John DeFore

Though Whelan's debut filmmaking effort wears some of its homemade characteristics proudly, it wrangles more than enough credible interviewees to make its points.

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

Transformania remains sufficiently goofy-sweet to please its target demo; those who find the humor toothless should at least appreciate the distinctive animation, which can be as energetically wacky as classic Looney Tunes.

The film's main appeal is in watching familiar actors pretend to be ordinary kids grappling with their new selves.

Ever-curious, self-deprecating about occasions in which his fumbling English keeps him from making questions clear, Gondry works with sweet earnestness to understand his subject and convey that understanding to us.

Convincingly argued and extremely polished, it has theatrical potential for auds whose reservoir of worry about humanity's future hasn't already run dry.

The democratic nature of the project and its exploration here jibes with the story of the Vogels, who (to put it mildly) don't conform to the stereotype of the filthy-rich art patron.

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

Amusing but the most lightweight of the five diverse features he’s made so far, it finds other members of the Baena gang (Aubrey Plaza, Molly Shannon) fleshing out an eccentric ensemble, many playing characters as unpredictable as Brie’s is straight-laced.

Though Cordula Kablitz-Post's feature debut Lou Andreas-Salome, The Audacity to be Free views this very unconventional woman through the conventions of the biopic, its drama benefits from a viewer's ignorance of her story.

A broken-family melodrama with a minimum of histrionics, Scott McGehee's and David Siegel's What Maisie Knew begins from scenes that will be familiar to most viewers who've witnessed a custody battle. Things get pretty orchestrated from that familiar scenario onward, but never to the point of unbelievability.

Irizarry sees locals who survived these challenges acquiring new layers of toughness and pride, increasingly ready to fight for their communities.

Hess gets her romance just grounded enough to handle the comic extremes supplied by the supporting cast.

Etxeberria is a good match for the film's Cassavetes-inspired character study. She's no Gena Rowlands, but this woman is clearly under the influence of something that might destroy more lives than hers.

Well conceived and unmanipulative, it will play well with auds attuned to its social-justice themes.

It gives the feature doc treatment to a topic TV journalists (and news-comedy hero John Oliver) have looked at over the decades — showing the slimy ways that reforms prompted by public outrage have been neutered by politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Beautiful settings and eccentric effects work enliven a tale that's more than meets the eye.

Susanne Wolff, who impressed critics last year in Wolfgang Fischer's "Styx," makes another strong turn here, grounding what could have become a merely lurid tale of dissipation, danger and sex work.

Gathering vintage interviews from a couple of different documentaries, the film movingly observes a man who can be physically unsettled by things he saw several decades prior.

What starts out as a familiar kind of portrait...eventually grows a layer or two more complex.

This is the least fun of the Watts/Holland pictures by a wide margin (intentionally so, to some extent), but it’s a hell of a lot better than the last Spidey threequel, Sam Raimi’s overstuffed and ill-conceived Spider-Man 3.

Age Out stands beyond the shadow cast by these artists; it is its own strong film and, whatever flaws it might have, deserves a much more visible release than it is getting.

Less relentlessly bleak than Winter's Bone, which along with Frozen River is an obvious inspiration here, the life-on-the-margins drama makes a fine, tense vehicle for Tessa Thompson, who in the last few years has stood out in a variety of genres.

Anne Émond's quietly raw Nuit #1 begins as a highbrow sex film but quickly becomes something much more interesting.

The naggy tension between the leads turns into a fine chemistry. [SXSW work-in-progress review]

Though too inside-baseball for many casual art fans, it should find some takers in its nationwide tour of bookings at art houses and museums.

What might have been annoyingly solipsistic proves mostly charming and poignant instead, largely thanks to Nance's cinematic ingenuity, but also because of his ability to both probe his feelings and hold them at a distance.

It's a thrill, and one that seriously rewards big-screen viewing.