Jordan Hoffman

Small Time is impressive, just slightly, because it’s the one thing used-car salesmen are rarely accused of being: honest.

While Draft Day is a very agreeable and predictable movie, it is also very timely.

It's darker, stranger and pushes more buttons.

Does this mean that Sabotage is a rich, morally complex story about the gray zone between good and evil? Hell, no. It just means it is a bungle.

The landscape is a definitive presence throughout the film, which has almost no music and very little dialogue. The film is short (approximately 80 minutes) and maintains a good sense of dread throughout.

This isn’t a movie so much as a fetishist’s fever dream—a fantasia of New York crime movies from the 1970s that places the specificity of its time and place at center stage more than any actual New York crime movie from the era.

The connection that these two are allegedly making must be taken on faith. Little is shown or spoken to sell it.

With Muppets Most Wanted, the vaudevillian pandaemonium is alive and well.

For a tone poem on loneliness, fluid identity, and photogenic apartments, Enemy is the best entry in the genre since Roman Polanski’s The Tenant. And the last five minutes are just as unpredictable.

Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 is the worst thing Lars Von Trier has ever associated himself with.

Perfect Sisters may stand accused of being rife with tone-deaf stylistic choices, but the more positive spin is to call it a marginal film elevated, however inadvertently, by the strange specificity of its scenes.

Lengthy passages are unrelated to any discernible narrative, and seem to exist in that interzone your mind travels through just before it goes to sleep.

All the pieces are in place for a gripping indie horror flick, but this pointless, motivation-free film just goes around in circles.

For a movie with the ostensible mission of spreading the Gospel, it does a poor job of speaking to anyone except the faithful.

The first sixty minutes of Pompeii are awful, bordering on unwatchable... The final forty-five minutes of the movie however are, by sheer force of will, irrefutably entertaining. At least there’s raining death in the form of fireballs smashing up the place.

There’s just too much good stuff to dismiss White Bird in a Blizzard out of hand, even if it does have a somewhat dull and desultory plot.

Listen Up Philip is big, sprawling and tortured, if a little lacking in focus – while funny in parts, it isn’t really a comedy.

Throughout the picture you understand the miracle and good fortune of finding love, and recognize the great changes in tolerance American society is currently (albeit slowly) undergoing.

The movie on its own is great, but with this music it's sublime.

A gripping, fascinating and visually arresting memoir.

It never quite elevates itself above something like a really well produced behind-the-scenes featurette on a high end Blu-ray. But if you’ve got that Jodorowsky T-shirt aping the Judas Priest logo, you may as well start lining up now.

The kid performances are impressive and the subtext of a region still shaking off the effects of a long-ended war gives seed to some much needed discussion.

Ti West’s pointless new film The Sacrament, an exercise in talking loud and saying nothing, isn’t just bad, it’s infuriating.

This melancholy documentary shows how championship dreams can turn into a nightmare.

Out of the Furnace is no disaster, but it doesn’t achieve what it hopes to achieve, and it has no one to blame but itself.

He spent 28 years in prison and this is what he gets?

Only completists need check in with Homefront. The rest of us can just stay home.

Go For Sisters is something of a frustration. It’s the least interesting crime caper ever, and there are fascinating characters forced to go through the motions as if any of us could possibly care.

An embarrassing gut-punch of unfiltered schmaltz, but its sympathy for the devil-style humanism is well-meaning.

Some Velvet Morning is a horror film with no blood, with words the only weapon for 98% of the picture.

Then Bill Nighy shows up and is awesome and punches you in the heart. It ultimately feels like a cheat, and while there won’t be a dry eye in the house, it won’t be earned.

Despite being very much a “filmed play” it doesn’t come across as too theatrical. Polanski uses plenty of close-ups and keeps the action moving.

Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout.

It’s just boring – and boring in a way that apparently has no endgame.

Borgman‘s crafty, trickster-ish screenplay, always two steps ahead of you, keeps you rooting for clues, enough to put your ethics on temporary hold.

A pastiche of bad film cliches and scenes devoid of any real conflict or character development.

Its final scenes and sublimely framed last, lingering shot are extraordinary.

Not many side-splitting jokes, but a goofy glee is smeared across it all.

While ultimately gory — and a little dopey — this is no rowdy, exploitation-y, gross-out picture. This is a film where ambience, glossy imagery and performance are more effective than the splatter.

Directors Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews create a great framework for the epic nemesis battle, but also know when to pull back to keep the movie grounded in reality.

Schreiber saves it to an extent with some unusual performance choices, but when you compare this ending to the emotional supernova of Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” it comes way short.

For every poignant moment there’s a gaudy dream sequence, wretched internal monologue, ham-fisted zoom or an exchange of dialogue sorely lacking nuance.

Fading Gigolo wants to be some sort of sunny tapestry about New York’s social groups, but it’s impossible to see past its absurd premise.

Cage, not one known for subtlety of late, is truly great in this sad, funny and tender role.

For a film that reminds use over and over that this is a whole new world, this movie feels awfully familiar.

There are countless clever dialogue parries as well as some quite outstanding rants. It definitely takes the movie outside of the world of pure realism, but the theatricality is well worth it.

It’s all about the performances. McConaughey and Leto don’t just give voice to the disenfranchised of the 1980s, but all people suddenly faced with impossible challenges.

While Bad Words is a little too dopey to take seriously, this is compensated for with a handful of truly amusing sequences.

While there are some okay side stories (stuff with the daughters and daughters’ friends) it kinda feels like attending a dinner party and checking in on the first world problems of a friend you kinda like, but don’t like enough to ask any follow up questions.

There are tones of 1970s shaggy realism that are interrupted by moments of character-driven shtick. The wistful scenes aren’t rich enough to engross you and the comedy isn’t clever enough to make a difference.

It transcends the usual biopic limitations to tell a specific story about some well-known people with larger, universal implications.

Co-writers and stars June Diane Raphael (“Whitney,” “New Girl”) and Casey Wilson (“Happy Endings”) are genuine and true comic performers. Even though the story stunk, the set pieces were uninspired and the direction was downright wretched, when these two are “on” and doing schtick, they are absolutely fresh and hilarious.

There are some laughs – and a few moments worthy of tears – but there’s a breaking point of believability in here somewhere that keeps Nebraska merely good as opposed to great.

The whole picture is lifeless and without consequence.

The Walt Disney World-set Escape From Tomorrow is both a great gimmick-dependent story and a remarkable piece of filmmaking. It is a radical, transgressive departure that exploits new technology in heretofore unseen ways.

The point of this film is the spell it weaves and, by and large, it is successful. It’s the music, it’s the cinematography, it’s the score, it’s Casey Affleck’s hollow speaking voice — they all add up to something that resembles a fever dream facsimile of an eventful movie.

From a distance The Spectacular Now is mere soap opera, but it is one of those films that grow more fascinating upon inspection.

Drug War is by no means a bad film, but it doesn’t do much to push the needle of originality, and doesn’t glide enough to represent perfection of the genre.

It’s unlikely anyone who sees Blackfish will be trekking to Shamu Stadium this summer.

Hollow, uninteresting and false.

The Lifeguard is a painfully dull (alleged) drama utterly lacking in originality or self-awareness.

It is one of the better dumbass sci-fi action movies to come down the pike in quite some time.

First and foremost I’m So Excited! is late night cabaret – funny, filthy and more than a little bit sloshed.

A Hijacking isn’t boring, but it is not an adventure film – it is a frustratingly realistic take on the unfortunate modern threat of piracy, and a bit of an emotional workout.

This is design work of the highest caliber and it is impossible to not enjoy simply watching these little buggers run around. It is unfortunate, however, that the creativity, originality and propulsive storytelling found in the original “Monsters Inc.” just didn’t matriculate with them.

Pussy Riot: A Punk’s Prayer is about an interesting topic, but the film itself is not quite up to snuff.

Fill the Void is, in the worst sense of the word, a “women’s picture,” in which people wring their hands and worry, wail and weep over marriage and maintaining the status quo.

A damn near perfect film.

The Past is just about as good as a relationship drama is ever going to get. The plot is teased out with deliberate grace, the performances are sublime and the revelations, even the most melodramatic, feel right and true. It’s big canvas stuff painted by a new master.

Only Lovers Left Alive is an exhibit A example of how to use style to enhance substance, not overwhelm it.

Chandor delivers pure cinema. Thrilling and adventuresome, this is a career highlight from the uniquely sympathetic Robert Redford.

The first half of “The Congress,” while still fascinating, does suffer a bit from keeping its focus on the gripes and accusations between Hollywood actors and producers...Once the Philip K. Dick-meets-”Inception” second half kicks in, the implications grow more universal.

There’s no way to overstate the gorgeous look of this film, but the mannered dialogue and deliberateness of pace becomes less of an homage to Asian revenge films than a parody.

It’s a character piece, and one of the best and most understated movies I’ve ever seen about the grieving process.

The film is so engaging because it's so damn funny.

S-VHS isn’t as pants-pooping scary as the first, but it is funnier, tighter and slicker.

Despite a lead performance by the always welcome Julianne Moore it is rudderless in its presentation and outright stupid in its central conceits.

This is a movie that proposes a genuine, intelligent solution, both for the main character and for us. It comes at you kinda quickly (and economically, in about three wordless shots), but it hit me like a bag of dumpster-dived apples to the gut.

I spent the bulk of Paradise Love mimicking Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a disturbing film.

As a movie, quite frankly, it stinks. As an “entertainment object,” it will no doubt find its boosters.

The emotions the Shinoharas’ story inspire are all over the road. It is at times triumphant and warm, then sad and even enraging.

In the House is crafty and juicy and ought to delight anyone whose ever thumped their chest about being a storyteller. I must confess, however, that somewhere in the third act the air started to leak from the balloon.

The prolific 76-year-old British creator of character-rich, social dramas steeped in natural realism (usually) has whiffed it and whiffed it hard with this one. It’s not that it’s just “lesser Loach.” It is, in my opinion at least, humiliating.

It is a shaggy dog road movie, and a drug-hazy one at that, but beneath the silliness and character-based gags, Crystal Fairy is, I feel, an unusually insightful look at self-imposed false identities and group dynamics.

Despite the numerous patchy moments The Brass Teapot by and large squeaks by as an enjoyable entertainment.

The action is the real star here, and it’s all good enough. It isn’t great – the aerial special effects are distractingly cheap – but at least there’s lots of it on display.

The remarkable storytelling that eventually emerges in Eden is something you should see, providing you feel that you can stomach it.

It isn’t just the bright colors and the costumes but every visual aspect of Byzantium that sings. Neil Jordan knows where to put the camera. It’s just a shame he wasn’t able to inject a little life inside that frame.

This tiny friends-and-family production has the vibe of a project done on weekends and after school. That’s no knock. It is vibrant and bubbly and just clever enough to engage people who wouldn’t normally watch a black-and-white micro-budget Shakespeare adaptation without any big movie stars.

Raimi manages to keep things engaging, which is a very real act of wizardry in and of itself.

It’s shallow, it’s boring, it’s poignant, it’s clever, it’s poorly acted, it’s intentionally poorly acted, it has no story, it has marvelous scenes, it is artful, it is hallucinatory, it is shoddily put together. All response is valid.

To the Wonder is distinctly lacking in oomph and, without an emotional connection, without anything interesting happening on the screen, the beauty can only take you so far before the endeavor falls like a house of cards.

It is highly likely you’ll forget the movie by the time you go to bed.

It does a marvelous job at giving us an impressionistic taste of horrific circumstances without using them to beat us into submission.

A Haunted House, its despicable bigotry aside, is also a not-very-good comedy.

Unfortunately the bulk of the picture is cut together like a beer commercial on poorly lit cheap video without much panache. Unless primary colors with a gauzy halo is panache.

At 76 minutes, Caesar Must Die is more of an art piece than a thick steak of a feature film, but it maintains a fascinating hum from start to finish.

Lore is a rare, wonderful film that works not just as surface entertainment, but has deeper historical meaning, as well as an even grander, more universal statement.