Michael Rechtshaffen

Like “The Big Chill” and “Peter’s Friends” but without a single character you’d want to spend five minutes with, let alone a weekend, The Drama Club makes for a crassly unpleasant ensemble piece.

Summarizing the plight of the average working actor’s lot in three all-too-familiar words, No Pay, Nudity, is a tenderly observed, bittersweet comedy featuring a beautifully rooted Gabriel Byrne.

Although the beguiling spell begins to wear off before reaching its full two-hour length, the film’s got style for days thanks to Biller’s affection for classic — as well as not-so-classic — cinema.

Appealing equally to the eyes, ears, heart and funny bone, Moana represents contemporary Disney at its finest — a vibrantly rendered adventure that combines state-of-the-art CG animation with traditional storytelling and colorful characters, all enlivened by a terrific voice cast.

Apparition Hill is actually a compelling but unnecessarily long-winded sociological study about a group of adults recruited to watch for signs and wonders in a small village in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Flaming out from the get-go, Trash Fire represents another soggy batch of Southern Gothic horror-comedy from writer-director Richard Bates Jr. that spews out pitch black smoke with little combustible substance.

Rose’s pickles might have a pleasant snap, but there’s none to be found in the tired, limp shtick in Sheldon Cohn and Gary Wolfson’s screenplay, which has been choreographed at a lumbering, drawn-out pace by director Michael Manasseri.

The rehabilitative power of forgiveness is thought-provokingly explored in Ilan Ziv’s An Eye for an Eye.

Chief Zabu may have been buried for the past three decades, but this tiresomely talky would-be satire is no treasure.

Michael Mueller’s character-driven script is about the only thing that feels driven in this otherwise listless vehicle, and “The Beat Beneath My Feet” conveys all the pulse-pounding energy of a funeral procession.

One could say the mechanical direction leeches the energy out of virtually every sequence, but that would imply there was any there to begin with — and, although the young actors seem likable enough, their characters never credibly come to life.

The end result admittedly favors tone over substance, accentuated by Jeff Grace’s playful, mock Morricone score and character turns that affectionately flirt with conventions without giving way to outright parody.

Chockful of hoary archetypes making hokey observations...leading to a truly laughable big-ending reveal, the film, with its wildly uneven performances, underscores the pitfalls inherent in shifting from the written page to the big screen.

This overcooked Thanksgiving turkey succeeds only in managing to take all the fun out of dysfunctional.

The parameters of homeland security are chillingly assessed in Do Not Resist, a troubling documentary examining the escalating militarization of the nation’s police forces.

If you could take the Shrek, Happy Feet and Smurfs movies, toss them in a blender and hit the pulse button a few times, the result would be a pretty reasonable approximation of Trolls, an admittedly vibrant-looking but awfully recognizable animated musical comedy concoction.

Despite the admittedly unique angle, this ambitious drama gets crushed under the considerable weight of its artistic, as well as budgetary, limitations.

[A] misguided hybrid that makes tediously clear from the outset that the conceit just isn’t working.

And although the film might stint on full renditions of their songs, one of the few played in its entirety is a gorgeous, relaxed acoustic version of “Honky Tonk Women” delivered by Mick and Keith in a vacant dressing room.

In its present form, Ramsey’s story leaves you wanting more — and less.

Even for something preaching spiritual tranquility, Milton’s Secret exhibits the barest trace of a pulse.

An initially compelling but uneven drama elevated by two centered performances.

Incorporating fluid flashbacks and snippets of narration that refreshingly serve to enhance rather than distract, director-writer Hannes Holm maintains a gentle, lyrical flow while coaxing fine performances from a diverse cast.

It’s a rare film that can dredge up nostalgic fondness for 2002’s awful “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder,” but Total Frat Movie manages to rise to the dubious occasion.

It might have set out to convey the disturbingly sadistic nature of institutional brotherhood, but it’s the familial variety with which “Goat” explores something ultimately more compelling.

Co-directors Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland deliver big time with Storks, a fittingly buoyant, delightfully madcap animated romp.

The ongoing clash between activism and politics played out on the ice floes of Atlantic Canada is penetratingly — and unflinchingly — portrayed in Huntwatch.

Although he effectively establishes the downtrodden milieu, Lee’s script ultimately succumbs to mounting clichés and plot contrivances.

Somehow Murphy manages to lift his dignified, all-knowing servant character off the page, giving a meticulously composed performance in a vehicle that can’t help but feel superficially repackaged.

Director Cohen, whose “Facing Fear” was among the 2014 Oscar nominees for documentary short, lends this classic David versus Goliath story a playfully retro feel.

[A] richly rewarding tribute.

Dancer becomes a gentle inquiry into how a gifted performer disrupts his life in order to test his passion.

Unlike the highly charged “Sicario” and other recent drug trade-themed movies, the film, shot in New Mexico, eschews explosive confrontations and political judgments in favor of complex, thoughtfully portrayed characters and tense, compelling situations.

While their last movie managed to temper the outrageousness with an underlying goofy sweetness, the biggest offense here isn’t that it’s offensive, it’s just not all that funny.

Enduring Natural Selection, with its painfully overt themes of good versus evil, absolution and redemption, is the true definition of survival of the fittest.

Sincerity alone cannot begin to compensate for a clunker of this magnitude, including an abundance of technical issues, bad dialogue and worse performances.

Kampai! For the Love of Sake serves as an occasionally enlightening if long-winded primer that will prove best suited to connoisseurs.

While a fictionalized account of Lee’s career certainly held some sex, drugs & rock ’n’ roll potential, the blandly pedestrian film Spaceman seldom delivers despite an engagingly game lead performance by Josh Duhamel.

Representing a dazzling artistic leap forward for LAIKA, the stop-motion animation studio’s fourth feature — and first full-blown fantasy — is an eye-popping delight that deftly blends colorful folklore with gorgeous, origami-informed visuals to immersive effect.

A frostbitten B-movie can still provide a little welcome relief in the dead of summer. Edge of Winter suffices as a diverting breath of recycled cool air.

[An] annoyingly oblique exercise in arty affectation.

While one wishes Carré, who shares screenplay credit with Charles Spano, might have hung those stirring visuals on more involving plotting, Embers nevertheless makes a strong, not to mention timely, impression.

The film insistently asserts its autobiographical roots at the expense of sharper plotting and characterizations, not to mention more energetic pacing.

Citizen Soldier makes for an honorable addition to the densely populated modern war film field.

Against considerable odds, Wang managed to smuggle the various media out of China and back to her New York base where she adroitly edited it into a quietly powerful first feature about the untapped potential for bearing witness in our social media-driven society.

The film, narrated by comedian Christina Pazsitzky, raises some interesting observations about the climate on many of today’s college campuses, where the former havens for free speech (it’s noted that Bruce lectured at UCLA in 1966) have become especially vulnerable in regard to violated comfort zones.

Haphazard plotting and seriously undernourished character development aside, none of the emotional stakes have been planted deeply enough to elicit audience involvement in young Pete’s plight.

D’Souza might be preaching to the choir, but at least this voter recruitment tool could have aspired to something more challenging than an amateurishly slapped-together rehash.

Even as you recognize echoes of Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach and Todd Solondz here, Pritzker has a good ear for authenticity, and he draws terrific performances from a cast.

The unfocused Undrafted ultimately possesses all the dramatic intrigue of an intentional walk.

At the Fork serves up an even-handed perspective on the subject of eating ethically.

The film’s prevailing theme may be that nothing is black and white, but the execution, with its strident lobbyists, salt-of-the-earth farmers and onscreen admonition to “investigate before you donate,” proves spottier than a kennel full of caged Dalmatians.

Had the film and its poky lead characters at least managed to pick up the sluggish pace, experiencing Buddymoon wouldn’t have felt like such a slog.

Just when you thought you had seen every permutation of the “making of a band” documentary, along comes Breaking a Monster, a thoroughly engaging portrait of Unlocking the Truth, a heavy metal outfit composed of African American middle schoolers.

Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes is a darkly compelling, skillfully crafted cold case thriller.

The success of “The Absent One,” like its Department Q predecessor, ultimately rides on the shoulders of Kaas’ intriguing Morck.

Conspiracy of Faith marks the darkest and most gripping screen adaptation of the Jussi Adler-Olsen novels to date.

It’s as if co-directors Michael Thurmeier and Galen Tan Chu, both veterans of the Ice Age franchise, sensed that there was essentially nowhere left to go with the concept and opted to instead overstuff the production with too many characters breathlessly doing tired, pop culture-heavy “bits” like it was open mic night at the Paleolithic Punch Line.

Few will likely embrace the insufferably chirpy, high-concept rom-com that struggles to stretch a mighty shallow premise into a feature-length proposition.

Though indulgently overlong, “Raiders!” manages to unearth the inner geek in all of us.

While Olympic Trials don’t usually tend to be the sort of milieu that readily lend themselves to quirky comedy, the engagingly amusing Tracktown quite capably goes the distance.

Remains intriguing despite its troublesome issues.

Despite an energetic set-up, the broad script fails to deliver the anticipated goods once the action relocates to Paris.

Although he’s working with familiar tropes, writer-director Felix Thompson, in his feature debut, wisely keeps clear of big, dramatic moments, maintaining instead a palpable naturalism through dialogue that has an unmannered, improvised feel and acting that follows suit.

Italian writer-director Francesco Cinquemani, in his feature debut, has essentially done a cut-and-paste job, assembling a thoroughly uninvolving, tension-free futuristic sci-fi thriller.

The film, like Walker’s trek, occasionally feels like a bit of a slog to those unexposed to the folklore, but it makes some interesting observations in regard to the pursuit of fact over fiction.

The chillingly twisty plotting is dispensed in painstakingly measured increments that allow for maximum dread and, ultimately, well-earned shock value, while his four leads deliver equally subtle performances that sync with the pacing beat for beat.

Director Paul Borghese, who previously attempted to ape Scorsese with his 2013 mob drama, “Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn,” is content to simply rehash shopworn tropes.

Although the title might suggest cheesy sensationalism, A Monster With a Thousand Heads serves as a sobering, all-too-relatable indictment of the bureaucratic Hydra that is the medical insurance industry.

Generically directed by Daniel Zirilli, who shares story credit with Tom Sizemore, the listless Asian Connection may be set in Bangkok and Cambodia but it feels about exotic as an order of take-out Thai.

Cursed with obnoxiously broad characters and nonsensical plotting, A Bit of Bad Luck is an intended backwoods satire that runs hopelessly off-course from the outset.

Travolta, who took over the role from Nicolas Cage, and Meloni, who’s looking more and more like Robert De Niro every day, have a loose, easy chemistry that goes a long way to enliven all that overworked familiarity.

The childhood years of Brazil’s national treasure have been given a lamentably pedestrian big-screen treatment by Pelé: Birth of a Legend.

With its twinkly piano and soul-stirring cinematography, Love Thy Nature feels like the visual equivalent of a hot oil spa massage — and leaves a residual effect that proves equally as fleeting.

Despite clocking in at a scant 70 minutes, the troubled-youth drama Memoria manages to make a hauntingly poetic impression.

Director Barry Strugatz, a screenwriter best known for 1988’s “Married to the Mob,” has crafted a brief but disarmingly cordial tribute to an overlooked Tai Chi “sifu” who didn’t believe in kowtowing to convention.

Despite its connotation of sun-drenched sensuality, Rio, I Love You is a dispiritingly dull affair.

The challah may be extra special, but the humor found in John Goldschmidt's direction and the conventional script by Yehudah Jez Freedman and Jonathan Benson is disappointingly stale.

Insistently distancing if aesthetically pleasing.

In Jensen's uniquely wacky world, there's a genuine affection for his offbeat characters.

The end product is a standard-issue cult drama that nevertheless has its gripping moments thanks mainly to the presence of Emma Watson.

De la Iglesia, a filmmaker known for his dark comedies, ultimately has nowhere to take this breathless ode to Fellini and his own mentor, Pedro Almodóvar, as well as backstage showbiz satires like Robert Altman's "The Player" and Michael Hoffman's "Soapdish."

An extraordinarily moving, deeply personal, filmed diary

Although the film seems to play a bit fast and loose with that specific time frame, the assortment of provocative characters...intriguingly go about their business.

In the end, you'll either succumb to the silliness of it all and cheer Johnny B. on to his green card or, more likely, be in desperate need of your own exit visa.

Shalini Kantayya's debut documentary feature never stays in any one place long enough to make a sufficient impact.

While we may have been locked up with these characters before...Cohen's unwavering commitment nevertheless commands attention.

Those taking in Someone Else, an unconvincing, nonlinear drama about a pair of dramatically different Korean American cousins who are attracted to the same woman, will soon likely be wishing they had chosen to watch something else.

There just aren't enough rescue dogs in the world to save "Rescue Dogs," a shrill, yappy live-action comedy that proves considerably more annoying than adorable.

The payoff is sporadically rewarding at best.

You don't have to be a baseball fanatic or for that matter a historian or a physicist to appreciate Fastball.

Although their extreme staycation is obviously not everybody's idea of a swell time, the bracingly gorgeous images and meditative serenity still offer a vicarious respite from all those urgent headlines and deadlines — no bear spray required.

While its flaws are considerable, the Holocaust-themed thriller Remember benefits mightily from a quietly commanding Christopher Plummer performance that almost makes you forget the wonky plot logic.

A compelling bit of family drama that packs a corrosive punch.

While the attempt at a certain, documentary-style naturalism is honorable, it's at the expense of focused plotting and sufficient character development.

Bell proves to be one tough cookie, but she's ultimately taken down by all the stiff, under-developed dialogue and iffy supporting performances.

Irish actress Bolger plays her psychopath with cool, calculating intimidation, while first-time feature director Michael Thelin, sharing screenplay credit with Rich Herbeck, lays a solid foundation of suburban domesticity on which to build all the mounting menace.

The film traces Cernan's career trajectory, going back to his days in San Diego as a hot-shot naval aviator, blending terrific archival footage with contemporary perspectives to quietly poetic effect.