Kimberley Jones

With the documentary Ballet 422, Lipes’ first return to dance after notable narrative cinematography work (on TV’s Girls and the upcoming Trainwreck, among other projects), he’s somewhat boxed himself into a corner with the cinema verité directive to capture the moment and keep out of the way.

The issue of late-term abortions tends to inspire polemics from both sides of the debate; Shane and Wilson’s approach – sensitive, measured, workmanlike – is a welcome one.

Interstellar is riddled with ridiculisms; the but how comes … never stop. And yet: Nolan, a notoriously chilly filmmaker who’s never shown much faculty with matters of the heart, is pinning that heart squarely on his sleeve.

The easy, fast-talking rapport between the four young women is The Sisterhood’s biggest selling point. Too bad, then, that the premise demands they spend most of the film away from each other.

Indeed, the largely computer-generated Jack acts the pants off his co-stars, which can and should be taken with a whole trough full of salt.

A Most Violent Year is its own thing, hypnotic and exacting and as subtly savage as mellow-voiced Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler),” which opens the film and sets the tone. I was fully in thrall to it all.

Wu quite simply is a stunner. Best known for playing the tough-love matriarch from ABC’s "Fresh off the Boat," she betters the book version of Rachel by making her earthier, steelier, and more playful.

In terms of a pre-teen instructional, Sleepover offers throughout a laudable emphasis on the importance of friendship, but parents may rightfully flinch at a protagonist who is ultimately rewarded for breaking all the rules.

Harper and Will both come off like good eggs, and the tears wept on both sides – about the decades of deep pain Harper felt denying her true identity, and the terrible realization for Will that he was blind to that pain – are liable to goose sincere tears of your own.

Roberts, wearing that beatific half-smile of hers that suggests inner peace and wisdom before she's even begun her journey, is too open-faced with her emotions to signal the complexities of Gilbert's distress – over her divorce, her control issues, her rootlessness, and inability to live in the moment.

Lee makes the material his own, for better and for worse.

She Said is a respectful, serious-minded effort that works so hard not to sensationalize the material, it works against its dramatic impact.

A thriller wants to entertain you. Little Woods wants you to think, and feel. I did both.

Despite the notable camp value of Blanchett channeling Gloria Swanson, Cruella de Vil, and an extraterrestrial succulent plant, the doomy villain thing is rote.

What struck me more was the film’s interpretation of Bailey’s coming of age not as something to be mourned or that comes on too soon. Instead, it’s an activation.

Burrus has a face that does all the talking for him -- deep creases, sad eyes, and a gray hue that hangs over him like a rain cloud. It's a remarkable performance.

There’s gore, all right, although the real terror lies in the tease, and the often dark, herky-jerky DV format ratchets up the tension to an almost unbearable degree.

It’s an ugly place to be stuck for two hours: a credible depiction of human nature at its worst, sure, but not an especially illuminating one. Still, there’s nerviness here, and undeniable skill. I’d like to see what Domont does next.

Inelegant but not uninteresting, Ramen Heads is a bronze contender at best.

If I may presume: Thatcher probably would have preferred more action, less talk.

There’s an undeniable thrill to watching something so experimental and yet totally accessible to those of us who speak only layman’s Dylanese, and it’s Haynes’ warmest film yet.

Forget life lessons: I much prefer a lemur king doing the robot.

It's the tortoise and the hare, Nepalese-style, and it's surprisingly dramatic.

All herky-jerky camera movements and no pussyfooting around with the interior lives of these characters.

Bouncy with enthusiasm and freely tapping their generous reserves of movie-star charisma, Gosling and Blunt perfectly embody the rhetorical question at the heart of this genuinely tender ode to the industry and its undersung practitioners: Aren’t movies the best?

If the film’s conclusion reads a touch too much like a sales pitch, I didn’t mind; the Chesters’ thoughtful approach to living in harmony with nature is one we should all buy into.

Forget divining who’s predator and who’s prey. Everybody’s chum here.

Cornish, in her first film seen stateside, is astonishing.