John DeFore

Charming at times but surprisingly cheap-feeling given the cast Heckerling has assembled.

While the script bounces from the cops to the feds to the cons and back, it fails to take us to that Donnie Brasco sweet spot in which the psychological pressures of being In Too Deep threaten to crack our hero, whether somebody gets a shiv into him or not.

Given a cast of this size, characterizations are predictably thin, though strong character actors like John C. McGinley and Michael Rooker ensure some viewer engagement with Those About to Die.

Viewers will surely have their curiosity piqued, but may not walk out convinced of Jobriath's place in the pop Pantheon.

Though their resolution is a little too neat to be believed, the filmmakers' way with their cast makes this debut a promising one.

The plot reversals of the third act happen rather abruptly, perhaps unbelievably, in comparison to what precedes them. But those who've been in Margaret's shoes may find this appropriate — an honest acknowledgement of the false starts that can result when a newly hatched idealist tries to apply abstract principles to messy human emotions.

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

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.

No film involving Nicholas Cage and a blowgun with curare-tipped darts can be all bad, and Primal gives us at least a little of everything we'd want in this kind of yarn.

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.

Robert Mockler's Like Me, while hardly for every taste, rises above the pack in a few ways — ranging from its ambitious style to the out-of-whack humanity of its two lead performances.

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 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.

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

The film captures the cost of Henry's well-intentioned sin, following this pained new creature out into the world and, very briefly, giving his suffering an almost Malick-like voice.

The cast's likability keeps us on board, watching the sometimes baffling behavior onscreen just like those on the streets of Seoul, who gape up at a monster in horror but can't make themselves flee to the suburbs.

Govenar is not what you'd call a natural filmmaker. Hodgepodgey in its storytelling, the film introduces enough appealing characters to hold the interest of a casual viewer; presumably, tattoo-diehards know much of this stuff already.

Not exactly the celebration of female promiscuity its title suggests.

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

Series woos fans by returning to its straight-horror roots.

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.

While it offers some provocative moral quandaries, it serves mostly as a showcase for Patrick Stewart.

Neither as frightening as a good horror flick nor as enlightening as a straight documentary, Rodney Ascher's The Nightmare borrows from both worlds in its depiction of the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis.

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

A good-looking debut offering more atmosphere than action.

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.

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

Lightweight but likeably uncynical.

Some of the surprises in store play better than others.

The doc's structure is a countdown to opening night, but planning goes smoothly enough that little drama accompanies that ticking clock.

Modest but revealing documentary.

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.

Hamm makes plenty of sense in this role, but Mottola and Zev Borow’s screenplay doesn’t totally convince us the character is series-worthy.

Easygoing and always likeable but hardly packed with laughs.

Set in a cartoonishly seedy version of California's Inland Empire, this lowlife tale of bikers and reality-show politicians diverts without quite justifying its presence as a feature, though many fans of both artists will be pleased with what appears to be a happy collaboration.

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

Treating the subject of creative exploitation not with overheated moralism but as a year-in-the-life social chronicle, the picture makes a solid, if very tardy, follow-up to the director's 1999 breakout Jesus' Son.

Ready has a fine time with its setting (the trappings of old money are much more appealing here than they were in Netflix's Murder Mystery), and Weaving is sharp enough to play things straight as the ensemble around her goes for the occasional laugh.

If it leaves something to be desired at the start of the tale, the procedural details of seeking release and exoneration are well represented.

Funny Story (co-written with Steve Greene) proves much more polished than its pedigree might suggest — a warmhearted seriocomedy that, even when not thoroughly convincing, projects a disarming sincerity.

A sharp-looking and enjoyable doc that celebrates the writer's legacy but, in its willfully obscure structure, seems a bit too bent on echoing his famous nonconformity.

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.

It's also — for better and worse — never quite as grim as its grisly, sometimes gag-inducing action might suggest. Falling in between outright psychological combat and black comedy, Harpoon might flounder a bit without Gelman's ironic tone.

While the doc uses reenactment and plentiful period news footage to chart how Sands withered away, and to capture the mixture of respect and grief his determination to die produced in supporters, the film is always about more than Sands.

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

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.

The good news for fans is that The Trip to Spain is no Godfather III. The moderately bad news is that this sometimes hilarious outing is the one in which the conceit comes to resemble a lushly produced, irregularly broadcast TV series.

Diez's effects teams have tremendous fun with the gory ways they tear through their hosts' bodies when it's time to leave the chrysalis behind.

As a trilogy-closer, it's a mixed bag, tying earlier narrative strands together pleasingly while working too hard (and failing) to convince viewers Shyamalan has something uniquely brainy to offer in the overpopulated arena of comics-inspired stories.

Though frustratingly unfocused and sometimes overreaching (even compared to Philippe’s other docs, which are never what you’d call precision-crafted), the film is consistently enjoyable, with just enough flashes of insight to justify its existence.

Drew Stone's Who the F**ck is That Guy shows how total, unabashed music fandom took a nobody from New York City's far reaches to the heart of the music business.

Satisfying enough as a horror/slasher flick with a black-comedy aftertaste, it has some commercial appeal but doesn't represent a step forward artistically.

Though it never transforms into a grade-A spy thriller, the film boasts action that's briefly quite involving.

It's another chapter in an oeuvre that is so peculiar some of us will root for it to keep going.

Though tech values and supporting performances (especially Knoxville's) are unimpeachable, Suspicion doesn't conjure its setting as persuasively as some of the other drug-centric rural dramas we've seen lately.

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.

Quick and pretty constant cutting between different threads of this story keep Most Wanted from feeling as long as it actually is, but it also keeps us from committing fully to any one story, all of which feel slightly underwritten.

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

Its feature-length assemblage of found footage, unified by an original soundtrack and eccentric narration by Tilda Swinton, will be too much of a good thing for some art-house patrons. But auds accustomed to the work of Bill Morrison and other archive-combing meditation artists should respond warmly.

The easygoing comedy keeps a familiar story going despite minor plot hiccups.

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 bouncy attempt to get a handle on the fast-changing state of things for pot smokers in America, Peter Spirer's The Legend of 420 wears its sympathies on its sleeve without coming off as a complete lightweight.

As shamelessly corporate popcorn movies go, Snake Eyes is better than most. That’s not high praise, but considering the film’s dopey pedigree, it’s not nothing.

Seeing these likable oldsters talk at length is just about the entire point of this picture, which isn't nearly as good at guiding us through history or explaining technical minutiae as it is at relating to their well-earned sense of pride.

A film that (whatever massive efforts were required to work around [Paul Walker's] absence) is as stupendously stupid and stupidly diverting as it could have hoped to be had everything gone as planned.

A good-natured ride at first, its limited scope grows more apparent as it goes; still, a feel-good approach is unlikely to hurt it as it begins a road-show release concurrent with the band's 50th-anniversary tour.

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

This debut doc would have benefited from some statistics to back up its ample expert testimony. Numbers would be useful, for instance, to show how SAT scores fail to correlate with college performance or success later in life. It also would be more rounded if it gave time to the SAT's advocates instead of using footage of old speeches to represent their side.

The movie's last act offers complications both expected and surprising. For the most part, it satisfies, especially in what proves to be the pic's most elaborate action sequence.

In the absence of sharp writing, all the movie really has to go on is our interest in its heroes — who, happily, are a touch less generic than their surroundings.

Thomas Haden Church hits the exact balance of desperation and resignation demanded by the peculiar story.

The story's resolution is formulaic, but deeply enough felt that few will resent the film's manipulations.

The film embraces ambiguity in the end, with a coda that places Marco and Carla on the same level but not in the same place. The scene's unsettled but peaceful mood seems an honest reflection of its characters' lives.

Though less novel than Flanagan's previous pic, Oculus, Hush finds plenty of ways to flip roles in this cat-and-mouse game, letting his heroine get a bead on her stalker only to see the advantage taken away from her again.

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

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.

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

Perhaps cowed by respect for a real man who suffered so much, Stanfield seems reluctant to charm viewers. Warner is sympathetic, of course, but Ruskin continually requires wounded earnestness from his lead, and shows little of whatever spark of inner life must have been required for Warner to survive these years without losing his mind.

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

Honoring the journalist's sense of mission but never shying away from the hard living and psychological damage that went with it, A Private War relies on the believability of star Rosamund Pike, who commits to this take on the character even when Heineman risks pushing off-the-battlefield drama too far.

A Danny Elfman-like score and the dark earnestness of lead voice-actor Matheus Nachtergaele's performance make this world believable enough that the film's big revelation — city pigeons, as humanity's ancient companions, know how we can stop being so paralyzed by fear — doesn't sound quite as ridiculous as it should.

Though less funny than the first, it will play well to those who are in the mood.

The movie doesn't really focus on many individuals long enough to make them compelling screen characters.

McGowan doesn't try to turn the modest material into a nail-biting thriller. While grim confrontations between men with guns don't always convince us, they at least don't upstage the survival tale at the movie's heart.

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.

While those of us who've seen dozens of similar docs could name plenty that taught or moved or enraged us more, Flood's filmmakers are intelligent in their use of the biggest asset they have: Not only do they keep their movie star onscreen, they work hard to tie viewers' concern for the environment up with his biography.

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.

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.

An informative if less than thrilling account of a historic career.

In a time of plentiful lush and/or enlightening food docs, only viewers who idolize Rene Redzepi and his talented crew need pay attention to this one.

An ordinary look at four extraordinary kids, Scott Hamilton Kennedy's Fame High sticks firmly to convention but will please viewers who can't help but want the doc's sympathetic teens to escape the heartbreak most would-be artists face.

There's nothing new under the sun, but About Alex is very, very not new. Luckily, most of its capable cast muster the warmth we require, and Zwick's script offers more humor (however mild the laughs are) than sentimentality.

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.

The doc highlights undeniably important realities; but it doesn't find a narrative that sustains feature treatment.

A workmanlike but fan-pleasing picture.

Things get a bit busier than this modest film requires, but rural languor prevails in the end — if not with the "grace" of the title, at least with forgiveness.

A filmmaking decision at the end of the film thumbs its nose at us, with the language of editing seeming to contradict the message of Shoaf's screenplay.

Though the film's cat-and-mouse scenes hardly compare to those in a Bourne movie, they're enjoyable and only occasionally ridiculous.

Buoyed by enjoyable performances by character actors like Paul Ben-Victor, the picture is slight but likeable, especially for fans of its younger leads.

It's not wholly satisfying as a dramatic work, which is probably a sign of its honest identification with its two troubled protagonists.

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.

The film has a solid feel for family dynamics and local color.

Despite its successful attempts to show how oil has affected everyday citizens in nearby Nigeria, the film remains fairly dry.

Documentary will play best with very serious classical fans.

Though touching on a le Carre-like web of loyalties, ambition and hidden agendas, the film is generally less engrossing than that might suggest, only coming to life in the sweaty hours leading up to that murder.

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.

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

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

Miller knows exactly how the third act should play, and he manages (thanks in part to the increasingly intriguing creature work) to reach an emotionally satisfying conclusion without resorting to some big Gremlins-gore action climax.

A timely look at an important issue that's getting more hotly contested every month, Electoral Dysfunction takes a mildly jocular tone to get viewers concerned about what it calls a "war on voting" in America.

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.

Though viewers who follow the subject in print won't learn a whole lot they don't already know here — and, given technology's pace, it may be irrelevant in a year — the documentary gathers news in a useful way, prompting discussions about what variety of a computer-guided world we'd like to live in

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 the material is juicy and the interviews heartfelt, the doc doesn't completely succeed in efforts to explain the spell this and similar groups cast on their acolytes.

Sentimental at times but not as cloying as its title may suggest, the polished production benefits from the happily un-cute lead performance of young star Tayler Buck, whose determination suits the weighty social issues driving the plot.

A smart doc that's as earnest and scattered as the viewers likely to seek it out, Astra Taylor's What Is Democracy? looks around at the world and realizes that even those of us on the right sides of things aren't always sure what we're fighting for.

Given the dearth of docs about the heyday of circus arts, one wishes for more of that spotlight showmanship on the screen.

While Bousman's climax is a not terribly original effects-laden haunted house, the house's builder, and his motives, have enough of their own flavor to please a hardened horror fan.

It's not nearly funny enough to call a comedy, but its seriousness about her lonely life is undercut by its depiction of her frankly ridiculous behavior.

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.

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.

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.

The pedestrian script inevitably gets sidetracked into a possible romance between JJ and Kate, keeping the film from building much real chemistry between Bautista and Coleman. (It's easy to imagine replacing this subplot with more scenes of JJ helping put middle-school meanies in their places.) But at least this angle keeps the pic's save-the-world storyline from getting too bloated.

His unpolished voiceover and the general sense of overkill aside, Panico delivers a quite respectable doc production.

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.

A lively but meandering doc that is more seduced by the scene than some viewers might like.

Less an investigation into or comprehensive summary of the Penn State sex-abuse scandal than a look at the feelings it elicited, Amir Bar-Lev's Happy Valley is more concerned with the phenomenon of team spirit than any single question of fact or moral judgment.

The picture would go nowhere without the friendly chemistry between Lewis and costar Jonny Weston, as the wheelchair-bound high schooler who charms her. If young mothers had any time to go to movies, this one might draw them in droves.

While the curves in the road are new to the heroes, they're well known to fans of indie film, and Long Dumb Road just barely coasts across the finish line before we're ready to get out and push.

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.

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.

Any failure to expand into cinema's possibilities is overshadowed by the uniformly strong performances in a four-person cast led by an excellent Kerry Washington.

At some point, all the analysis drains the Bill Murray-ness out of these delightful encounters, whose inexplicability is presumably key to their charm.

Benefitting from likeable, good-natured subjects and the peculiar pastimes with which they fill their cooped-up hours, the doc certainly gets us interested in and rooting for the Angulo boys.

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

Though we care for those who lost loved ones, and root for them as they pursue a decades-long hunt for the killers, No Stone Unturned plays like a very well made piece of true-crime television.

Introducing an indie auteur whose fans are fervent if comparatively few, Steve Mitchell's King Cohen is a low-rent but colorful tribute to the septuagenarian writer-director who horrified audiences with the monster-baby It's Alive franchise.

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

The documentary offers little to further the national discussion on this divisive topic, but its evenhandedness and unstrident tone will go down well with viewers accustomed to more heated treatments of it.

Questions of musical taste (as opposed to hit-savvy reading of the zeitgeist) aside, Soundtrack of Our Lives does offer an informative primer for anyone unfamiliar with the scope of this truly impressive career.

Though unsatisfying in some respects, the film is enough fun to make one wish for a portal to a variant universe in which Marvel movies spent more time exploiting their own strengths and less time trying to make you want more Marvel movies.

A solid B movie whose pleasures aren't diminished much by the screenplay's dicey dialogue — plenty of the film has no dialogue at all — it's a welcome vehicle for its star, who has been underused by filmmakers for decades.

The filmmakers might've provided us with more of the specific complaints these men had; instead, their assessment of "The Struggle" relies on very familiar images of police brutality and general observations about how much remained unfixed after the Civil Rights movement's legal successes.

Daniel Schechter's Life of Crime starts promisingly and ends with a smile but underwhelms in between.

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.

To a person, Tarek's beneficiaries come home feeling changed by the experience. Unfortunately, he and Serban aren't so gauche as to ask if they've reevaluated any political stances as a result; the film is content with the unspoken assumption that this expanded awareness of shared humanity will make the world better. If only someone had the budget to send tens of millions of other frightened Westerners on similar trips.

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 plot does, finally, allow the emotions Robbie won't express to erupt in a way that threatens everything, and Kenneally's script deals knowingly with the aftermath. But it doesn't always seem to understand the characters around its hero any better than he does himself.

Liz Marshall's Ghosts in Our Machine trades didacticism for first-person atmospherics.

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.

A solid (if conspicuously handsome) cast does justice to the grim mood of Cipoletti's sophomore feature, but that mood sometimes suffocates a script that deviates little from genre expectations.

Though it follows a familiar format, devoting its middle third to the games leading to Homecoming and the final act to the game itself, All-Americans doesn't really play like a sports drama; football is mostly an excuse to pay attention to these kids. But that focus is diluted by the number of people we're spending time with.

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.

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.

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.

A large part of the first film's pleasure came from watching adult actors, very sure in their screen personae, pretend to be children who were awed (or disgusted, as the case may be) by their new bodies and abilities. This time around, that getting-to-know-you phase is much less fun.

Clearly coming from the left but happy to make characters of all political stripes look bad, the film is often hard to take, offering laughs that are rarely cathartic enough to compensate.

A tough sell theatrically despite its merits, the film will rely on Jones' name to reach viewers via home-video outlets.

Young moviegoers who haven't yet tired of cookie-cutter dystopias will find a sympathetic protagonist played by Amandla Stenberg; but viewers who've taken this ride enough times to want, for instance, subtext addressing real-world oppression should look elsewhere.

Pegging most of its hopes on two actors who hardly maintain the taut chemistry its long two-hander section requires, the pic plays like the feature debut it is, an uncertain drama full of attitude it can't back up with action.

Clearly a microbudget labor of love, the earnest documentary never attempts to assess the road pic's place in film history or the culture generally; most frustratingly, it never asks what a young viewer today might think of it.

A curiosity telling the President's story through the eyes of longtime friend Ward Hill Lamon, it's of interest only to serious history-hounds and techies curious about its unusual green-screen production.

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.

It's as stylistically straightforward as concert films get, but should play well to fans in its limited theatrical release as it simultaneously arrives on digital platforms.

Quite funny for much of its running time, the film feels like it simply runs out of steam in its third act, settling for a lazy, pandering resolution and seeming happy to have made it to the 83-minute finish line.

A too-familiar vibe hangs over much of the film, whose comic violence is nothing new and whose banter underwhelms, but the pic gets more fun as it goes, especially after an unlikely hallucinogen makes its entrance.

Unfocussed editing and Mark Rivett's unimaginative score contribute to a lightweight feel that is best suited to TV viewing.

Copeland's film benefits from a cast familiar from such offbeat TV comedies as "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Parks and Recreation," but it tends to embody conventions instead of subverting them, resulting in a product with only a bit more personality than the generic caffeine dispensary at its heart.

A great many of these individual scenes are funny... But the film fails to do what those rare, immortal rom-coms get right: take all its individually pleasing ingredients and make a satisfying movie out of them.

Honest performances from Fichtner, Jon Voight as the school's principal, and others make the picture watchable, but can't make up for lackluster storytelling.

While this hodgepodge contains the occasional lovely or eloquent moment, as one would expect after Estrada's captivating 2018 Sundance debut Blindspotting, those are overshadowed by material that grates on all but the most forgiving ear, in a semi-narrative setting that clearly just cares about getting from one aria to the next.

Attractive and capably acted but oddly airless, the drama is a downer without offering much reward for our time.

A campaign movie for viewers who, if they care about politics at all, certainly don't require the full Sorkin treatment.

This would be an interesting subject to explore at length, with a host who didn't seem to be padding an opportunity for self-promotion with the trappings of science. Unfortunately, Friedkin goes overboard in the short film's final scenes, describing a second encounter with the possessed woman that was far more dramatic than this one.

Though the 55 year-old plot's bones are sturdy and its new performers gifted, moviegoers hoping for a mercilessly funny post-Weinstein revenge fantasy (its poster declares: "They're giving dirty rotten men a run for their money") will walk away feeling conned.

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.

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.

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.

To the extent that it works, much credit goes to Keery, for finding the real human need inside this twentysomething cipher.

In a movie built on the idea of walking in someone else's shoes, shouldn't learning to see others as more than stereotypes be fairly central to the plot's development?

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.

Stearns’ third feature (following Faults and The Art of Self-Defense) is his least satisfying so far; as visually drab as its predecessors, it has more difficulty mining its off-kilter aesthetic for nervous laughter and conceptual provocation.

There's enough variety in the workplace settings here to keep us interested, but the doc's chronology isn't the smoothest.

Unfortunately, [Robert Duvall's] attempt to create a multigenerational Lone Star-like mystery doesn't gel as John Sayles's film did, leaving so many dramatic moments unresolved that one wonders how many scenes must have been left on the cutting-room floor.

Performances are generally competent, but nobody in the cast has the kind of presence needed to overcome Ranarivelo's by-the-numbers dialogue.

Danger doesn't quite translate into sustained drama here, in part because the reliance on voiceover distances us from the action.

Renzi's uneven script makes this a less sturdy vehicle than 2012's Arbitrage, and a less marketable one given the absence of thriller elements that sustained that film's character study. Still, there's plenty here for Gere's admirers to appreciate.

Budgetary and other constraints make this attempt to conjure post-war Hollywood more sincere than believable, a history lesson with little to offer even a serious film buff.

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.

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.

Martin's script holds some hard-boiled appeal, but his direction (some nice technical flourishes aside) doesn't back it up.

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.

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.

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.

Though enjoyable as it touches on some of the liveliest scenes in New York City's recent pop-culture history, the doc's appeal is greatly limited by Garcia's blinkered perspective on his own life.

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.

First-timer Naar both fails to convince us of his subject's musical genius and gives the impression he's leaving out important details.

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.

Anderson, who previously made several Beach Boys/Brian Wilson video docs, is attentive to chronology and to Butterfield's legacy, but isn't making the kind of film that might win the artist new fans or magically transport older ones back to the moment when he was at the top of his field.

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

Stocking the supporting cast with top-drawer talent, he gives most of his costars little to do besides attract our attention on movie posters.

The romantic dilemmas suffered by these twentysomethings may be universal, but their naive attempts to address them are hard to buy.

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.

The movie never really achieves the claustrophobic, under-siege atmosphere of Night of the Living Dead. And it's kind of a good thing we're not trapped with this family, since, despite some fine acting by Mille Dinesen (as Gustav's mom) and others, Mikkelsen's script offers too little character development to keep us interested in them.

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.

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

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.

Heartfelt but clumsy.

Extravagant action choreography makes the most of colorful set design, unlikely gimmicks and wrasslin'-style brutality. But Hodson's script offers far less diverting banter than it might've between the fight scenes, and has a hard time imagining the unconstrained id that makes Harley Quinn so magnetic.

Deeply felt if not always convincing, the sophomore feature (the director's first, Las Lloronas, was in 2004) has the otherworldly flavor that sometimes accompanies very low-budget productions, and in this case rides that vibe further than its script might deserve.

Aside from a supporting turn by Hannibal Buress as a king-of-the-geeks character, the film's most diverting ingredients are its aggressively crude character design and its sickly color palette.

Rescuing Jimmy (and possibly Lorna) from a possessive, abusive husband would have been plenty of drama for this hitherto quiet, sensitive picture. Instead we get a family full of leering thugs, whose depiction sometimes suggests they might have a cousin out in the barn who dresses in other people's flesh. The action doesn't get quite that extreme, but it's bad enough.

Opening action sequences project a cartoony comic flavor that has promise, but that peters out as the battles grow increasingly cosmic.

Though satisfying enough to please many casual moviegoers drawn in by King's name and stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, it will likely disappoint many serious fans and leave other newbies underwhelmed.

It has little to offer a well-informed viewer.

Named for a slur used against Northerners who opposed waging war on the South, the film works best when focused on Abner Beech (Billy Campbell), whose conscience-driven minority opinion makes him a pariah in his upstate New York village.

Sadly, the ambitious film never approaches the gravitas that helped the Lord of the Rings films involve us in their mythology.

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.

Pine is fully committed to Robert's mission, but the film has a hard time making him a compelling character, even with a wife and daughter on hand to make him relatable. And it takes forever for his military campaign to get rolling.

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

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.

Where the first film offered genuine scares, this one is suspenseful at best, snicker-worthy at worst, and will beg viewers to recall the time Fonzie got on water skis and tried not to get eaten by a shark.

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.

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.

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.

Initial hints of a "Mean Girls"-meets-"Lord of the Flies" complication don't come to much in this straightforward pic, which will be zeitgeisty enough for some viewers while leaving most wanting something a bit more imaginative.

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.

In Water & Power: A California Heist, Zenovich tackles a subject of enormous importance, but fails to match that import with dramatic storytelling.

If they don't know going in, most viewers will be surprised in the credits to learn this is the voice of Brie Larson. Presumably, Larson wanted to lend her star power to a worthy promotion of scientific research; but in this case, the scientists were doing fine all by themselves.

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.

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.

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.

Fin Edquist's generic but pleasant script offers only a couple of groaner puns to those chaperoning kids in the audience ("got a reptile dysfunction, have you?" is an example); but it's brought to solid life by Aussie thesps Toni Collette, Richard Roxburgh, and others.

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.

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.

What at first looks like a mumblecore comedy with a supernatural twist turns into something darker, and many viewers will not feel like going along for the detour into psychological horror.

A peculiar and frustrating portrait of a man coping with chronic illness by indulging in carnal and intellectual pleasures, Angela Christlieb's Naked Opera presents itself as a documentary but is unconcerned with answering even the most basic questions viewers will have about its subject.

Though there aren’t many laughs on the way to that Battle of the Bands, Sollett’s unassuming cast and breezy pace ensure we won’t be too bored before we get there.

Viewed on its own, it communicates much less than its maker seems to intend, hovering in a not-very-satisfying zone between advocacy doc, first-person impressionism, and (very) tentative essay film about the world’s tendency to view difference as freakishness.

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.

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.

Emphasizing local color but often unconvincing in its depiction of social customs.

The film offers some diverting background on the man.

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.

Sutherland brings some believable warmth to a film whose spiritual "aha" moments are generally packaged too tidily to hit home.

An art film whose seductive qualities don't entirely erase the suspicion that its weirder elements might be empty affectation.

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.

It's much more dry than one might expect, demonstrating the truth of something interviewees suggest more than once: As intriguing a person as Berg was, it was not easy to know him.

Though fans will enjoy the behind-the-scenes view, and anyone interested in creativity can appreciate watching a master attempt to expand his turf so late in life, the doc's narrow scope and aesthetic limitations make it a fans-only affair, certainly not a full-bodied account of this man's towering career.

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

A B-movie that would benefit immensely from some wit in the script and charisma in the cast, it’s not as aggressively hacky as P.W.S.A.’s oeuvre, but it runs into problems he didn’t face in 1995: Namely, the bar has been raised quite a bit for movies in which teams of superpowered young people have fights to save the universe.

Less audience-embracing than most surf documentaries that make it to the big screen, Michael Oblowitz's Heavy Water will play best to those familiar with its cast of characters.

The second half groans under too many dumb contrivances, even if the dumbest — a sword fight at a publicity event — leads to a credit-sequence gag that earns more laughs than anything in the film.

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.

Set disbelief aside, and primal phobias may well suffice to get you happily to the other side of this adventure.

The doc pads out its assertions of malfeasance with personal scenes that fall flat, never giving much insight into its subject's personality or deepening the sympathy we may have started off with for the children she left behind.

The picture wallows for a bit, having deprived itself of the teen cheer that was its main driver. Of course the sun will come out again, after those Amber has given so much to eventually find a way to force her into the role of gracious recipient. The fact that the way they do this is entirely appropriate to the character doesn't keep the film's feel-good climax from feeling very, very familiar.

More impressionistic than enlightening, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's Detropia introduces us to some interesting citizens of Detroit and gives them a welcome opportunity to speak for themselves, but reveals little we don't already know.

Sadly, the script for this debut feature, written by Louis Godbout, is less persuasive: No single event is fatally implausible, perhaps, but taken together it doesn't ring true.

Less exploitative and a bit smarter than its seedy adult-film setting would suggest, the shoestring-budgeted film is nevertheless a niche outing that will rely on a stunty premise to attract voyeurs to its debut this Valentine's Day.

Only in its final moments do things crystallize with a nasty, half-ironic commentary.