Mike D'Angelo

As contemporary romantic comedies go, it’s by no means an embarrassment, ranging from politely bland at its worst to very nearly inspired at its best. It could have been so much more, though, had its makers been prepared to grapple with the genuinely thorny, surprisingly incisive idea at the movie’s center.

For a first-time director, Amini demonstrates considerable skill both with actors and with the camera, giving the film a pungent balance of visual elegance and moral seediness.

Rigor Mortis can’t fully work for a Western audience, but it does at least provide a fascinating glimpse of a strange genre that never quite crossed over.

More and more, the film’s incisive realism seems at war with its ludicrous plot, until both finally just collapse, exhausted.

Ultimately, Digging Up The Marrow is more of an affectionate comedy than a horror movie, despite a third act that features some tense moments and hostile critters.

Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy And Rosie Get Laid) sometimes overdoes the emotional-seesaw routine... But director Roger Michell (who’s previously worked with Kureishi on The Mother, Venus, and the miniseries The Buddha Of Suburbia) maintains a slightly jagged rhythm that proves disarming, and he has two magnificent collaborators in Broadbent and Duncan.

For all three hours and change, it’s never less than interesting, but it’s also never much more than interesting.

Marquardt hasn’t thought of a unique take on this predictable scenario, she’s merely done an expert job of disguising it. Still, the first half does function as a impressive showcase for her formal chops, as well as for Bloom’s gorgeously empathetic performance.

While the film is persuasive and detailed in its depiction of financial corruption, it’s also essentially a two-hour lecture, dry and academic.

There’s a real fascination in watching the gears of this massive machine grind. Once the student protest comes to dominate the film’s second half, however, things get dicier.

What is successful, and suggests a promising future for the Polsky brothers as directors, is the film’s central relationship, which never feels less than genuine.

Dupieux might have done better to construct an entire movie around his best idea.

A credulity-straining duet between two fine actors.

There’s not much to Jackie & Ryan, which is what almost makes it something special.

Visually, nothing’s changed, with Auteuil still framing his actors (and himself) in purely functional medium shots, occasionally punctuated by postcard-pretty views of Marseilles’ piers. Dramatically, however, Fanny is a bit meatier.

Because little happens story-wise, Cannibal necessarily functions as a character study, but one that’s frustratingly short on character.

The ideas are admirably heady, and Phang, making just her second feature (after 2008’s little-seen Half-Life), demonstrates a sure hand with both her imaginative milieu and her cast.

Pacific Rim never amounts to more than the sum of its setpieces, but it delivers on the promise of its premise.

Chow’s go-for-broke sensibility has been sorely missed, and a tale of demons is the ideal context for the gravity-defying, logic-impaired stunts he favors.

The film is mostly one long stalling tactic, indulging in unreliable flashbacks and narrative wheel-spinning to expand the details of its tragic scenario to feature-length. When it finally gets to what happened, though, prepare to cringe.

What keeps Horses lively is its sharp young cast—especially the two Rachids, who are also brothers in real life, and do an expert job of showing how Hamid and Yachine slowly change places.

The film is less effective as an inspirational saga than as a simple portrait of a marriage in its twilight years, with the house-in-progress serving as a metaphor for love that endures by being constantly renewed.

At its best, Losing Ground suggests a wobbly filmmaker who was robbed of the chance to steady herself. At its worst, it’s still a fascinating time capsule.

While what will happen next is never especially interesting, how it will happen, and from what unusual angle, generates enough excitement to keep things intermittently lively.

There’s a difference between an exhibition of one photographer’s work and a speedy tour of a museum’s entire photography wing, and Watermark feels more like the latter, despite Burtynsky’s involvement.

American Promise, shot over a period of 13 years, is by no means a wasted effort. At the same time, though, it’s hard not to wonder whether directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (who are married) wound up with a film that even remotely resembles whatever vague idea they had in mind back in 1999.

It’s a compelling story. Trouble is, it isn’t a terribly visual story, and this documentary doesn’t serve it nearly as well as a book or lengthy article would.

In the end, Mr. Nobody’s title is simply too apt.

While the film runs only 77 minutes, that’s a good half an hour longer than the material can support, even though Workman shot it over roughly a decade.

Too blunt and didactic to convey the futility of war with the complexity the subject demands, Tangerines works primarily as a showcase for its trio of lead actors, who work hard to make their characters’ gradual yet quick thaw seem not just credible, but inevitable.

For the most part, Pigeon is very much in the same mold as its two predecessors, which is part of the problem.

The characters inhabiting this convoluted, tough-to-follow story feel too much like chess pieces, despite the refreshing multi-ethnic cast.

There’s a sentimental streak to These Final Hours, but in the end (heh), it feels as if it’s been earned.

This is a film that moves too erratically to ever gain momentum, seemingly by design.

Kelly & Cal is worth seeing, if only because it gives Lewis her first truly meaty role in years.

There’s absolutely nothing new or innovative to be found here, but sometimes it can be almost comforting to watch a movie do an unironic tour of the classics.

The film’s biggest drawback is its essentially passive nature, which prevents it from ever building to a crescendo.

Smiling Faces is a strongly promising first effort, introducing a talented filmmaker who’s still in the process of finding his own voice. Still, don’t be too surprised if, three or four features down the road, it retroactively looks much more singular.

There’s a wishy-washiness to the film’s ideological bent that keeps steering things in a more conventional direction, as if Jones (or perhaps Glendon Swarthout, who wrote the source novel) were afraid to take this risky material all the way. It’s a decidedly bumpy ride to an odd destination.

There isn’t much to it, really, but a little truth and loveliness is always welcome.

In the end, a thoroughly needless rehash.

Apparently struggling to please two very different audiences at once, Horovitz seems to have little control over the material, ultimately wrapping things up with a neat little bow that makes a mockery of the preceding ugliness.

Most of the pleasure in Green Dragons comes simply from the opportunity to watch some underused actors dig into meatier parts than they’re usually offered.

Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (Johnny Mad Dog) makes some audacious, impressionistic choices, focusing on the nexus of sensual and brutal, but this is the rare true story that really could have used some creative embellishment.

By the time Roman and Lucy seek shelter from a storm in an abandoned military bunker, Two Lovers And A Bear has turned into a horror film in which backstory is the monster.

Even if Mandy Lane had been released in a timely fashion, it’s unlikely that it would have found much of an audience. For all its good intentions, it’s ultimately too half-assed and lethargic to work as a conventional horror film, and not nearly thoughtful or incisive enough to subsist on thwarted expectations alone.

Schroeder was reportedly inspired to make Amnesia as a tribute to his mother, who left Germany not long after the Nazis came to power and never wanted to return; he even shot the film in the house where she lived for many years (which was also a major location in his 1969 debut, More). But neither he nor his co-writers managed to prevent their ostensible subtext from swamping the text.

Sunlight Jr. is one no-hope bummer after another, and it’s just not psychologically or sociologically acute enough to make the experience worthwhile. Watching anyone over 30 working for minimum wage would achieve the same goal in about 15 minutes.

Lazer Team is carried along by the sheer enthusiasm of its main quartet....It’s just too bad that there’s less wit in the dialogue than there is in the Barenaked Ladies’ closing-credits song.

All the same, as dramatized here, The Attack skirts perilously close to being an apologia for suicide bombing.

It’s a film of nearly pure sensation: woozy, intoxicating, visually gorgeous… and maddeningly repetitive.

Haushofer’s book may be a classic, but this is the least imaginative way of filming it imaginable, short of simply pointing the camera at a copy and rapidly flipping the pages.

Eventually, Preparations has to stop preparing and deliver some sort of answer to its central mystery, even if that turns out to be one of those maddening or exhilarating (according to taste and/or how skillfully it’s handled) shoulder shrugs. Sadly, the reveal here is quite banal, which retroactively makes the film as a whole play like a prolonged, unsatisfying tease.

The film’s third act plays like a nihilistic Liam Neeson thriller, with Kruger struggling in vain to make Katja’s actions remotely believable.

Viewers who enjoy a big rug-pull will want to keep an eye out for this one, as it essentially combines the surprise endings of several notable films into one all-encompassing “Gotcha!”

Nobody can accuse Downhill Racer of lacking artistic integrity. Trouble is, artistic integrity is all it has to offer.

It does put a human face on the suffering of those who lost jobs and/or loved ones, which has some value, but anyone hoping for a more nuanced take than “corporations are bad and regular folks are good” will be disappointed.

It’s the kind of sprawling, everything’s-connected moral tapestry that reached its nadir with Paul Haggis’ inexplicable Oscar winner Crash—not remotely as dire, thankfully, but with many of the same fundamental flaws.

At bottom, this is the story of freaks and geeks everywhere: a quest for the like-minded, rooted in obsessive engagement with a tiny sliver of pop culture.

The Russian Woodpecker is ostensibly an investigative documentary, but there’s precious little investigation; its primary subject, Fedor Alexandrovich, is peddling a hypothesis for which he offers no tangible evidence whatsoever.

The film’s appeal, predicated on its rare close-up look at a working Bishop Of Rome, will be limited primarily to the faithful; those hoping for a candid portrait of the man beneath the cassock will be sorely disappointed.

In Fear takes place almost entirely inside a moving car, severely limiting both the cast’s isolation (a big factor in Blair Witch’s strategy) and the extent to which they could wander off in an unexpected direction. Instead, the film simply goes in circles.

A duly serious and ambitious fall movie that, despite the best efforts of its formidable director and cast, can’t remotely match the excitement of real life.

Alas, while modern technology allows for impressive, convincing effects work on a comparatively tiny budget, the basic concept itself hasn’t improved with age. Clever ideas are still in short supply.

The bold, arresting movie doesn’t really work, but is nonetheless almost impossible to stop watching.

Had the film not been so open about its ambition, maybe its mediocrity wouldn’t seem quite so galling.

It’s clear that these kids have a genuine problem, and a more probing film might have questioned the cultural factors that contribute to it, as well as the efficacy of more or less kidnapping errant youths and trying to coerce them back into productivity. Web Junkie doesn’t do much probing, however.

Éric Rohmer used to make one of these pictures practically every year, but it’s a tricky genre to pull off, and Sachs (working with regular co-writer Mauricio Zacharias) doesn’t supply the neurotic wit that would make Frankie distinctive rather than just… nice.

High culture this decidedly isn’t. Mostly, it’s just a vehicle for two terrific actors to snipe at each other and poke some mild fun at their own profession.

As a primer, however, the film does the job, albeit less thoroughly and with more needless digressions than would even a lengthy magazine article on the subject.

What starts out as a testament to female fortitude, reminding us that sacrifices were also made on the home front, gradually turns into high-toned soap opera.

Here’s the trouble: Devil’s Pass isn’t actually about the Dyatlov Pass Incident. It’s about five blandly good-looking American kids who decide to make a documentary about the Dyatlov Pass Incident but subsequently disappear in the same area, leaving behind — sigh — their camera equipment.

Either one of these dual narratives might have worked reasonably well on its own, even if Reem’s situation—complete innocent seeks to escape grave danger—is inherently more gripping than Huda’s. Leaping back and forth between them undermines the former’s urgency while underlining the latter’s single-spare-room theatricality.

Much of what Wiseman captures here is so resolutely ordinary that it threatens to cross the line into outright dull.

With so much talent involved, there are inevitably some amusing moments, which keep tedium at least partly at bay.

Even at its dumbest, The Ice Road holds your attention; a climactic fight/chase scene even acknowledges that it’s hard to look badass on a slippery surface.

There’s such a thing as being too damn ambiguous.

A powerful final scene reveals that Seidl knew exactly where he was going. But the journey is stultifyingly static, repeating the same basic information over and over with only negligible variations.

Without an improvisational buffer, in which actors feel their way naturally and uncertainly from moment to moment, Shelton’s scenario feels as painfully contrived as it is.

Unlocked starts off sturdily and then wobbles more and more as the plot twists multiply.

Unfortunately, this promising material turns out to be merely the setup for a thoroughly generic action flick in which a gang of thieves without much honor attempt to pull off one last big heist. In the long, dispiriting slide to mediocrity thereafter, McGregor largely relapses into cute-rascal mode.

That sense of mystery definitely keeps Partisan intriguing, though it also creates expectations that Kleiman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sarah Cyngler, isn’t especially interested in fulfilling.

We’re talking maximum sound and fury, and while no movie that stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard could signify nothing, this one doesn’t signify a whole lot.

Adios serves as a loving tribute to their memory, but has little else to offer that the original film didn’t provide.

In short, this is yet another doc that would make a first-rate book or lengthy article, gaining almost nothing from its chosen medium apart from (maybe) greater exposure. There’s no legitimate taxonomic reason for this material to be designated a film.

Like most mediocre documentaries these days, Fed Up alternates between regurgitated facts (often presented in snazzy animated interludes), talking-head interviews, and a “human angle” involving a few regular folks who are struggling with the problem in question.

From Afar plays like a typical first feature, with ambition outstripping execution by a hefty margin.

There’s no mystery here, no narrator wrestling with the limits of his own generosity and tolerance. Just a lot of stunning scenery and exemplary rectitude.

Without Wong Kar-Wai’s visual grandeur to provide a sense of the epic, The Final Master just lurches clumsily from one scene to the next, flatlining whenever fists aren’t flying.

Like many of Joe Swanberg’s recent efforts, Stinking Heaven plays like a potentially strong idea for a movie that never quite takes shape, which is the problem with “writing” a movie while the camera rolls.

Best of all is Merritt, a remarkable find who makes an indelible impression in his very first onscreen role. Giving Rick just the right mix of bravado and awkwardness, he’s like an improbable gene splice of a young Matt Dillon with a young Seth Rogen. Don’t expect him to disappear for 30 years.

An opportunity to see the Sutherlands onscreen together — with Donald playing Kiefer’s disapproving preacher dad — is the only new thing that Forsaken has to offer. Whether that’s enough will vary according to taste.

A non-professional making his screen debut, Paradot serves up plenty of volatility, but he never quite succeeds in making Malony seem like a kid with real potential that’s being squandered.

78/52 is at its best in cinema studies mode, examining specific compositional and editing choices made by Hitchcock and his collaborators.

Neither Ripstein nor his wife and regular screenwriter, Paz Alicia Garciadiego, succeed in unearthing (or inventing) anything of more than sensational interest from this tragedy.

There’s no reason why this couldn’t have been good hokey pseudo-historical fun along the lines of, say, The Imitation Game. (Let’s just ignore that some folks perceived that film as Oscar-worthy.) All it required was putting the exceptional character front and center throughout, rather than shrouding his gift in pointlessly vague mystery.

What keeps Ghostland from flatlining is Sono’s gift for delirious spectacle, along with the movie’s tacit acknowledgment that it’s utterly ridiculous.