Jordan Hoffman

It’s a minor work that knows its place in the margins, but is thought-provoking and surreptitiously insightful – and very funny.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, one of our top-tier film actors right now, is on good form throughout, and the others act their hearts out, too. But they are somewhat left out to dry in a production that feels more like syndicated television than a feature film.

The script may feature numerous wobbly passages in which everyone eerily states precisely what they are thinking (an unfortunate tradition that runs throughout the series) but if anyone can sell it, it’s Stallone and Jordan.

Surprisingly, for a movie this ephemeral, the closing sequences, which consist of flashbacks and confrontations, are actually quite touching.

Amid all this holiday melancholia, Wilde bursts into the film with an intensity that feels held over from another, better movie.

My All American is awful; but it gets points, I suppose, for at least looking professional.

Out 1: Noli Me Tangere is confounding at every level.

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.

This movie sure means well, and it’s just entertaining enough to (slightly) slip off the shackles of the great cultural conformity factory it ultimately represents.

If a movie as rich and understanding as Mediterranea suddenly appeared every time we read about a difficult issue in the paper, maybe all of the world’s problems could be solved.

There’s a special variety of infuriating that comes from a bad movie by talented people.

This movie is foremost an ethnographic exercise, and whether it is a rallying cry or poverty porn is for the viewer to decide.

Cheadle’s got the cred, and the period evocation is tremendous. It’s just that I’m not sure he has all that much to say

What’s most striking about Ixcanul is the elegant way in which it is shot. Scenes are given space, and the audience is allowed ample time to soak up the atmosphere.

Laughs emerge from the recognisable micro-horrors found in modern living, which, if the world was run in the way we all agree it should be run, wouldn’t exist.

There’s a streak of old-fashioned B-movie spooky playfulness here, and when actual, motivated characters are on screen it’s delightful.

The Measure of a Man’s decision to keep its conflicts so microscopic in the service of realism is a real problem. Put bluntly, Brize’s touch is so light that it’s immeasurable.

So many documentaries about artists just want you to accept that their subject is an innovator. De Palma breaks it down and shows you why he is.

A dopey splatterfest that features one-dimensional characters and a draggy first act that’s eventually won over by creatively immature gross-outs and absurd violence.

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

By the end of this 89-minute film, I was absolutely on the edge of my seat. Not due to suspense, but due to my utter disdain for the infantile plotting.

While the subject matter is enraging, the film is not without warmth and occasional levity.

The bulk of The Intern is a morass of wackiness, a chain of sequences shot in a flat and predictable manner that range from tedious to idiotic.

What Meadowland refuses to do, to its great credit, is conform to expectations.

Gitai has chosen stylistic cinema over propaganda, and he is a director who regularly gets bogged down a bit in form.

Naishuller’s technique is one that could be well served as a shorter gimmick; a solitary action scene in a larger film. Hardcore is unrelenting and unforgiving in its commitment to be loud, fast, destructive and gross.

Maddin’s zeal for old cameras and stocks is matched only by his revelry in evoking an entire genre with a single image. The film’s apogee literally opens up The Book of Climax in a sequence of pure, knowing cinematic joy. Film-lovers, this ludicrous movie is for you.

It’s a quiet, deliberately paced film, but exquisitely shot, with nuanced performances and visual invention.