Kevin Jagernauth

The characters in Pete Ohs delightful Erupcja are similarly caught between past and present in this summery, loose-limbed look at relationships under scaffolding.

Brad’s Status rarely affords its titular character an opportunity to have a real conversation with anyone else his own age, so the movie becomes a monologue from someone you quickly realize you don’t really want to get to know anyway.

Handsomely mounted, this is a period drama in which both unspoken demands and stated appetites drive the emotions that simmer below the surface from the first frame. And though this doesn’t transcend what you might expect from the genre, few movies are delivered with this much craft and care.

Sorkin’s swordsman-like pen continually keeps the picture engaging; his knack for one-liners and absurd dialogue detail remains finely attuned.

Yes, God, Yes is too comfortable with itself, too certain in its moral message, while leading Alice through a narrative that is never less than sure. It’s sex comedy as gospel, preaching a placid Sunday afternoon sermon to a congregation of the converted.

The narrative may hit all the markers, but its transparent attempts to wring emotion fail to move.

For all of the delightfully deranged places Primal could’ve gone, it stays drearily buttoned up.

An audience’s mileage for Hedda will depend on how much they enjoy watching what is little more than a parlour game between the pampered upper classes.

In substance, it might be Vigalondo’s most ambitious film to date. And while there’s a sense at times of his uncertainty in fully committing to the ideas on the page, in the moments when the conceptual component of “Colossal” is fully embraced, the results are truly chilling.

Big Game comes away with the distinction of being watchably terrible. There is a certain ridiculousness that is engaging, but this shouldn't be confused for merit.

Sisters never carries any feeling that De Palma is showing off or flexing his cinematic chops because he can, or is above the material. The film is utterly transfixing because it plays its schlock straight, and paired with Hermann’s hair-raising throwback score, the effect is giddy.

The latest from the prolific helmer is not so much slight as is it light, charming and funny by equal turns, with a pretty terrific performance by Huppert who seems to be having a lot of fun with the part(s).

While Lion isn’t the kind of drama that demands risky storytelling, it is one that has within it a whole world of emotional topography that is disappointingly scrolled over instead of mapped out.

It's a deeply humane and moving look at a complex issue that at the very least demands that a conversation begins not about short term fixes, but long term solutions.

Silveira sets herself up for a balance between realism and aesthetics that she can’t quite navigate.

Moving, rousing, funny and at times even haunting.

Lehmann’s real imprint isn’t found in the visuals, but in the performances evoked from both Duplass and Paulson. While the former may have the showstopper moments, it’s the latter who stands out.

What should be a gripping, true crime/mystery story gets often bogged down by a lack of focus from filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, who don't always realize the central saga can stand well enough on its own.

While the surface glance of the film does feature a standard array of American indie signifiers, it’s worth emphasizing again that Abbasi’s voice is distinct, and is sure to become more sharply defined as his career evolves.

Holland’s focused effort doesn’t let us forget the respect we owe to the writers behind the headlines and stories we idly click through that often come to us through great personal and spiritual risk.

While slight, the film’s genuine feeling and overall comedic consistency has enough breezy charm to make it go down easy and pleasurably.

Professor Marston And The Wonder Women tackles one of the most curious chapters of comic book history with an overly classy sheen.

Unlike some mock biopics or music documentaries that rely on a particular kind of specificity to succeed, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is universally, gloriously stupid. And that’s not a slight — it takes a considerable amount of smarts to make something that so winningly observes the ridiculous facade of the pop music sphere, but gives it a wide-ranging reach.

Totally bonkers, hilarious and wickedly clever, The Double is special and singular filmmaking at its best.

The documentary is often fascinating, even as it eschews any kind of traditional narrative.

The mileage will vary depending on how you've felt about the progression of the series so far, but if you're even mildly curious to find out what awaits the outrageous and exasperating Henry Fool, Ned Rifle is worth making some time for.

Your mileage with the movie will depend on how much you like these guys to begin with, because even if you're a fan, the one joke premise has a hard time sustaining a full length movie.

The young couple exists in a bubble of love that has an air of reality sucked right out of it.

Chappaquiddick hardly lands with the power of an exposé, and doesn’t bite hard enough to spur a reconsideration of the Kennedys. The film revives a chapter in Kennedy history, but what it means nearly forty years later is never quite clear.

The trio (Hoffman/Keener/Walken) give top shelf performances as we've always come to expect from them in A Late Quartet. But it's just too bad that they're in service of Yaron Zilberman's film, which takes the unique focus of a string quartet in Manhattan, and puts it in the middle of a standard and unsatisfying soap opera, that spins off into one subplot too many.

It's enjoyable and toe-tapping for what it is, but it's also extremely lightweight stuff.

There are a thousand stories to be told in the studios where these session players cut some of the greatest records of all time, which makes it disappointing that there isn't more to be found in the documentary The Wrecking Crew.

The sincerity and honesty of the stories within, as odd as they are, make The Final Member worth seeking out.

The film is not only one dimensional when it comes to its subject, but also of the time and place where Hendrix arrived.

The picture’s strength is in its honesty.

Somewhat spastic and overcooked, Seven Psychopaths might have a few too many.

It's the picture's lack of focus that eventually diminishes whatever little The Bling Ring has to say.

The Kid Who Would Be King blows the dust off an old tale, and makes it invigorating and inspiring for viewers who will be forming their own round tables of world-changers for generations to come.

Vanderbilt chooses to present the tale with a lighter comic touch in the early stages, and it’s a tone the picture can’t overcome in its final third.

Though given two committed turns by a tremendously sexy and vicious Arterton and a solid-as-always Ronan, Byzantium often feels as gray and lifeless as the corpses in the film.

Operating for much of its running time with an equal balance between guilty pleasure grittiness and decent father/daughter drama, the film’s conclusion tips toward the latter in an unconvincing shift toward sentimentality and Life Lessons that not only is out of place, but betrays John’s own code of stoic endurance.

It’s a film that desperately wants to upend the tropes of the comic book movie, but perhaps more shocking than anything that comes out of the mouth of its often obnoxious titular hero, is how blandly the picture sticks to the origin story playbook.

Spinning Plates navigates an industry that is more diverse and challenging than ever, but with this simple, fulfilling sampling, we learn that those behind the stove aim for the same kinds of rewards, accomplishments and satisfaction as their predecessors did.

The Good Lie is so manufactured around a particular dramatic blueprint that any sense of spontaneity, surprise and engagement are sucked right out of the picture.

Pawn Sacrifice certainly whips up a dervish of energy, and as a piece of dramatic entertainment, it's mostly engaging, and features character actors doing very good work.

screenwriter Amy Jump and director Ben Wheatley are less concerned with the message than with the madness, and their resulting picture is heavier on style than substance.

The Audition is a harsh, and often cheap, picture that offers a fragmented view of a family diseased by the pursuit of perfection, who yet enable the behavior to continue at the ongoing cost of their happiness.

Utilizing non-professional actors, and blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, Stop-Zemlia is a sympathetic portrait of the tidal forces of teenagehood. Yet, despite the film’s quiet sprawl and yearning ambition, Gornostai’s painstakingly observant eye never uncovers fresh insight into the thrumming heart of that transformative moment.

‘Jane Doe’ never aspires beyond the ordinary, and more crucially even fails to meet that modest standard. Lifeless and lackluster, ‘Jane Doe’ never draws blood.

A clever assemblage of archival and historical material that unfortunately doesn't quite go far enough.

It may not strike the political notes it wants to hit completely, and may fall just short of the impact it would like to achieve, but Medora provides a sweet, small tale of survival, not just of a high school basketball team, but of a town trying not to get eaten up by supposed progress.

Uncompromising and uncommercial, divisive and brave, Killing Them Softly bitterly boils at the state of the nation.

It's not the most complex WWII movie you'll see, but there's no denying the blunt intensity of Fury, and even if it doesn't sustain, Ayer commits to staring straight into hellish eye of war and bringing audiences along to witness every gruesome detail.

It's rare to see any blockbuster in any genre make decisions informed and driven by character, rather than by the more superficial requirements of blockbuster entertainment, but the rewards in that regard are plentiful in Mockingjay.

Formulaic, and at times a bit Sundance-by-numbers, it's still hard to deny that the charms of St. Vincent work even if you clearly can see the narrative machinery moving.

A drama crafted with precision, and feeling, West of Sunshine succeeds admirably with its modest ambitions, as the filmmaker puts himself on the horizon as one to watch.

Supermensch is a strong first outing from Myers that plays like that one round of drinks that gets everyone telling stories at the end of a boozy night.

Mr. Nobody is simply a failure.

Haphazard and on the edge of half-hearted, the documentary always feels like a sketch rather than a finished design.

For all the strong performances and able filmmaking, My Cousin Rachel never quite coheres.

Ozon wants to have it both ways with Young & Beautiful, using a young woman's risk-filled sexual awakening as an illustration of coming-of-age, while also demanding a realism from a situation that he keeps far from being rationalized and justified.

In Buster’s Mal Heart, many of the intriguing thematic ideas in the first half of the picture, are left adrift in favor of trying to keep the audience on its toes.

I'm Carolyn Parker isn't so much a movie title, as a "Spartacus"-like shout that, if we all embraced, would make us a better people and country.

While The Ones Below doesn’t make it over the finish line, Farr shows good instincts, and has an ease for creating tension without overt manipulation, while keeping everything engaging enough that you’re willing to overlook questions that nag after the credits roll.

Just as many sports movies before have done, and many more will after, Borg/McEnroe shines a light on the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. It’s just a shame that the movie itself doesn’t have the same ambition

With “Free Fire,” Wheatley wants to push his own limits of onscreen mayhem, taking things right to the line where most directors would pull back, and pushing everything right over. And what the director winds up doing is making a big, magnificent noise, one that will certainly see more than his core fanbase sitting up and paying attention.

While it's not close to the level of "Stories We Tell" in terms of commenting on the reliability of narrators and the cozy comfort of dishonesty to smooth over thornier life issues, the finale of "Elliot" is murky enough to leave folks guessing as to the true motivations of the entire film.

Since the music doesn't connect like it should, everything else that is underpinned in the story by these songs also doesn't come together with the weight or power Carney surely intended.

Ultimately, Ms. 45 is far more interesting and genuinely enjoyable (versus ironically enjoyable, as many of this vintage grindhouse flicks wind up being) than it has any right to be.

You might not understand what the hell is happening in Let The Corpses Tan, but you’ll certainly never be bored.

On Chesil Beach makes us consider the lives of the Florence and Edward as outside observers, but rarely takes us inside the complicated mix of desire and fear this pair is trying to untangle.

Both a disappointment and a missed opportunity.

There is enough of a simple charm to A Birder's Guide To Everything that there are worse things you could do with your hour and a half. The lead teens in particular give the material a realness that may not have been there on the page, and the filmmakers know enough not push the quaint story beyond the safe parameters it operates in.

Directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel aka The Mo Brothers, with a script by the former, what they lack in original or even compelling drama in Headshot, they make up for with the film’s multiple action scenes.

Patchy as often as its outright hilarious, fantastically outrageous just as frequently as its forgettable and flatlining, the sequel winds up a bit better than a second tier Ferrell outing.

Red Knot" is insightful in the way few first films are, and marks Cohen as a filmmaker to watch.

With Elysium, Blomkamp has made good on the promise of "District 9" and proven that working on a bigger canvas doesn't mean compromising on smarts or aspirations to deliver tentpole sized stories with a thoughtful backbone.

Though LaGravenese's faithfulness to the songbook is perhaps admirable, the results don't quite work cinematically.

Playing with genre is fine, but if you're going to create new rules, you have to play by them too, but unfortunately Warm Bodies continually subverts its own internal logic and basic, believable character motivation to keep pushing the movie along.

If its somewhat unfocused narrative comes at the cost of a picture that could be more cohesive and concise, it still gifts viewers with characters and an era that’s entertaining to explore.

According to Len, rock ‘n roll is "blood, bourbon, and napalm," and it’s exactly those elements that the film needs, but doesn’t provide.

My Blind Brother is mirthless, though Kroll and Slate have a delightfully easy charm that occasionally rises above the tedium.

Working off what appears to be a pretty decent script by Mark Poirier, who does a good job of juggling quite a few story threads and giving each enough attention and depth, Johnson's rigorous and formal approach doesn't allow for any sparks, let alone fireworks.

Heli is a despairing, bleak watch. It's a slow, but unrelenting look at one young man's punishing loss of innocence amongst a society that has already decayed beyond understanding.

Tracking the rise of each fighter, Champs underscores the incredible skill, talent and fortitude each had on their way to the top, however it never shies away from pointing out the systemic failures that let them down.

For all the assuredness behind the camera and in front of it, there's very little in way of edge or even, surprisingly, emotion.

Grigris is the unusual movie that takes a lead's obvious talents, and curiously backgrounds them, hoping for their charisma to carry over to more traditional cinematic purposes.

A minor effort at best, and disappointingly lacking a sense of energy or intent, Me And You is Bertolucci exercising his filmmaking muscles, but not flexing them.

Less a polemic than a portrait, If You Build It celebrates the flinty spirit that spurs problem solving and creativity (sometimes at the same time) with people not dedicated to a cause, but to people.

Always thoroughly pleasant, and that's entirely due to the cast, who all turn in breezy performances.

While it hardly reinvents the genre, it’s smart, sharp entertainment that meets expectations dead on, and provides a nifty little story told with just enough spark to make the familiar feel fresh.

August: Osage County is a film of big, wild gestures, plate smashing, screaming and tears, but not nuance, and it all has the effect of leaving one deadened, not moved.

The Keeping Room attempts a blend of sexual curiosity, home invasion horror and elegiac drama, that doesn't quite work, but whose ambitions are nonetheless compelling.

Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain both shine as the love interests for Jack and Forrest respectively, allowing those characters to have something beyond their business to be fighting for, with the skill of both performers allowing them to be more than just window dressing.

The problem is that the movie becomes more focused on diagnosis than character, and so what eventually unfolds is a meandering picture that only too late in the game leans toward highlighting any kind of thematic undercurrent while introducing romantic interests for the leads that do little but pad out an already too long running time.

Fading Gigolo is mostly an inoffensive trifle, slightly undone by its lack of focus and mishmash of genres that don't quite come together. But it's breezily told and acted, with some decent laughs and unlike many comedies these days, it actually cares and respects the characters and the consequences of what they go through.

Gemma Bovery attempts to bring new heat to an old story, but mostly winds up cooling on the sill.

The trick the director pulls off is that “Lace Crater” weaves a comedic touch throughout the film, keeps the audience compellingly off balance when it pitches toward horror, and puts together a picture that slyly has much more going on beneath its laid back surface.