Nathan Rabin

Strongman is a heartrending character study of a man blessed with superhuman strength, but defeated and overwhelmed by the everyday bullshit of life.

Gehry is a fascinating subject, a strangely magnetic combination of rumpled, aw-shucks humility and Herculean ambition and hubris, but every time Pollack stumbles onto a fascinating topic like Gehry's battles with anti-Semitism, he pulls away instead of delving deeper.

It deserves credit for avoiding the conventions of romantic comedies and defying audience expectations, but only to a degree. Instead of hitting the expected notes and beats, Drinking Buddies instead ambles sideways. It’s headed nowhere in particular, but at least the voyage is pleasant.

Given the duo’s withering take on capitalism, it’s ironic that their stumbling second feature feels throughout like an infomercial for a shtick whose expiration date is rapidly approaching.

With Piranha, Dante delivers a superior Jaws rip-off with a light, goofy touch that anticipates the anarchic, gleeful mayhem of his later work.

Rosner works for famed Democratic strategist James Carville, who stops just short of dry-humping the camera lens in his hunger for the spotlight here. Our Brand Is Crisis is full of strangely resonant parallels to American politics.

Like the best independent films, The Motel realizes that life is made up of minor pleasures and tiny epiphanies, not sweeping character arcs or big dramatic moments.

A sprint when it should be a marathon, Yossi & Jagger crackles with promise, but much of it goes unrealized. Without the time or resources to develop its characters and overstuffed plot, the result feels like the Cliffs Notes for a longer, more satisfying film.

White's gently perceptive film is a funny, poignant, emotionally honest minor-key character study.

It’s a slick crowd-pleaser, but it’s perversely unrevealing about anything other than Manganiello’s affection for a the stripper experience.

Ushpizin's effortlessly authentic depiction of Jewish orthodoxy--and the palpable, almost ecstatic sense of joy its characters take in it--ultimately tips the film's hand.

For all its delightful performances, savvy location shooting, and breezy charm, They All Laughed is ultimately something of a tantalizing tease, all flirtation and no consummation.

Carnahan alternates gritty neo-realism with bursts of extreme stylization -- most notably in a breathless opening chase filmed with handheld cameras -- but thankfully, his stylistic flourishes are in the service of the film's story, not the other way around.

It's a flawed film, hampered by weird tonal shifts and an overpopulated cast. But, 31 years later, Catch-22's chilliness seems forgivable, its vision of a military (and a nation) ruled by gung-ho capitalists, shameless opportunists, and evil yes-men as prescient and incisive as ever.

Though a painless time-passer, Joyeux Noël ultimately contributes little to the venerable anti-war genre beyond its curious message that to some degree, war is hell because it prevents soldiers from making really neat friends and pen-pals from different counties.

Like "Upstream Color," Sun Don’t Shine owes a sizable debt to the philosophical lyricism of Terrence Malick. Working wonders on a tight budget, Seimetz uses handheld cameras and tight compositions to create an air of claustrophobic intensity interspersed with moments of ragged beauty.

As a comic heist film, The Italian Job is diverting, though slight. As a feature-length advertisement for the MINI Cooper, however, it's an unqualified triumph.

Angio captures the outlandish twists and turns of Van Peebles' life with humor, color, and a welcome lightness of touch.

Above all, the film is an extended love letter to the EV1, a sleek GM electric marvel that, by Paine's reckoning, marks the single greatest innovation in human technology since the wheel.

A glossy, attractive, ultimately empty soap opera that -- despite being based on a true story -- never seems remotely plausible.

A nearly unparalleled actor's showcase, the film boasts performances of impressive quality and quantity...Their complexity matches the film's.

Rudd ably carries the film while retaining a light touch, though even with Rudd in the lead, it's still a featherweight trifle, an afternoon nap of a feel-good comedy.

Savagely funny black comedy.

Pure loses a bit of its nerve in the home stretch, but Eden's unforgettable performance alone makes it a compelling portrait of a smart young boy forced to grow up way too fast.

Would You Rather has one major asset in an appropriately gothic, larger-than-life performance by Jeffrey Combs, the great, chameleon-like character actor best known for playing a mad scientist in "Re-Animator."

It falls upon Finney to dramatize the inner workings of a man gradually, unmistakably succumbing to oblivion. Finney is up to the task: The pungent poetry of Lowry's prose comes through in his pitch-perfect performance, with its exquisite turns of phrase, boozy bravado, and theatrical panache.

A generic time-waster powered by a lazy, cynical combination of scatological kiddie humor and maudlin sentiment.

Though the filmmaking is playful at times, the film is essentially 90 percent message, 10 percent movie.