John DeFore

Full Mantis gives fans the kind of intimate access more conventional docs often don't manage. Even for viewers who've never heard of the septuagenarian, it's an oddball delight.

More than anything, the doc lives up to its name as a portrait of the photographer in his old age.

The earnest doc offers enough spirit-lifting moments to prove its thesis and leave viewers inspired.

Where Garfield's Peter Parker displayed a believable 21st-century angst, we return largely to the character's wide-eyed roots with Tom Holland, whose performance is thoroughly winning even when the script isn't helping him.

A mournful testament to a vibrant piece of global film history almost entirely wiped out of existence.

Coon and Skousen supply just enough information about the boys' post-Raiders lives to satisfy our curiosity.

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.

Modest but funny, it makes a fine calling card for a performer deserving of bigger things.

Few who see the picture will fail to be charmed.

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.

Day's debut succeeds in part thanks to its modest scope, viewing the street-art phenomenon through an attempt to rescue one of its highly perishable creations for the public good.

Most will learn something here, in a film that both follows the practice to its natural, dire conclusions and champions the ordinary citizens who have stepped up to fight against it.

A disability-centric documentary that moves viewers without resorting to trite devices, Seung-Jun Yi's Planet of Snail takes a condition most of us would find unbearable and demystifies it while finding room for poetry.

One of the most enriching and enjoyable docs about a filmmaker in recent memory.

Damning documentary pairs an individual sex-abuse case with analysis of institutional dysfunction at the Vatican.

A thoroughly entertaining doc that serves also as a primer on Brand's shockingly successful comedy career and an introduction to his singular personality.

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

Looks like a promotional obligation when compared to the best of its predecessors: Despite its star's clear desire to expose the personal roots of the songs here, the film's execution makes it feel like an audiobook accompanied by lovely images.

Though not novel enough to attract non-devotees of America's Pastime, the film should please fans on the small screen.

Its account of the week beginning January 25 feels like a solid, layman-friendly addition to the West's understanding of this chunk of history.

Funny, sweet and occasionally pointed.

Less a coming-of-age film than a series of crucial episodes in that process, Skate Kitchen mixes dreaminess and disillusionment as it observes the choices Camille makes and the ensuing fallout.

If the movie pushes most of the ugliest behavior off onto side players (like the notorious Suge Knight, played by R. Marcus Taylor), it does for the most part fulfill its mission, breathing life into the origin story of a group whose influence is still being felt.

Raiff is so credible in the part one can't help but suspect there's a lot of him in Alex; the film's willingness to look so frankly at his vulnerability, in an unmanipulative way, feels especially refreshing now.

Less performance-centric than it might have been, the straightforward documentary consists largely of talking-head testimonials and interviews with current Trockadero members about how they spend their too-brief time offstage.

He (De Palma) has rarely been guilty of dullness, as he is with Domino, a counterterrorism thriller offering just slightly more excitement than the average TV police procedural.

Cosmatos' ability to put us in Red's head — overwhelmed at first with pain and fury, then saturated by the strange drugs he for some reason feels compelled to try — make this much more than the usual exercise in vicarious bloodshed.

Foster’s research and storytelling are very satisfying, even if the results aren’t. Many of those involved wound up serving prison time, but of course it was far too short, too gentle and not served in the same cells as the Big Pharma execs who made this horror story possible.