Marc Savlov

Onward is neither terrible nor great; it simply is.

It doesn’t work, however, and the end result is one long yawn of mediocrity, devoid of any genuine suspense, hobbled by incoherent plotting, and ending on a note of goofy what-the-fuckery.

Meghie’s film is a paean to the push and pull between enchanting possibilities and chimerical probabilities. You don’t need to bring a handkerchief into the theater for fear of ocular leakage, but The Photograph’s modestly hopeful denouement is, truly, picture perfect.

Given the minimal – albeit excellent – cast and the film’s maximal rollercoaster of shifty mood swings and its increasingly paranoiac atmosphere of disorienting dread, it’s no wonder Come to Daddy lingers in the mind long after the final, emotionally revelatory denouement.

Television is reality, and reality is less than television. And that is, by the end of the 72-minute-long VHYes’ gleefully immersive, intermittently profound “found footage,” a lesson Ralph osmotically absorbs through the VHS viewfinder of his life.

Bad Boys for Life – while not as combustibly fun as the second installment – is fine, cheesy, Saturday afternoon mayhem, smoothly served with a heaping helping of “We’re all getting older.”

There’s nothing to fault animation-wise – Blue Sky’s penchant for migraine and/or dopamine-inducing color palettes and headlong pacing are consistently above par – but, for adults at least, the film’s mushy mediocrity can be a real drag.

Diehl’s performance is a model of restraint; he more often imparts information by a look, a glance, the slump of his shoulders, than he does with a spoken word.

Morrone is superb in the part, exuding a sort of saintly solitude while caught up in the midst of turmoil from within and without. Even at its most dire, Mickey and the Bear is tinged with an almost holy hope for all involved, a rare and remarkable feat to pull off so well for a first-time director indeed.

As if the dazzling performances and audaciously intertwined storylines weren’t enough, Waves is a visual stunner, too, thanks to director of photography Drew Daniels, whose restless, reckless camerawork paints a family tragedy in dizzying, near-psychedelic hues, mirroring the increasingly frenetic storyline.

The Good Liar is a pleasantly playful thriller hiding a seriously shady history close to its benighted heart.

The ensemble cast is uniformly first-rate, but Sachs' moribund movie is a slog – all those scenes of Frankie’s friends and family wandering through the woods made my feet hurt.

Midway does a decent job of cramming in not only the eponymous three-day naval battle between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy but also treats the audience to a wealth of other, related Greatest Generation’s greatest hits.

Absurdist humor abounds throughout a story whose underlying themes echo Elvis Costello’s eternal question, “What’s so funny ’bout peace, love, and understanding?” even as corpses dangle from a foregrounded gallows.

A wicked return to form for Murphy, who absolutely nails Moore’s straight outta West Hollywood brio and never-say-die single-mindedness. It's an often uproarious glimpse into microbudget filmmaking and the fearless badassery of the man they called Dolemite.

A pure cinematic experience like Monos is a rare and precious gem. Colombian director Landes has created a surreal, sumptuous assault on the senses that’s as lushly beautiful as it is unforgettable.

It’s both too much and not enough, an unsatisfying blood-and-guts B-movie with all the goonish, grindhouse fun eviscerated out of it.

Employing contemporary interviews with those who were there and a wealth of raw footage from the original events, Desolation Center illuminates a short-lived but absolutely momentous time when the Mojave beckoned, free of charge and front-loaded with anarchic artistic overload.

Riot Girls doesn’t disappoint in the mayhem department, and as a meta-story about female empowerment in an increasingly threatening “men's world,” this wild and woolly take on teen-angsters past would make Furiosa herself cheer.

You’ve got to hand it to director Andy Muschietti. Adapting any Stephen King novel – or, for that matter, shorter material – is always a hit-or-miss gig, but It Chapter Two manages to pull out all the stops and in several areas actually tops the first film.

There are plenty of great things to say about director Janice Engel’s portrait of the late, legendary Ivins, but maybe the best is that after watching Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins, you'll immediately want to go back and re-read all her books.

As in his previous documentaries, Brügger’s actions and tone are shot through with pitch-black gallows humor and dizzying moments of absurdist farce, equal parts Hunter Thompson, Michael Moore, and the great, self-effacing British journalist Jon Ronson.

Ultimately undone by some less than remarkable character development and an unnecessary, if currently contemporaneous, pseudo-political undertones. Which isn’t to say it’s not a blast to see Gammell’s eerie, Francis Bacon-esque illustrations come to herky-jerky and horrifying life, because it is, absolutely.

Once Upon a Time is an elegiac mash note to Hollywood 1969, at times sublimely, almost surrealistically moving while simultaneously managing to be the director’s funniest and least violent film to date.

This riveting documentary about powerhouse never-say-die Aussie yacht skipper Tracy Edwards is every bit as thrilling and emotionally grueling as "Mad Max: Fury Road." And it’s all true.

It’s the sort of movie that defines the term “summer doldrums” in a way few others have.

The decidedly defiant grande dame of African American literature is shown here as an intellectual and creative dynamo who, at the age of 88, shows zero signs of deceleration; if anything, she appears to be just getting warmed up. Haters beware.

Neither the worst nor the best of the Conjuring franchise, Annabelle Comes Home is only as creepy as it needs to be and no more. Keep your expectations low and you might just enjoy it.