Mark Olsen

The effects may be cheap and unconvincing, the sets spare, the costumes from some unwanted back rack, but Argento still brings enough moments of kinky madness to his not-great "Dracula" to indicate there may yet be greatness lurking within him.

A messy brew that is a bit too slack to get all the way to actually being good.

One Direction: This Is Us is not the raw confessional that title might imply but rather both a primer and new product presentation.

Audacious and witty, The World's End is a strange brew.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is just a sloppy rag bag of ideas cobbled from other stories.

There was a time when the slack storytelling, stock characterizations and general by-the-numbers feeling of the film could be put into perspective by saying it seemed like a TV biopic. But even TV movies are done with more verve than this these days.

Kick-Ass 2 is a lesser version of what it appears to be, an uncertain jumble rather than a true exploration of outrage, violence and identity.

Anyone who longs for the old, weird films of John Waters or the psychotronic freak-outs of New York's Cinema of Transgression school should be able to get their fix from Pig Death Machine.

Blood feels perfunctory, needing something besides fussy plotting to jolt it to life.

Breaking the Girls isn't exactly a throwaway, but more an extended act of teasing foreplay, a movie that is fine for what it is but also never really shifts into something more.

Just as with the 2011 film "The Smurfs," the new The Smurfs 2 is a passable mediocrity.

Drumming is able to swing from lighter comedic moments to dramatic insights while making it seem effortless.

The entire film has an oddly underdone quality to it, as if aiming not for greatness but to simply be passable.

Solidly done if somewhat unremarkable, there is nothing particularly wrong with "Broken," nothing that needs fixing exactly, and yet it never fully comes together.

Grown Ups 2 looks like it was a lot of fun to make. And the last laugh is on us.

With continued arguments and legislation over fracking, this follow-up seems inevitable and necessary.

The movie feels like a flakey, off-the-cuff blog post that somehow transmogrified itself into a feature-length documentary.

Painfully lugubrious, any sting Copperhead might contain for its contrarian's view of history is undone by its wayward sense of storytelling.

With a fun post-credits gag to round it off, 100 Bloody Acres is great summer counterprogramming for anyone who wants to unwind with a bit of bloody fun and goofball gore.

Even if you may not be putting a Pussy Riot song on your next playlist, there is something so of-the-moment and exciting about the group that Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer feels important, if not fully complete.

Make no mistake, "We Steal Secrets" is a sprawling, ambitious, major work — a gripping exploration of power, personality, technology and the crushing weight that can come to bear on those who find themselves in its combined path.

An infectious, warm comedy of family and communication and a promising debut as writer-director for Chism. These Peeples are people one should be happy to meet.

The film is, perhaps, intended as a deadpan burlesque of race and class and beauty ideals...but it plays more as a boorish, overextended punch line.

The Lords of Salem is like some queasy-making machine, a chamber piece of possession and madness that exerts a strange, disturbing power.

My Brother the Devil is a promising debut that marks El Hosaini as a filmmaker to watch, but one still very much in the developmental stages.

The Story of Luke is not a saga of epic proportions, but with a huge assist from Pucci's layered performance, takes a premise that could easily be movie-of-the-week sappy and finds a humanizing lightness.

It's unlikely the movie will gain the same ardent following as Raimi's debut, but it offers enough good-time gore, goofiness, scares and screams to leave an audience feeling a certain elated exhaustion.

Perry's ongoing disinterest in improving as a filmmaker is now seemingly part of his unshakable belief in himself, his insistence on doing his thing his way.

At times, Lipsky's storytelling is too cutely self-aware, trying too hard, making Molly's Theory of Relativity something of an intriguing, if not entirely successful, exoticism.

"Rubber" felt inventive and complex, but here Dupieux's absurdism is simply muddled, masking the fact he doesn't really have much to say.

Family Weekend is no worse than many of the dysfunctional family comedies that populate the Sundance Film Festival — "Little Miss Sunshine" is name-checked within the movie itself — but isn't any better either.

With good intentions and a warm heart but undone by uneven performances and shaky storytelling, Bob's New Suit never quite finds the right fit.

Though the film at times works scene by scene, Webley can't quite tie it all together. A disjointed jumble, The Kill Hole can't dig itself out.

The film has a sarcastic tone, like that of a friend who you never can tell is kidding or not, which eventually breaks through into a place of unexpected sincerity. Meeting this odd, idiosyncratic "Somebody" is a rare delight.

The film leans a little too heavily on Pineda's wide-eyed disbelief at his sudden turn of fortune, leaving a feeling that it could dig deeper into the history and dynamics of the band. Yet Pineda's ebullience is infectious, and Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey is a pleasant story of dreams coming true.

The Last Exorcism Part II is an effectively unnerving, slow-burn supernatural horror tale. The film is smartly different enough from the original to survive on its own, though it lacks some of the first film's sense of surprise.

Phantom is a relatively tight, gripping story told with efficiency that makes room for its fine roster of actors to explore old-fashioned ideas on honor and loyalty.

This is a movie that celebrates selfishness, stupidity and the mean-spirited insensitivity that goes along with it. We're better than this, America.

Really the biggest problem with Dark Skies is that Stewart can never quite decide just what story he is telling — a slow-burn horror parable or paranoid invasion flick — or whether to focus on this character or that, instead struggling to string together scares regardless of how they fit together overall.

Far from closing the case, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files opens up a whole new perspective, acknowledging the banal and the baffling.

The first "Ghost Rider" film, directed by Mark Steven Johnson, was sort of a fizzy goof, the kind of movie where you don't expect much and then think, "Hey, that was actually kind of fun." Spirit of Vengeance, though, is undone by increased expectations, as promising more only makes it feel they are somehow delivering less.

Though its elusive character is undoubtedly part of its strength, Dogtooth ends up feeling somehow like a dodge and a sidestep. As a film, it's pure and singular, but it's not quite fully formed enough to be what one could call truly visionary.

No disrespect to Bela Lugosi, but Klaus Kinski delivers a mesmerizing performance as the original vampire in Werner Herzog's hypnotic adaptation of the horror classic. [16 Feb 2014, p.D1]

There is much clattering and clanking plus a couple of songs; some of the gothic-inspired, neo-Victorian visuals are quite arresting; and the corpse bride herself is, dare one say, surprisingly hot. But the whole thing just isn’t much fun.

Intermittently fun, but mostly just efficiently passable.

It's so playful, wicked and unseemly, by the time you realize that the actual plot of this brilliantly sordid satire hasn't started, the party is already over.

Anchored by two fine performances, this bittersweet comedy about second chances just might signal a new beginning for the director as well.

It'll give fans exactly what they expect while passing unseen by anyone else.

It all misses the mark emotionally, hindered by one-dimensional characters and telegraphed developments.

There is something fun about a movie that so brazenly portrays excessive pot smoking.

Wilding's genuine curiosity about the monks' beliefs and daily routines, as well as her willingness to ask questions that sometimes make her look like a bit of a dip, gives the film a homespun honesty and sincerity that make it a surprisingly pleasant trip.

If, for whatever reason, you do find yourself watching it, you may begin to ponder one of life's larger dilemmas: the fact that something can be done does not necessarily mean it should be done.

It's like a musical with no big numbers, or an action film withholding the explosions.

It's Lawrence who throws Runteldat (as in "run and tell that") off key, repeating an admonition about "the trials and tribulations of life" that sounds suspiciously insincere coming, as it does, from a guy smothered in diamonds.

The plot frequently resets/realigns itself in the fashion of "Lost" or "Alias," as good guys become bad guys, friends become enemies, and combatants become lovers. To portray confusion and uncertainty is one thing; to make a film this unsure of itself, wracked by its own faulty footing and reticence, is quite another.

Just because the filmmakers have their roots in the Midwest doesn't give them a pass when it comes to their stereotypical rendition of small-town people and ways, chock-a-block with sadistic cops, shotgun-toting locals, and strippers from up in Des Moines.

A disappointing hodgepodge that fails to tie up its conflicting strands of family drama and suspense thriller.

There’s not really a bogeyman in The Orphanage and not much blood; just insane intensity and a building sense of bad vibes.

Tamara simply doesn't cover all the bases in its drive to be both a grubby teen splatter flick and a more high-minded thriller.

Watt seems to want to say something about the role of fate and happenstance in creating connections between people, but she never quite brings the strands of her ideas together.

Going Down is woefully lacking in the comedy (or the sex for that matter), and even some of the teens look a little long in the tooth.

Pretension, in its own way, is a form of bravery. For this reason and this reason only -- the power of its own steadfast, hoity-toity convictions -- Chelsea Walls deserves a medal.

The film does, in the end, raise something of an existential dilemma: If you set out to make a new version of something you know to be bad, and you make something that is in fact bad, have you somehow succeeded?

Frankly, the story behind Manna From Heaven is a truckload more interesting than the movie itself.

Recut and reassembled at just a little over two hours, the new version of the film is a staggering and bracing object, stylistically bold and hypnotically captivating.

The film essentially grinds along in second gear. A promising debut, Dirt Boy nevertheless fails to fully deliver.

Various actors deserving of better (including Zooey Deschanel, Eddie Griffin and Lyle Lovett) suffer through the undercooked material, while love interest Eliza Dushku gamely gets through both a bikini-modeling montage and a mechanical bull ride, but none of their efforts can save this film.

Cholodenko's new film relies on easy caricature over true character such that the film fails to build emotional momentum or resonance.

When Plympton isn't indulging his manias, the film just sort of nods off, and nothing much happens -- either visually or storywise -- for what seems like ages.

What at times feels like a maniacal romp becomes just another sporadically funny, but mostly lame, piece of disposable product.

The laugh always comes first, and Myers' puppy-dog tenacity to that cast-iron tenet of low comedy, disarming and even somewhat charming in the first film, now has an air of careerist desperation about it.

Okuda creates that slightly surreal atmosphere of ghost-town emptiness that will be familiar to fans of Takeshi Miike, but he infuses it with a romantic's sense of deep yearning.

Snappy, fun and outrageously irreverent, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the work of someone with nothing to lose, which is only to the audience's gain.

Roaming freely between comedy (which mostly works) and drama (which mostly doesn't) before settling on trite sentimentality, the film may not be an altogether unpleasant way to pass the time, but, ultimately, the innocuous Captain Pantoja doesn't earn its stripes.

And whenever the film shifts from spunky "let's put on a show" fun to overly earnest drama, it slows to a crawl, with mawkish performances that fail to rise above the soggy material.

Chai's structure and pacing are disconcertingly slack. Missing the loose ends and ambiguities of actual conversation, the dialogue makes characters sound like they're delivering speeches rather than interacting.

Undiscovered is beaten on all counts by TV’s "Entourage" and "Unscripted" in its portrayal of the aspirational lifestyle and its end-of-the-rainbow spoils.

There is a great divide between a film about people in the throes of aimless, meandering lives and a film that is simply aimless and meandering. Smokers Only never acknowledges, let alone bridges, that gap.

Watching Americano is like hearing a long story about someone else's holiday, and while it seems everyone had a nice time, it's too bad they didn't shoot a better film while they were there.

Gores certainly seems to be enjoying himself, and diplomacy and plain old good taste prevent one from saying much of anything about his screen performance. Arnold doesn't merit such kindness, nor does producer and director Penelope Spheeris, whose work barely rates above the level of rote competence.

Mo’Nique's character here is so underwritten that the actress doesn't get a chance to really capitalize on her extra screen-time. Her sassy forte may be talking so straight-up she sounds crazy, but she seems a little advanced to be doing "yo mamma" jokes.

The inventive and unpredictable May is exactly the kind of unexpected delight one hopes for every time the lights go down.

There may be an audience out there for any movie about gospel music, regardless of how bad it is, but as filmmaking or as drama, it's hard to imagine anyone singing the praises of this one.

If one were to parody Iranian cinema, packing into one film its common tropes and themes to the point of bursting, it would probably be a lot like Iraj Karimi’s Going By.

As the cop who finds himself in way over his head, kickboxer-turned-actor Conrad Pla turns in a performance of such staggering ineptitude that it almost (key word: almost) reaches a so-bad-it's-good, Plan 9 From Outer Space brilliance.

Doogal is one of those pickup-and-redub jobs, the original version having been made by European studio Pathé based on a 1960s British children’s show, "The Magic Roundabout." And lacking even the minimal pop-cultural pizzazz of "Hoodwinked," the story, dialogue and animation here really are for-kids-only.

Has moments of real interest, but they require wading through a lot of dead air.

Traub does her plucky best, coming off as part Judy Blume heroine, part post-WB hipster, and she provides the film with its few and infrequent moments of emotional truth.

The film has a hypnotic pull, drawing the viewer deeper and deeper into its enigmatic adventure by crafting a world all its own.

Director Erik Van Looy has filmmaking chops to spare, and while he has created a sharply shot and crisply paced film, he isn't able to make it all cohere.

It’s a tantalizing idea - a little rom-com sugar to help the Big Pharma exposé pill go down -but Slattery-Moschkau is simply not a writer of the caliber necessary to pull off that delicate balancing act.

The film works no matter which side of the racial divide you're on, because nothing unites an audience quite like making fun of everyone.

The makers of Lisa Picard Is Famous -- having mastered the obvious early on, set their sights on the unfunny and repetitive.

Relies almost exclusively on the gushing exuberance of Gooding Jr., and the aw-shucks factor of his digitally expressive, face-licking canine co-stars, leaving such potentially game actors as James Coburn and M. Emmet Walsh out in the cold.

With its chatty, overstuffed patter, Hoodwinked strains at the seams to look with it, like one of those dressed-alike Beverly Hills mother-daughter combos. Having said all that, the songs (yes, there are songs, too), mostly written by Todd Edwards, provide an unexpected bright spot.

Among the film's other drawbacks are how conventional it feels in its structure and strategy, often misguidedly going for the epic high-key feel of classic NFL Films on a low-key, DV budget.

Directed by Henry Hathaway and co-written by Charles Brackett, the picture, about a femme fatale who wants to kill her husband, could be seen as a "House of Gucci" predecessor -- starring Marilyn Monroe as she was coming into herself as a performer and star, and featuring Joseph Cotten with his blend of the suave and the sleazy. [25 Nov 2021, p.E1]

The sex-comedy-for-girls idea never quite takes off.