Jordan Hoffman

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.

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.

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

A dark, dreary and dull “Mad Max in Neutral” from director David Michôd (“Animal Kingdom”) that tries to pass off its blunt narrative and repetitiveness as some sort of style.

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

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.

The movie is two hours of cheap jokes, culminating in the world’s biggest Family Guy episode. It tries so hard to be clever, it just ends up being cringe.

It’s just so embarrassingly thin. The few chuckles are all the more depressing when you realize that this could have been a winner with a clever screenwriter and a competent director.

The movie gets completely lost, unsure if it wants to be a serious exploration of repressed memories or a work of giddy, spooky trash.

There are scenes that snap together nicely with some sharp and nuanced observations. But the film is saddled with uninteresting surface-level characters. There’s a phoniness exuding from the entire project, made all the more discouraging since the plot-light, shaggy dog story is trying to feel so real.

This movie is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, with no shortage of cringeworthy moments and an uninteresting lead performance.

Little kids will be bored, as there are only a few scenes with any action, and of those, only one, featuring an enormous skeleton with swords sticking out of its skull, has any oomph.

It’s one hell of a yarn, which makes The Lovers and the Despot’s strangely soporific style something of a disappointment.

In the spaces between the hackneyed dialogue, ham-handed score, and poor acting, Walking With The Enemy eventually wins its sole victory: a desire to look the story up on Wikipedia later that day. That may be a small triumph, but it’s hardly the mark of fine cinema.

Helms, a funny performer, is just the face of a mining expedition for easy yuks out of a recognised title. What that says about our regurgitative culture is rather depressing. There’s so much nostalgia on our screens right now. I could really use a vacation.

Animator Raul Garcia’s 70-minute anthology of five Poe stories, Extraordinary Tales, has its moments, and will be a welcome respite for any middle schooler sitting through a boring lecture. But if we were ever asked if we wanted a second viewing, we’d have to quoth the raven: nevermore.

The Maze Runner is not a good movie, but it wins points for omitting much of what makes typical teen films excruciating.

This laid-back amusement should not be misinterpreted as competent storytelling. Though some of the jokes land, that’s entirely due to the performances; there’s not one example of clever writing in the entire picture.

What’s ultimately frustrating about Zipper is that it seems like it has something important to say about infidelity and the sex industry, but can’t decide what that should be.

While engaging, this Desierto is a little dry.

The public and private Rachel are, at first, quite different, until her eventual decision to be an out-of-the-closet believer. Even with this rancid script and amateurish direction, McLain sells this inherently undramatic turn as an emotional triumph.

Sprinkled among the desultory morass are occasional firecrackers of brilliant schtick-based comedy.

Wendy is undoubtedly self-assured and in-your-face, and the gorgeous location photography certainly has an impact. But it’s wrecked by chapters so lengthy they become simply excruciating.

Hunting Elephants has its requisite scenes of planning and setbacks, but it mostly settles for old-people jokes (now I know the Hebrew for Viagra: it’s Viagra) and making Patrick Stewart look like an imbecile.

Trash Fire is too quick to burn through its ideas.

As things go bad for Wilson, the movie, unfortunately, loses a considerable amount of steam as well.

While the topic of mass delusion is fascinating, this film is too unfocused to turn it into compelling drama.

Surely there is a good movie to be made about caring polyamorous relationships, but as with any romantic story the audience needs to fall in love with the idea of these characters being in love.