Michael Nordine

Lemelson's interviews can be repetitive in their direct staging, but there's inspiration in his conceit of using a shadow-puppet performance set to gamelan music as interludes.

Yet another documentary paean to an unsung musical act whose fringe staying power is as remarkable as its lack of mainstream coverage.

"Chapter 1” can’t help feeling like an ersatz imitation at times, but it seems the franchise’s well hasn’t run dry just yet.

[Sparrow] zigs where you expect her to zag (not always in the best of ways), and though I Remember You ends up exactly where you expect it to, the windy, circuitous path it takes doesn't feel like time misspent.

[Palermo] demonstrates an affinity for all things ethereal, even as he occasionally struggles to make space for himself in the long shadow of his estimable influences and reference points.

In their abstraction, a number of striking animated sequences prove more effective in conveying these horrors than the talking-head segments that contextualize them.

The movie’s ending is misguided to the point of being perplexing rather than upsetting, recasting everything that came before it in a less favorable light. That’s a shame, as this father-daughter drama starring John Cho has more than its fair share of touching moments before hitting the roadblock that is its questionable third act.

Armstrong, who's mostly played himself in previous forays into acting, has a low-key charm suggesting that, if he desired it, he could get more onscreen gigs in between albums.

The problem, then, is that too much of this is dispiriting without also being enlightening — the view Gallardo takes is almost that of a bird’s eye, showing much from an emotional remove but revealing little beyond surface-level horrors and characters so numb to it all that we’re left with little choice but to feel the same way.

We Are X is nothing you haven’t seen before as a music documentary, but it succeeds as an examination of why we turn to escapist art, and what we do when it’s no longer there.

It's refreshing that director Jim Taihuttu is more interested in the humdrum goings on of those who split their time between illegal and legitimate activities.

Jung Jae-young gives a physical, full-bodied performance in the main role.

The film is frequently amusing but indulges too often in flights of fancy.

LeBlanc and Larter carry the day with a spectrum of charm missing from too many entries in this shaky, persistent genre.

Wa-shoku isn't as contemplative as Kanai and his acolytes, though it might still make you feel like a dilettante if your Japanese palate begins and ends with California rolls.

“Rise” is a serviceable — if also forgettable — entry in the cowabunga canon.

Too artfully made for camp status but populated by characters too one-dimensional to stand alongside the likes of Once Upon a Time in China, Chow Hin Yeung's martial-arts epic, set in the late nineteenth century, is marked by blue-gray hues and some genuinely striking camerawork.

The final result of all this, if a mixed bag, is still a more accurate rendering of the books' spirit than Oz the Great and Powerful.

Fear Street in general and the 1978 chapter in particular are at their best when forging their own path, which makes it a shame when they’re too reluctant to walk it.

While the movie itself is more whimsical than magical, it does have a few tricks up its sleeve.

Makhmalbaf makes you feel the enormity of the president's loss of self even if you don't actually feel for him.

If it’s easy to wish “Idea Man” were as bold as its subject, though, it’s just as easy to be won over by this deservedly heartfelt tribute to him.

Only You is mostly engaging for the ways in which it shows that prophecies reveal more about the receiver's interpretive biases than they do about the secrets of the universe.

Schlesinger seems in such a rush to guide us to the end unscathed that she sometimes loses sight of the small details that make this journey unique.

A film about individuals who refuse to be silenced could stand to take a few more chances itself.

It’s sci-fi informed by a Gen-Z sensibility, with a particular focus on those Zoomers who can’t imagine a bright future on the planet they actually inhabit — an ever-expanding demographic, one imagines.

Less is often more when it comes to depicting such rituals onscreen, and Smith is highly attuned to the simple power of, say, characters cryptically chanting under their breath.

In paring down and streamlining its source material, this new version also saps its heft.