Keith Uhlich

The journey is often challenging, but the rewards—heady, emotional, provocative and invigorating—are endless.

They have little feel for the technical side of filmmaking; the imagery is flat and the editing amateurish. Most shots seem held for a beat too long or too short, wreaking havoc with the comic rhythm. Nonetheless, McCarthy and Falcone’s attempts to make Tammy more flesh-and-blood than a figure of fun are often poignant.

Here, though, everyone involved seems above the rom-com conventions they’re satirizing, so anxious to get to each punch line that they let the connective tissue languish. You howl often but quickly forget why.

False moments far outweigh the genuine ones, be it smarmy Dan’s indisputable genius (he’s such a stubble-sporting rebel, he refuses to wear suits) or the bogus anticorporate finale that leaves an especially slick aftertaste.

This is a movie that preaches to its rafters-raising choir.

Rohmer has a genius for taking a seemingly mundane situation and slowly tightening the screws.

Imagine "Goodfellas" without much in the way of stakes, and you’ll get Clint Eastwood’s pleasingly square and forgettable adaptation of the Tony-feted 2006 jukebox musical.

Like :Carnage,: it’s a bit of a minor lark until a deliciously grotesque finale pushes it into the realm of such kinkily profound Polanski films as: Cul-de-sac: (1966) and "The Tenant" (1976). By that point, you can’t help but submit to the perversity.

Things quickly fall apart, with a pileup of sub–Rod Serling narrative twists, a choppy action sequence heavy on the Michael Bay slo-mo and a sequel-ready climax that reveals the whole project as little more than a feature-length calling card.

The main talking point of this empty-headed thriller from Mexican director Amat Escalante is a sure-to-be-notorious instance of penis incineration — a dubious distinction.

Hellion aims to cut deep, striking a tone that melds the hysterical moralism of Larry Clark’s Kids (1995) with the coming-of-age melancholy of Mud’s Jeff Nichols (also this film’s executive producer).

Only Jones seems most at home, striking just the right note of low-key malevolence. You’d follow him anywhere — maybe even into a better movie.

Bellocchio counters these flaws with an energetically combative aesthetic (he makes you feel like you’re riding out a sociopolitical tempest, careening between perspectives) and an overarching humanism that gives equal weight to the many feelings stirred up by this hot-button situation.

It goes off the rails early and often. You almost have to give it props for how resolutely batshit it is. Almost.

The script—which Jones, Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley Oliver adapted from Glendon Swarthout's 1988 novel—shifts uneasily between tragedy and comedy.

It’s nice to see this great filmmaker sculpting something that feels genuinely revelatory. That’s not to say that the 3-D Goodbye to Language is always an easy sit.

Once Miller lays all his cards on the table, however, you realize you haven’t been watching people struggling with the very real temptations of unchecked privilege, so much as fumbling blindly in a glib, gloomy satire of American exceptionalism.

Nicholas Wrathall’s documentary—rough-edged in style, yet anchored by pointed and poignant interviews with the man himself — is mostly for those already fascinated by Vidal’s colorful life.

Mostly, though, this Creek has run dry.

You may often find yourself second-guessing the film, questioning how—and if—it will all come together. But by the time of the intense and impassioned climax, a storm of emotion is ensured: a great movie rising before you like a delusion, like a dream.

What keeps you watching is the charisma of the performers: Hamm does an amiable riff on his Don Draper persona (he’s cynical before the big melt), Lake Bell is a delight as his tart-tongued love interest, and Sharma and Mittal are all charm as the cultures-uniting underdogs.

Fortunately Coppola’s sensitivity is always evident, especially in the open-hearted performances she gets from Roberts and Kilmer (whose father, Val, has a funny, pot-addled cameo).

Marvin Kren’s enjoyable if ephemeral horror movie gets by for a while on its dopey premise.

The whole sorry enterprise leaves you feeling, well, shafted.

It’s unfortunate that Stelling and his cast aren’t able to lift the story much above mawkishness.

Fortunately, a few striking sequences break up the tedium.

You could hardly ask for a more beautiful vision of souls in transit.

Yet Green, as is his wont, too often strains for poetic effect through flowery voiceover and tone-deaf interactions — like those between Joe and his latest short-term girlfriend — that undercut the genuineness.