Michael Nordine

Monaghan and Foxx, for all their gifts, can't transcend the material, though they do get more out of it than most others would be able to.

Beach Rats has an experiential, almost docudrama aesthetic whose lived-in authenticity is in keeping with that of the film as a whole.

[Cox and Hirsch] add depth and dimension to the mystery they’re trying to unravel, even and especially as they unwittingly become part of it.

The main enticement is getting to see Cage go full bore. And he does, gesticulating wildly and assuming an unplaceable accent, but as the only combustible element in this otherwise lackadaisical film, his energy ends up bouncing around with nowhere to go.

The plot is that most dreadful of mixes: both laughably silly and needlessly complicated.

Not since The Tree of Life has Christianity been explored onscreen in such serious, conflicted terms, but Scorsese has crafted a far less grandiose experience than Terrence Malick did five years ago. Silence is restrained, austere, even ascetic.

The film mounts a competent offense as it shows how the Israeli squad overcame superior foes on the court and prejudice off of it.

It's like an odd storybook you'd find in the attic and have trouble putting down — the more quixotic Lian's journey becomes, the more you want her to see it through to the bitter end.

Rob Zombie can do better than 31. For proof, just watch any other Rob Zombie movie.

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.

The Whole Truth stands out within its evergreen genre for the largely unsensational manner in which it’s presented. Hunt follows actual courtroom procedures more closely than most similar movies...which makes the eventual revelations feel earned.

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.

Brazil might not want you to know it, but Aquarius is something special.

The Girl on the Train, though an enjoyable enough ride, goes idle once it slows down long enough for you to take in the full view of things.

Blair Witch’s comparatively maximalist approach shows too much and scares too little.

"Louis Drax” is a curious melding of sensibilities, as eager to show off its mysteries as it is to neatly resolve them. It’s a pleasant enough reverie, but one from which you won’t mind waking.

Don’t Breathe makes a striking first impression but overstays its welcome.

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

Louis Black explores the casual philosophizing of his subject's work in Dream Is Destiny, an admiring documentary that wisely lets Linklater do most of the talking in his plainspoken, unpretentious manner.

The film's premise rests on one contrivance too many as it is...and Heder keeps raising the stakes instead of settling into the groove established so well by her two leads.

Clay Tweel’s Gleason documents the agony and the ecstasy of its subject’s life, and is similarly exceptional in its avoidance of the cliches so common among inspiring documentaries.

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

Little of what happens will come as a surprise, but Corbet's narrative restraint coupled with his formal daring makes for a gripping experience. It's a slow burn, but the fuse attached had me holding my breath.

The film's most worthy detour is into the history and personal significance of masks.

The strange, ever-changing result is, at times, as original as loose remakes come, with Bidegain using his hallowed source material as a springboard for something rare: a "writer's movie" that loses nothing in the jump from script to screen.

They're still thirteen-year-olds, which leads to Breaking a Monster's funniest moments.

Tickled inspires many laughs throughout but, true to its subject, more and more of them are born of discomfort as it goes on — part of you wants it all to stop even as you’re amused.

You might not want to live here, but the imagery makes for a nice postcard.