-scares and icktastic critter design are the reason you're here. An ensemble led by Kristen Stewart brings credible camaraderie to the scenario without quite matching the vivid chemistry of Alien and its best descendants; with such a tightly packed survival tale ahead of them, though, few viewers will be calling out for more character development.

A cutthroat little thriller that's surely more fun than most of the riddle-solving lock-ins currently springing up around the country.

Marc Lawrence's story about Santa's daughter, despite its solid cast, aims squarely at not-too-picky kids and mostly ignores parents' desire to be entertained as well.

Director Daisy von Scherler Mayer and a strong cast do right by Neil LaBute's script (based on his play), but the soullessness of the story is a turnoff overpowering the intriguing moments scattered within these one-on-one encounters.

Though this clearly isn't meant to be a lighthearted story, a glimmer of wit here and there would've helped keep viewers engaged in the action and endeared us to a cast that is competent but hardly charismatic.

Danluck's unfocused direction makes Katherine less a grief-struck enigma than a dull somnambulist; and the film's copious flashbacks, instead of drawing us into the character's confused emotions, mostly suggest that the film can't decide how to tell its story.

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

Less successful as a drama, the out-all-night period piece is overshadowed by many similar coming-of-age tales (the best of which are often made by artists with first-hand knowledge of the period they're depicting). But like its twenty-ish hero, it is well-meaning enough that some viewers will be forgiving.

The creativity doesn't match up to the ideals here, even if Abe & Phil does offer one of the better final scenes (a grace note, really) seen in recent indies.

You ought to have to be an unusually interesting person, or at least be capable of presenting your commonplace tribulations in an interesting light, before you can ask moviegoers to spend fifteen bucks to watch you onscreen. Nina Davenport's First Comes Love doesn't buy into this rule.

Yelling to the Sky drips with a strange but sometimes moving nostalgia for environs its characters clearly want to escape.

Despite its obviously strong philosophical and emotional interest in the nature of memory, the picture is most satisfying as a whodunit, observing Dinklage's deeply empathetic interviews with those who've been wounded, not helped, by a procedure that was meant to be therapeutic.

While scribe Zac Stanford's premise invites a Charlie Kaufman-like, reality-bending take, Schwartzman plays things straight enough that one has a hard time believing the action. But viewers who get through a credulity-testing second act may laugh enough in the third to be glad they did.

Kelly spends so long establishing these two relationships, looking at the gifts and the internet fame and the inevitable possessiveness, that he has little time for the developments that might've turned a better paced version of this story into a true-crime nailbiter.

Easily the most satisfying of his Hollywood-produced adventures and a respectable cousin to the long string of Japanese ones, the sequel to Gareth Edwards' admirably serious but dullish 2014 film is the first to suggest any promise for what Legendary is calling its "MonsterVerse" — a franchise in which the Japanese kaiju world meshes with that of Hollywood's favorite oversized ape, King Kong.

For the most part, footage of rehearsals and competition is lackluster.

The picture's mission to shine a light on the expertise of bag-toting sidekicks is admirable, and the story's told in breezy fashion. Just leave your non-golfing loved ones at home for this one.

While Fowler keeps the story moving efficiently, Marsden's easy geniality prevents the simple narrative from feeling rote. Carrey gets a moment or two to cut loose.

Making her debut as director with a true story from her native Australia, actor Rachel Griffiths gives the pic a workmanlike, generic feel that would play well on family-centric cable channels. Horse lovers will be the moviegoers most vulnerable to its modest charms.

Van Cotthem's performance is wholly convincing, which might not be something to brag about, and the film flatlines right along with him.

[A] semi-convincing yet enjoyable tale, relying on familiar names in a cast that acquits itself well given the demands of the unusual plot.

For all her desk-stashed booze and inappropriately tight skirts, the movie offers Diaz a pretty bland badness.

A few flashes of amused chemistry between the two actors represent all the human interest in this unimaginative sci-fi actioner, but that doesn't mean the pic's relentless focus on giant-monster battles won't please the director's fans.

Informative and lively if low on cinematic value, the documentary will play well on the small screen.

The picture's first-person focus makes it surprisingly uninformative and occasionally annoying.

Its undiscriminating focus, accepting artists whose degree of talent varies widely, may not help it with audiences seeking a fine-art doc, but many viewers will appreciate that very quality, enjoying this modest effort's celebration of a bootstrappy creative community.

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.

A very sympathetic turn by Colm Meaney both lends box-office appeal and helps Byrne pull back from the saccharine possibilities inherent in the premise.

Hitman's Bodyguard offers more than enough shoot-'em-up to keep multiplex auds munching their popcorn, but sharper talents behind the camera might have made it considerably more enjoyable.

Slate and Sharp (a Tony winner for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) can't be blamed for their lack of chemistry, and if sparks aren't flying between them, at least viewers can occasionally drown in gorgeous coastal scenery, shot nicely by Martin Ahlgren.

Begins as a marginally fun diversion before proving to have nearly no interest in the possibilities of its premise.

A promising if not quite audacious debut by Robin Pront, the film benefits from a solidly envisioned family dynamic but doesn't really generate much heat until its final act.

It's pretty silly stuff, leaving the film to rely on more conventional car chases, woman-in-peril scenarios and mistaken identity to keep things interesting -- all seen on that laptop via security cameras and the like.

A lazy ending mars this fine, if generic, take on a much-loved YA novel.

The queasy mix of realism and wish-fulfillment will set many viewers’ heads spinning, or at least shaking with disappointment, in this well-intentioned but unpromising debut.

Though not without its moments, the film offers too little of interest for its leading ladies to do, and feels throughout like an adaptation of a comic book that was written for the sole purpose of being sold to an IP-hungry film studio.

A fairy tale about parenting that stays kid-friendly without completely glossing over the darker themes of its premise.