Michael Ordoña

Not much happens in the understated British comedy Days of the Bagnold Summer, and that’s rather the point. It’s a truthful and sometimes moving slice of life (and cake) elevated by vivid lead performances.

It will surprise none of Merlant’s fans that she gives herself over to the role. Whatever you think of Jeanne’s attachment, Merlant lets you in on Jeanne’s feelings. You believe this really matters to her.

Breaking News in Yuba County lacks both the form and substance to cash in on its acting assets.

While the movie is hit and miss, under the rookie’s direction, several veteran actors still turn in solid work.

Rams isn’t earth-shattering, but real-feeling and engaging, with a strong cast and fine sheep and a good dog.

M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity succeeds where so many documentaries about artists fail: It provides real insight into the art. It’s a welcome trip for those fascinated by his iconic, mind-bending depictions of illusions, evolutions and eternal cycles.

No Man’s Land comes out of the blue to comment memorably on the immigration crisis by simply giving human life its due. It’s wise and empathetic and worth a watch.

The Marksman is more drama than thriller, but really more old-fashioned western than anything else — and a familiar one at that.

Beautiful Something Left Behind, which won the documentary award at last year’s South by Southwest Film Festival when the film was called “An Elephant in the Room,” serves as a snapshot of kids in emotional crises, but sadly, little more.

While Fatale isn’t special, it’s better than most specimens of the genre due to its turns (again, I recommend skipping the trailer — which also makes it look like a differently made film, one using bolder cinematic techniques) and Swank’s exploration of her character.

If it’s an Ip Man adventure you’re looking for in which he’s a full-on superhero, this one exists. Just know you’re getting the B Team.

The movie is Barrymore’s, of course. Even after the initial jolt of seeing her as a cursing hellion and an ambitious hanger-on wears off, she does not disappoint.

It’s smart and engaging once it gets going and presents a tense, fun labyrinth for viewers to navigate. One just wishes the cheese at the end were more rewarding.

There’s much to like about the road-trip comedy Half Brothers. It’s funny, smart, topical and even touching at times. But it’s hard to overcome the inescapable rot at its center.

The new David Bowie biopic Stardust could be marketed as “Bowie as you’ve never seen him,” but it feels like “Bowie as no one ever saw him.”

Chloe’s determination and smarts make Run much more enjoyable to watch than the vast majority of specimens of the genre. She credibly thinks her way through problems. When things are dire, she ratchets up her courage — and Allen sells us on it all.

In Embattled, the human side feels explored, as if the film could have been made without the MMA scenes and still been a worthwhile watch. But it does have those adrenaline-injecting fights, so … all the better.

The new Margot Robbie vehicle Dreamland seems to be about legends, the price of escape, maybe unreliable narrators — but ends up not saying much about any of them.

The ending that seems meant to be wistful, even magical, reads instead as appalling, lamentable, gloomy, however you want to say “the opposite of wondrous and happy.”

If tension was the filmmakers’ aim, they decisively miss — especially if it was meant to come from the puzzlingly casual sniper situation. Any possibility of buying into the story’s reality is defused by the soldiers being so dang gabby, and loudly so.

It’s an insightful, deeply felt film that lets us in on a personal evolution.

The film mixes horror elements with surreal fantasy and the crushing realism of a serious family drama. It’s metaphorical, vague but also precise in its specificity for the horrific trials these people are to face — their personal hell.

It isn’t exactly terrifying, but is well-acted and sinister enough to rise (levitate ominously?) above the pack.

The Informer isn’t bad. It’s just nothing special. It relies too much on familiar elements. It’s the same throbbing score, the same expected betrayals and the same smiling, sadistic bad guys.

“Wolfboy” is a compassionate film with some insight into being different and into the destructiveness of letting the world’s unkindness shape one’s self view.

If scares are the movie’s raison d’etre, though, it’s hard to imagine Spell will frighten anyone but those vulnerable to a few bits of graphic gore.

In such troubled times, one supposes there’s comfort to be found in the lack of adventurousness of Holidate, but it’s like opening the same present again and again.

Little attention is paid to the vernacular or physicality of the period. The depths of emotions aren’t plumbed.

Cinematically, it draws influence from Terence Malick, but in a good way. It’s atmospheric, but not at the expense of emotion and humor.

It’s one of those pseudo-thrillers with car chases and shootouts in which it’s hard to invest yourself because its rules seem fungible.

The Kid Detective is an unexpected mix of disparate elements that in the wrong hands could have resulted in lumpy parody but, fortunately, pours out as something smooth, funny, dark and potent.

The “pranks” just aren’t funny. The whole premise isn’t funny.

Aggie is a well-made portrait of an admirable woman you come away feeling you’d like to meet.

There are nagging narrative gaps and some jumping around — while that’s a bit jarring, one supposes it’s apropos for the film’s handmade feel. This isn’t an official document; it’s a fan’s eyewitness account.

Is Faith Based the answer to the prayers of comedy-starved movie buffs? Not entirely, but it’s no plague of locusts, either.

It’s refreshing to come at the spy genre from a different angle and rewarding to be introduced to these extraordinary women. Just don’t expect a pulse-pounder or even a particularly atmospheric, experiential film.

You forgive much due to obvious budgetary constraints. But the excruciatingly slow, soapy storytelling stifles emotional energy. It’s not easy to follow, hampered by severe logical lapses. Character threads abruptly drop. How anyone feels about anyone is unclear at any given moment.

While the result may be scattershot at times, the achievements of these badass professionals are worth a look — especially if, like this writer, you believe an Oscar category for stunt performers is long overdue.

The point of DiMaria’s absorbing and passionate documentary is there was much more to his uncle than being one of the “others” in an infamous murder spree.

The Eight Hundred fetishizes martyrdom, but for those seeking big-screen, epic violence, it’s pretty much the only game in town.

In a pandemic, some might call the film a beacon of hope; others might prefer science to prayer for salvation. As a piece of cinema, though, Fatima is unlikely to be canonized.

As the film focuses more tightly on [Ressa], it becomes a more gripping document. And it certainly is gripping, as the cloud of menace threatening her becomes firmer.

It’s full of missed opportunities and lacking in telling details.

A breezy, energizing and fun look at the hip-hop and improv theater collective

Nothing here is especially revealing or deep; but the doc is pleasantly positive, and it does have something to say about how the expectations for dads today are higher than ever.

What emerges is a chilling portrait of what happens when people in power just ignore sociopolitical norms and behave as though the rules don’t apply to them.

The story of that one miserable shoot is still a useful way to consider both the brilliance of Sellers and the damage he wrought, as well as demonstrating the ludicrous leeway granted to celebrities and the ways that obvious warning signs of possible mental illness often went unheeded.

Like a lot of recent documentaries about the overdue reckoning for sexual predators in positions of power, Athlete A is a reminder that the rot is sometimes within the system itself, not just within the criminals it benefits.

The whole point of this illuminating and often moving film is that all of these people have a tale to tell — and one that’s not as simple as Hollywood would have it.

Without a more probing look into her artistry, it’s hard to think of Olympia as a definitive Dukakis profile — though it’s certainly an unusual celebrity documentary.

Perhaps, despite its lack of structure, the film will inspire a new generation to investigate this funny lady who could sing the lights out.

The slapstick generally works and the movie milks Bautista’s sheer size and roughness, compared with tiny Coleman’s crafty fearlessness. Much of the story is telegraphed, but it’s not about shocks or surprises. It’s a charming diversion stocked with people who are fun to watch.

Unfortunately, the movie’s thriller elements amount to pale reflections of many other works.

The film fails to coalesce largely because viewers are left to wonder what joins the couple in the first place.

While it’s sometimes dizzying in its visuals or its joy, it’s often not cute. It can be fun, even exhilarating. It can also carry the emotional impact of loss.

The film drifts from grown-up to kid problems with mostly anecdotal evidence but very little science to back it up. It tries to cover too much ground in 71 minutes without going deeply into any of the areas it lightly explores.

Tammy’s Always Dying is a richly observed comedy-drama. Johnson’s direction is intelligent and restrained.

The film’s bright colors and blaring happy music may not be enough for viewers to overcome the rather unfunny themes of neglect (“Back up the abuse caboose”) routinely excused in more engaging fare.

The handcrafted feel of the film is mainly a virtue, setting it apart from the vast majority of animated fare.

It almost works as food porn when we spend some time in Chico’s kitchen, but we never linger long enough for the experience to marinate.

The filmmakers cast several comic performers — Adam Pally as the dad, Tichina Arnold as the grandmother, Ken Marino as the bad guy — but there aren’t really opportunities for them to shine. Arnold seems to have the most fun with it. The Main Event, sadly, never gets off the mat.

What results is an emotional appeal that highlights a grave problem but doesn’t give the viewer the scientific, factual foundation to be completely convinced. The film also doesn’t offer solutions.

One suspects Inside the Rain is a labor of love. One wishes its makers would have let us in enough to love it as well.

Dosed works best as a purely anecdotal, personal chronicle of a friend’s struggle with addiction therapies. It is not recommended as a substitute for scientific conclusions.

The story is struck from a familiar template: inactive protagonist, dead parent, worries about popularity, a regional competition looming. But the film distinguishes itself from there, largely due to the direction of “Fast Color’s” Julia Hart.

Perhaps the slickly made documentary overstates the cultural impact of a little-seen and widely disliked film. However, it earns points for scraping at the surface of something rarely discussed in film fandom — homosexuality in horror.

The film is well-intentioned and rooted in harrowing real-life stories. Unfortunately, it’s made in the style of British television, with cinematic clichés that telegraph outcomes. The heavy-handed use of music, in particular, is intrusive.

The gags are often better in theory than practice.

Apparently, at least 400 women fought as men during the Civil War, but the perplexing Union is not the exploration they deserve.

Interesting and timely, The Red Sea Diving Resort highlights the plight of refugees and casts those helping them in a heroic light, but it doesn’t quite deliver dramatically.

Sometimes the cheekiness works and sometimes the empowerment theme feels forced.

The film, based on Romain Puértolas’ novel, has clever touches and is consistently engaging, if meandering.

The film gets laughs from a script emphasizing Steve’s awkwardness and the soundtrack’s use of ’80s power ballads. Of course, nothing in it is as endearing as the birds themselves. The mere sight of their fat bodies waddling across the ice gets the warmest response of all.

Highwaymen captures, through the eyes of common people, the perceived rebel spirit that made the couple folk heroes during the Great Depression. It establishes through wardrobe and production design how rough that era was. It’s not just a setting; it’s a grim and desperate worldview.

It’s light on the science and heavy on the action.

The dialogue is often stiff, the action and plotting unlikely, making the romance hard to swallow. The appealing Uddin and Raymonde do generate enough chemistry in their fleeting time together to keep the proposition afloat.

The action is violent and improbable but not staged with particular pizazz.

The enjoyment one wants from GIs fighting these creatures is stunted by the film’s lack of energy and imagination.

There's also no point in paying the 3-D ticket price for occasional bits of gristle flying your way, or blurry action shots. Whereas the first "Saw" got marks for originality, the filmmakers have so lost their fastballs that this one's extreme gore provokes either laughter or sleep.

Doesn't offer moviegoers one obvious message, but rather a complex and considered glimpse into a rarely seen world, one of utter absurdity and horror.

Only 97 minutes but feels much longer. It suffers from a marked lack of energy, a condition not cured by its many, many pop-music-scored montages.

The subject is absorbing, but the lack of differentiation in dramatic levels makes the film feel longer than its 126 minutes.

You don't go to this film for Sorkinesque repartee; you go for the world's longest chainsaw, or equal-opportunity genital mutilations, or very, very long bludgeonings. And here they are, in buckets.

For most, there will be no adrenaline rush from fear or thrill, or vicarious release from seeing tormentors tormented; one leaves feeling sad. Sad that this is what "entertainment" has come to. Come on, filmmakers. Can't you do better?

(A)beautifully shot, fascinating film.

If you're interested in this movie, it's because you love either seeing zombies explode (check), the video games (major character included, check) or Jovovich kicking undead butt in every conceivable way (check and mate).

In its mix are ethical quandaries in biotechnology, nature versus nurture and an adorable-sexy-disturbing monster. So there's that. But it wins best in show by focusing on one of the weirder relationship triangles in recent memory.

Chain Letter is a nonsensical, bloody mess that, well, is missing a few links.

The flesh-and-blood protagonists are powerful, driven people caught in a riptide.

The film of Howl, like its source material, is undeniably brave, committed and inventive.