John DeFore

While some characters on the ever-escalating guest list provide the pair with welcome comic distraction, this day-to-night hangout pic doesn't really take flight.

The easiest (but incomplete) answer is that the George W. Bush era needed a Borat, and the Trump years make him painfully redundant.

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.

Morgan's script generously allows us to deduce the truth just before Abe stumbles across it, which is not to say it doesn't have some real surprises left. It's fun to watch Abe put A and B together, and to regain some of his self-respect in the process.

Fans looking for an inspirational portrait of idealism will probably respond warmly to a film whose release is timed to World Food Day (October 16), a United Nations effort to highlight the cause nearest to Chapin's heart.

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.

A Die Hard ripoff that forgets most of the lessons that action classic has to teach, Ryuhei Kitamura's The Doorman forgets first of all what a little bit — even a shred — of wit can do for a movie that otherwise relies on bullets and brawn.

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

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.

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

A near-miss that should find some appreciative viewers, it feels like a stage play in need of a little polishing, whose talented cast likes it enough to commit fully.

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

Almost without fail, Larney's dramatic beats dispense with any build-up before arriving at their intended level of intensity, and the movie overall projects grandiosity without taking the time to make us care about the world being saved.

A deeply frustrating doc that only rarely engages with its ostensible subject, Alan Govenar's The Myth of a Colorblind France intends to examine the country's reputation as a haven for Black Americans, but more often plays as travelogue, checklist of Francophile artists and meandering collective memoir.

While LX 2048 isn't equally satisfying on all fronts, it's more than successful enough to add to the where-are-we-going? syllabus.

This ride is much more fun when you know nothing about it going in.

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.

The contrast between unflappable optimism and deep grief does not play out comfortably in this world of boosted colors, restless pacing and exaggerated tween naivite.

It's a high point for everyone involved.

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

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.

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

It successfully imagines a place for its heroine in Holmes' world, then convinces young viewers that Enola needn't be constrained by that world's borders.

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.

The literary source is one of only a couple of real draws in what is otherwise a fairly routine present-day crime saga.

A refreshing, beautifully made documentary set in a nursing home under suspicion of elder neglect, Maite Alberdi's The Mole Agent begins with its tongue in cheek but grows quite moving by its end.

This is a raucous, happily irresponsible party that should help locked-in, bottled-up Americans release some steam. The only downside to its being released when we need laughs so desperately is that this is just the kind of pic that becomes several times as funny when seen in a packed theater.