Noel Murray

Mavis! is maybe too short and too plain, but it covers a lot of ground and contains a lot of great music. It's a fitting tribute to a true American original, belatedly getting her due.

The movie doesn’t shy away from magic spells and arcane African blood rituals, but the real dark mojo that Bass is bringing so starkly to the big screen involves the cycles and privilege and exclusion that seems to persist through every attempt at exorcism.

Even viewers who know nothing about soccer can enjoy how Rocha captures the beauty of a communal event through editing and shot selection alone.

Barbosa skillfully skewers the presumptions of rich folks who presume they deserve all that they've gotten, even as they're squandering it.

Those looking to learn more about Wong are in the wrong place. Those looking for a slick slugfest with memorable characters will be well satisfied.

West has a lot on his mind with this film; and he’s ultimately less interested in explaining everything happening onscreen than in free-associating about the complicated, lifelong relationship between children and their parents. But Gaffigan’s everyman presence and seeker’s soul make him a great vessel for big ideas.

The movie is one long game of misdirection, playing tricks on viewers from scene to scene, and showing how easy it is to steer a crowd into missing something important. That’s the real De Palma touch, even more than the operatic overtones and excess.

The best movie twists — like the ones in “Psycho,” “The Crying Game” and “Parasite” — aren’t just unexpected, but also change the direction and meaning of the story. Director Ant Timpson’s blackly comic thriller Come to Daddy isn’t in the same elite class as those films, but it does deliver a good, sick twist; and sometimes that’s enough.

The cast and the crew work well together in Unseen, delivering a taut, inventive picture about two young Asian American women helping each other survive one terrible day.

For those able to overlook the obviousness, The Painting is both beautiful and affecting.

This is a tumultuous and ultimately tragic tale about the exploitation of athletes.

The documentary can feel a little scattered due to its multiple angles, but it remains a fascinating and relevant tale, examining how any criminal justice system built around the idea that cops never lie is ripe for abuse.

It’s a little frustrating at first to realize that Huber isn’t going to get much explanation of anything from Stanton. But she ends up making a virtue of the actor’s Zen calm.

As is so often the case with Crowe, what mostly stands out about Singles is how sensitively and honestly it tries to capture the way people with deep convictions are inevitably headed for heartbreak.

Has its share of look-at-these-cute-old-commies laughs… But Gabbert mostly avoids making her subjects into hobbling punch lines, or even turning them into one-dimensional heroes.

Not Okay hits its marks more often than not, and at its best it illustrates, step by inexorable step, how a carefully sculpted social media persona can encourage people to fake their way into a real crisis.

While the movie becomes a little repetitious in the middle, it ends strongly with a succession of unforgettable scenes of gruesome body horror. Clock leans too heavily on too-obvious visual metaphors, but it’s still a vivid and visceral explication of one woman’s fears.

The relative lack of “action” in Bull does mean the audience has to make more of an effort to engage with the film. But like the recent arthouse favorites “The Rider” and “Lean on Pete,” this movie has a rare sense of place. It preserves an entire world and the fragile people within it.

This movie remains subtle throughout, emphasizing the tenuousness of reality and the unmooring isolation of the bush.

Creative Control is funny and imaginative, where many films of this type are dispiritingly plain.

In gaming terms, this movie’s characters find themselves on a screen where every move leads to a bottomless pit. The nightmare they’re in is as existential as it is visceral.

Williams and Sudano don’t try to sell their audience on Summer as a musician, because the music itself still does that. This is more a portrait of a passionate artist who kept pushing herself and reinventing herself — sometimes at the expense of those who loved her, at home and on the radio.

Garbus knows how to catch people at their most open, as they define their own types and simultaneously transcend them.

Invisible is undeniably compelling, as Bojanov visits and revisits these people over a period of years.

The Big House is an MGM film, and while it takes on the problem of prison overcrowding, at times it’s more like a window into a secret society, with its own codes and concerns. It’s an outsized, abstracted version of everyday life circa 1930.

The Biz Markie story is not framed as a tragedy here. It’s a celebration of a lovable weirdo who made people happy.

This film has a worthy goal: to change the perspectives of people who might be hurting right now. For those willing to go with its flow, it has a real power.

Converts relevant contemporary history into intimate personal drama.

John Sayles’ Go For Sisters is his best film in more than a decade, and feels like one he could’ve made in the 1980s. It’s a small picture, simply presented, and exists outside of current trends—which isn’t always to its benefit.

Though the plot’s too convoluted, the relentless pace and pungent atmosphere elevate the film above the typical grim crime stories soaked in blood and despair.

What makes this film so fascinating is that its subject remains an enigma: a pioneer who did a lot of good and inspired a lot of people, then faded quietly away, leaving questions about who he really was.

Güeros is a vivid illustration of factionalism’s brute outcome, which has people choosing up sides and tossing bombs at people, while dismissing their victims’ complicated lives and problems.

Overall, this picture is a refreshing alternative to the synthetic, simplistic Christmas movies that proliferate this time of year. Ditch the mistletoe and holly and it would still be a well-crafted, well-balanced character sketch, following two lost souls as they discover what they’ve been missing.

Though more sensationalistic than serious, this film has a scale and an energy that rivals any Hollywood blockbuster.

Darwin's Nightmare would be just another "ain't it a shame" piece were it not for the way Sauper gradually reveals how all this human misery might play out.

May be too heady to take in one sitting. Even given relatively calm passages-like a hushed tour through the courtyard of a Scottish castle or a mediation on ripples in a pond-there's just too much to absorb.

What emerges won’t be revelatory for anyone who has spent time studying the Kubrick filmography. But it’s still such a rare treat to hear the man himself say anything at all — let alone to hear him talk about why the ideas in his work and the challenges of bringing them to the screen excited him as much as they did his fans.

This is a slight but insightful film that feels very real.

Waging A Living's biggest failing is that Weisberg gives his subjects too much of a pass when it comes to their bad past romantic and career choices.

An absorbing and challenging film, capturing the frustration of being held in limbo by a system that seems to prioritize punishment over appeals.

What makes The Devil’s Candy a standout is how well-developed these characters are.... More importantly, Byrne is as skilled as ever at constructing sequences at once bizarre, suspenseful and oddly beautiful.

The best thing about this film is that it doesn’t reduce either man to a stereotype — or even to a pat story of redemption. Bernhardt and Blankenship do what they want the people who watch the movie to do: They observe, they listen and they stay open to accepting people, no matter who they are.

Writer-director Derek Nguyen's supernatural thriller settles confidently in a place between classy and trashy.

Divan overcomes its stylistic clichés only because Gluck's story is rich, and because it comes to a knockout finish.

Mostly, just as “SPL” did with Yen, this sequel serves as an ideal showcase for talented martial artists. Kill Zone 2 watches with awe as Jaa and Wu move with balletic force. There’s grace within their violence.

What makes this schemer so exciting to watch is that he’s like a lot of guys in their early 20s, regardless of the time and place. He’s an incorrigible hustler, just making moves to get him through the day.

Copious blood-spatter aside, I’ll Take Your Dead is about as poignant as any movie with vengeful gangster ghosts can be.

What makes “Tough Guy” such a good sports-doc is that it’s unusually honest — both about how much fans loved seeing an old-fashioned bruiser terrorize the NHL, and how that player's demons inevitably devoured him.

Had the orphanage years been the first chapter in a longer story, The Great Water might've stretched toward a finish as unforgettable as its start.

The Trials Of Muhammad Ali’s real value is in showing—not just talking about—the time and place in which Ali lived.

The film’s as eclectic as it is eccentric, and it stays true to its own twisted sense of poetry, all the way to an epilogue that’s somehow even odder than anything that came before.

Default successfully turns a global financial crisis into a movie that’s at once engaging and educational.

He Never Died isn't as fleshed out as it could be, but what the film lacks in vivid supporting characters and rich plotting it gets back from Rollins, whose innate charisma carries the film.

Saint Cloud Hill is often dramatic, capturing tense standoffs between cops and vagrants. But this documentary is also filled with hope, and admiration for all those visionaries who see how neglected people and places can be put to good use.

King Otto features a lot of thrilling old footage from the pitch, along with new interviews that dig into the ways this real-life Ted Lasso used a cultural gap to his advantage, counting on his players to raise their game whenever they couldn’t understand what he was saying. It’s a great story, crisply told.

The movie bleeds honesty, though its individual components are more memorable than how they’re assembled.

Together, Morosini and Oswalt capture the panic that seizes some parents when they see their kids slipping into despair. They sensitively dramatize one father’s fear that everything he does to make things better will permanently ruin everything — though that doesn’t stop him from blundering ahead anyway.

The lack of anything resembling a narrative at times makes Pavilion feel more like a demo-reel than a movie, but the fleeting moments Sutton has captured are so vibrant that they accumulate into something that hums.

The Fly is a study in how the boldness of new discoveries is compromised by science’s need for precision, but it’s also a nightmarish tale of a comfortable little family, and a nagging little buzz.

It’s a little like a post-apocalyptic survivalist thriller, crossed with Lynn Ramsay’s impressionistic masterpiece “Morvern Callar,” crossed with a Radiohead video. Not all of those pieces fit together. But they combine into something strikingly original.

There’s not much to this movie: just stunning outdoor locations, a soulful Rygh performance, and some raw sword-and-sorcery action. That's more than enough.

Aside from the quirky and exciting gaming angle, See for Me is a pretty straightforward suspense film — but a well-crafted one.

Believer has a well-told, entertaining story sustaining a running time 20 minutes longer than “Drug War.” With the extra space, Lee explores the motivations of his two protagonists, working toward similar ends for different reasons.

Having two main characters suffering from hauntings separately works against this movie’s narrative momentum, but it does allow Wilson and Teems to bounce from scare to scare, without much setup — or respite.

The two sides of A Vigilante are ultimately held together by Wilde’s ferocious performance — which swings between steely control and eruptive emotion — and by the way Dagger-Nickson frames nearly every moment from Sadie’s perspective.

Bar Fight! is so low-stakes and small-scale that at times it feels more like a TV sitcom pilot than a film. But this would be a pilot worthy of a pickup.

Writer-director Neasa Hardiman mostly keeps her debut feature at the level of a claustrophobic psychological thriller, saving her special effects budget for a few breathtaking undersea views of the glowing, multi-tentacled beastie. But after a fairly sedate start, the movie gets increasingly grim and violent.

Danny McBride is at his funniest and scariest in Arizona, a darkly comic film noir that works well as both a violent thriller and as a ruthless satire of over-extended American dreamers.

This is a tricky topic, and Hillinger sometimes strays too far away from it, indulging in sexually explicit digressions that are more titillating than germane. For the most part, though, this is a thoughtful look at a controversy unlikely to fade away, so long as modern technology and prurient interests continue to exist.

When the trouble does hit in this film, it hits hard, at which point all the investment in character pays off.

Bushan employs different styles throughout the film, revealing a knack for dynamic action that his more low-key first half-hour doesn’t suggest. He delivers the goods for anyone looking for an intense war movie — but he doesn’t let the shooting start until everyone understands the stakes.

In spite of clunky effects and often extraordinarily ugly video footage, Game Over works very well just as a sports doc.

What really gets under the viewer’s skin in Surrogate is Natalie’s particular predicament — well-played by Morassi — of a parent who right down to the film’s shocking ending feels pushed past her limits, judged by others for troubles she didn’t invite and can’t explain.

While the doc may be overlong, it’s consistently fascinating because of its implications.

This is an appealingly polished thriller, with something modest but profound to say about how selfish choices can ripple across decades.

Dilts and Grashaw build out What Josiah Saw thoughtfully, letting the dread from one story bleed into the next, until everything is covered in a dark, dark stain.

It’s a grim vision, sure. But it’s a compelling one too, using the flash of a space opera to remind viewers that — whether on the ground or in the stars — we’re stuck with each other.

Writer-director Jamie Hooper’s debut feature, The Creeping, is hampered a bit by following the modern supernatural thriller trend toward tying every jump-scare and creep-out to some profound personal trauma. Despite that, the film works quite well, thanks to Hooper’s command of retro horror style

A well-crafted and idiosyncratic supernatural thriller, the film plays like a mix of “Frankenstein,” “The Witch,” and some of the Coen brothers’ more explicitly Jewish movies.

Directors Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math favor a deadpan, clear-eyed, strikingly simple approach that brings out both the humor and the pathos in the story.

Kohn’s talking heads are remarkably animated and, collectively, the interviews present a provocative debate about the meaning of “valuable.”

The disconnect between Rafelson’s low-key style and Cain’s hard-boiled storytelling is jarring at times.

Avengement features a good balance of colorfully profane British gangster-speak and intense, explicitly gory punch-outs.

Is it possible to be a great filmmaker and not make great films? Steve Mitchell’s entertaining documentary “King Cohen” makes that case for prolific writer-director-producer Larry Cohen.

Watching an actress of Hunter’s caliber in a meaty leading role partly compensates for the creaky plot and overearnest tone.

The gothic atmosphere and the disgustingly gooey special effects are the main attraction. The existential dread is just an extra.

While The Hunt skillfully puts viewers through the wringer, it’s often for no higher purpose than pushing buttons and generating outrage.

There's nothing all that original about Still/Born. But it's sharp and shocking, and parents especially should appreciate how it turns caring for a screeching newborn into an inescapable nightmare.

Violet never progresses. It’s just one long, slow wallow. That said, Devos and cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis devise so many striking images that the movie is always a pleasure to watch.

Castro’s Spies becomes genuinely challenging once Aslin and Lennon get to the trials of these men, who argued they were acting within the bounds of U.S. law to push back against the actions of a country that had interfered in Cuban affairs for more than a century.

Nothing that happens in Hollywood Stargirl is consequential or surprising. But the cast is likable, the music is good (featuring winning covers of canonical California songs like Brian Wilson’s “Love and Mercy” and Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music”) and, as with “Stargirl,” there’s a bone-deep decency to this sequel that’s pretty disarming.

It’s a polished, entertaining film, but a lot of its meaning derives from how much the audience cares about a handful of TV characters they may or may not already know.

The movie always looks fun, even when it’s shredding the nerves of its characters and audience.

Make no mistake: This film is a tear-jerker, taking an intimate look at one family's heartbreak and how their art moves people.

Flags as it heads toward a moralistic ending, complete with a couple of contrived (albeit charged) sexual encounters, but it's heartening that it soars as long as it does.

While Whelan repeats his points too much, it remains gripping and maddening throughout to watch him run into stone walls.

A sobering story kept at street level.

It’s possible Swab made this film just to tell a story about the more compassionate side of prostitution. If so, the movie’s guilty-pleasure thrills are just a bonus.

This movie is gripping from start to finish, largely because of Marsan, who makes Jarvis both charismatic and complex.

The plot is pretty routine, but its finer points about religious faith and rituals give the creep-outs and jump-scares real nuance. What makes this such a satisfying horror film is its cultural specificity.

As he uses Rathbun’s old tactics against his observers, Theroux raises troubling questions about psychological warfare and how devoutness shades into fanaticism.

Manakamana is both calming and imagination-sparking, forcing viewers to look at human faces for 10-minute stretches, whether those faces are talking excitedly or quietly looking around.

This is a well-crafted chase picture that doubles as a fiery warning about the dangers of an authoritarian government that can create its own reality, with no accountability for mistakes or malevolence.

What makes Baby Peggy: The Elephant In The Room so valuable, though, is that it isn’t just a 58-minute wallow in the misery of one long-forgotten, largely misunderstood American celebrity.

Dryly funny and unsparingly acerbic, The Cannibal Club has one simple point to make about the hypocrisy of the aristocracy … and Parente makes it sharply.

The leads have a wonderful chemistry, with Bell hitting the right notes of anger and confusion and Morales maintaining the alien’s comic deadpan. Everyone involved has clearly thought through how such a wild fantasy situation might play out — and more importantly, how it would feel.

Bloody Oranges isn’t a heavy-handed polemic. It’s more a genre-hopping experiment: sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying. Meurisse’s pluck is admirable, even though — or perhaps because — he’s made something often incredibly unpleasant.

Where Disappearance at Clifton Hill really excels is in exploring the visual and sonic textures of a decaying resort, and in hailing the plucky resourcefulness of a broken woman, trying to piece her memories — and maybe herself — back together.

But without taking anything away from Frederick Wiseman, who remains a master, Sheriff is almost as good any documentary he's made.

Even as Cold In July’s overall arc approaches something of a dead-end, the individual scenes and performances are remarkable.

The payoff to The Earth Is Blue as an Orange is incredibly powerful though, in ways that just about anyone can relate to, as these budding artists share their work with neighbors whose emotional reactions speak volumes about their shared nightmare.

Mullan brings edginess and gravitas to the kind of role he’s played dozens of times. Butler, though, is a pleasant surprise, departing from his usual one-dimensional action heroes to play a dramatic part — and so well that one wonders why he doesn’t do it more often.

There’s a tear-jerking moment roughly every five to 10 minutes in this movie, as Gomez reveals her essential dilemma of being someone who loves making fans happy and loves being creative but lives in fear — as many people do — of disappointing their benefactors and loved ones.

This is a movie for adrenaline junkies who want to watch as many slapstick fights as can fit into about 90 minutes of screen-time.

Working from a Will Honley screenplay, Anderson here crafts a thorny horror film that’s unsettling even when Owen isn’t lunging at the necks of babies and old people — because, like King, Anderson and Honey are as interested in life’s everyday bruises as they are in gaping wounds.

Some may find all this tedious or confusing, but there’s an admirable integrity to Banfitch’s approach. The Outwaters genuinely feels like a first-person perspective on the end of the world.

Mostly, it’s impressive how Bowler reimagines his own Oscar-nominated 2011 short film. He takes his original idea of using time-travel as a kind of metaphysical Photoshop and seriously thinks through how it would work — and whether it’s possible to have a “happy ending” when revision is always an option.

To call this movie harrowing is an understatement. It’s a focused — and perhaps necessary — assault on the senses.

George Hencken’s Spandau Ballet documentary Soul Boys Of The Western World effectively serves two audiences: hardcore fans hoping for rare footage and in-depth interviews, and those who really only know the song “True,” and would be surprised to learn just how popular Spandau Ballet used to be.

This film is reminiscent of black-light posters and underground comics — though the overall approach is more innocent and hopeful than sketchily “adult.”

Director Noh Dong-seok — working from a Kôtarô Isaka novel — fills the film with rich detail, helping this "innocent man, wrongly accused" story overcome its dogged conventionality.

The movie is equal parts clever and trashy, made for people who like to see very good actors play people who are very bad.

The Princess is absorbing and surprisingly intimate, given the sources Perkins used. But it’s also a cautionary tale, which lets no one off the hook.

By reducing Baker's story to just a couple of pivotal years, Budreau makes every moment matter, including a tense final scene that treats the preparation for a performance like a duel at high noon. Like Baker himself, Born to Be Blue finds drama in minimalism.

While the message is pat, the way it’s presented is poignant, thanks to an arresting lead performance from Gong, who manages a tricky balance of chilliness and charm.

Tommy just riffs freely, aping the moody, improvisatory style of classic jazz as he works some rich variations on the all-too-common story of an artist knocked around by a rough romance.

There are more arguments than action sequences in What Still Remains, and though it gets more tense in its second half, the movie overall is a bit too sedate. Still, a great cast (including vets Mimi Rogers, Dohn Norwood and Jeff Kober) brings Mendoza’s ideas to life.

In fact, the best an artist like Bowery can hope for is that he'll provide fodder for a documentary this solid.

Strong lead performances and a startling twist juice up the found-footage exercise VooDoo, which squeezes unexpected novelty from an exhausted subgenre.

The heightened luridness of Obsession does succeed in making Vertigo’s twisty plot seem all the more inessential to that film’s power. What both movies do is cut a tale of murder and madness down to its essence, exploring characters who’ve been damaged by social expectations and their own desires.

Even when it’s considering a great man’s flaws, it does so with understanding, taking its cues from Q’s own philosophy: “You only live 26,000 days. I’m going to wear them all out.”

There’s way more plot to this “Father of the Bride” than necessary. But the unique cultural details add fresh flavor; and the big emotional buttons at the movie’s end are as effective as ever. Like a wedding itself, all the stress and irritation pays off in a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

While The Fire That Took Her offers a broader perspective on these kinds of cases, Gillespie always brings everything back to Malinowski and her family, who led full lives before one reckless moment of cruelty changed everything.

A lollapalooza of a twist ending elevates Isolated, a suspense film that for much of its first 75 minutes is just another well-acted, slickly produced variation on a too-common horror subgenre.

The Dark clicks (which is often), it’s a moving and poetic tale about how neglect and abuse can turn people into freaky beasts, and how love can bring them back.

The action sequences are almost an afterthought. “Cut Throat City” is a more thoughtful and personal film, concerned with how systemic racism — and zoning ordinances — can kill more people than a gun.

If Harjo wants to put all these remarkable artists in one place, to let them tell their stories and to show their work, why not? Just like creativity, acts of thoughtful curation have enduring value.

The stories here are of triumph and tragedy, from those who’ve grown up in a society where they felt free to be themselves to those who’ve been reshaping their faces and bodies since long before it was socially acceptable.

Ruth Wilson gives an outstanding performance.

What matters most is that “Bang!” is filled with lively anecdotes about the days when hucksters and racketeers ran the music business, jostling for control — an art in and of itself.

More than anything, Our American Family gets across how exhausting this kind of life can be, as loved ones waver over whether they should be hands-off in their relationships or if they should be intensely involved.

The film is a unique kind of procedural, with fascinating information about how the FBI cracks cases, combined with an admission that some crimes may never be explained.

Narrows as it goes, and Browne doesn't do enough with the idea of a corporate takeover of a grassroots recreational activity, but Weber's antics and his colleagues' reactions make for fine drama all on their own.

Dougherty's effects team is top-notch, and the movie takes unexpected chances with the style and the storytelling — including a beautiful stop-motion interlude.

The greatest achievement of Middle Of Nowhere is that DuVernay and Corinealdi make Ruby’s big decision believable, by showing how it’s really just been a series of smaller choices.

What makes Prisoners more potent than its oft-implausible mystery should allow is the way Villeneuve lingers over the textures of a terrible event.

Perhaps the best use of Caldwell and Earl’s limited budget is their cast, which also includes Andre Royo and Anwan Glover as dangerous men. They help keep “Prospect” from becoming a gimmicky mash-up and make it more a study of real people just trying to get by far from civilization.

Whatever its legacy, the film remains a gripping drama. [09 Nov 2008, p.E10]

Tron's thematic overtures have a certain silly charm, enhancing rather than detracting from its core virtues. What really makes Tron work is an astonishing sense of design.

It's the most obvious point that actually rings truest: that Wilder's sketchy vision of life, love, and death is as funny and moving as it ever was.

Between the punchy dialogue, the skilled cast (some comic actors, some genre stalwarts) and the impressive animation, “The Littlest Reich” is good, sick fun. It’s got puppets, it’s got gore. Who could ask for anything more?

Billie isn’t just about the stories we tell about great artists. It’s also about why we tell them — and whether we can ever really get them right.

It is funny and fast paced, with an outstanding cast, and Orley modulates the tone well, conveying both the fun and the danger of being young, impulsive and poorly supervised.

King for a Day is never less than riveting.

The parts of Coming Home in the Dark about confronting guilt aren’t what make the movie so harrowing. Instead, what matters is that Ashcroft and his cast — and especially Gillies as the menacing and charismatic Mandrake — excel at drawing out the moment-to-moment tension of a crime in progress.

It’s more gentle and fanciful in tone, and though it’s as episodic and digressive as Jodorowsky’s best-known work, the various pieces add up to a clear, not-so-odd narrative.

At its best, Nightbreed is like a living version of a coffee-table book, with each page filled with tentacled, quilled, or moon-faced monsters.

Like White’s music, this film is catchy and engaging, and it leaves its audience wondering why there isn’t more.

An illuminating and heartwarming documentary.

Like a lot of recent South American and Central American horror, The Whistler is primarily a mood piece, relying heavily on deep shadow and rich sound design to spook the audience. But it’s a richly imagined film, drawing its eerie power from the depths of male guilt.

Only one episode falls flat, while two cruise by on style and attitude, and two are genuinely brilliant.

The Vault is a combination heist and horror picture; and it’s the rare genre mash-up where each element’s equally strong.

The film takes its cues from Elwy’s remarkable performance as Cadi, who is at once seductive and terrifying.

This is not an epic; nor is it meant to be. It’s a snappy story about a bunch of violent men — and one particular woman, anxious to get clear of them.

“Dreamers Never Die” becomes an honest, evocative and at times viscerally exciting look back at one of heavy metal’s headiest and most creative eras.

More than any of the sequels, “Ravager” upholds the mind-bending originality and emotional depth of the first “Phantasm.” From the surprise cameos by old characters to the constant twisting of dreams and reality, it’s suffused with the feeling of people trying to regain control of their lives, to get back what they’ve lost.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is sometimes too low-key, favoring spooky atmosphere and slow-drip storytelling over visceral kicks. But as an acting showcase, the film’s a winner, getting plenty of juice from the performances of two reliable pros.

It has a cumulative power, as Trobisch focuses on the small details, looking closely at a woman who doesn’t want to be defined by the thoughtlessly inhumane thing someone else chose to do.

Watching [Frahm] at work — and hearing the audience react whenever he hits an especially tricky stretch of moving between keyboards — is little like watching an athlete at the top of his game.

The simplicity of “Parkland” is often quite affecting.

The movie’s grating a lot of the time, but often very funny, and perversely fascinating. Most importantly, it's always as honest as it is painful.

Like any good hoofer, the South Korean musical Swing Kids is eager to please, relying on both subtly graceful moves and aggressive razzle-dazzle. Though a bit longer than necessary, the movie tells an engaging, enjoyable story, peppered with impressive dance numbers.

While the plot is skimpy, the performances are rich, which turns Prevenge into a series of satirical sketches, dissecting the social dynamics between a mother-to-be and the various men and women who think they have an advantage over her.

This movie is less about the myth of Biggie than it is about the everyday experiences of a man described by his friends as much funnier and more big-hearted than his public image sometimes suggested. Despite the title, “I Got a Story to Tell” is primarily concerned with all the tales that went untold.

A lot of big action pictures add “a little heart” between the thrills, but The Unthinkable reverses the ratio, centering emotions. Some genre fans may be impatient with this approach at first, but by the end, it really works.

The film is really all of a piece in the way it toys with expectations, keeping viewers off-balance. Stevens and company put the audience in the place of both the predator and prey. They’ve built a clever little anxiety-generating machine.

That disconnect between people’s performative selves and their true selves is the most intriguing part of Longest Third Date because it also speaks to how new couples behave when they’re trying to impress each other.

Segan doesn’t force anything. He takes each situation and imagines what might realistically happen — and then what might happen next. He builds a world that feels real, and anchors it with a relationship so wholesome that its easy to see why a lonely vampire would upend his whole existence to preserve it.

Hunt works fine as a slam-bang action movie; but at heart it’s more of a cautionary tale.

Mohawk is a gripping and despairing action picture, about how we can't seem to stop trying to destroy those we distrust — including ourselves.

The movie’s only intermittently successful at blurring the lines between art and life. But it’s a sincerely felt experiment, and it has spirit.

Seems too subtle at times and too obvious at others, but Hamer strings together pieces of conversation and layers of voyeurism (everybody in the movie is watching somebody) into a moving study of the perils of presumption.

This almost unclassifiable Brazilian horror film is one of the most assured, unconventional genre pictures of recent years.

It’s more a feel-good recap of an impressive championship run. But the game analysis is keen, and the arc of this story is undeniably inspiring, arguing that victory is sweeter when it springs from a common purpose.

With the help of some vivid old photographs, their documentary reconstructs a world that was both darkly dangerous and strangely liberating.

Maybe this picture is just a string of wacky ideas, with no deeper meaning. But for those who take the ride, it’s an hour and 17 minutes they’re unlikely to forget.

The hyper-dramatic touches help disguise that this is essentially a film about paperwork. The rest of the weight is carried by Fan, who’s funny and heartbreaking. She’s a hero for our times: a stubborn woman, willing to inconvenience the powerful to get a fair hearing.

The core question Settlers asks is who “deserves” to occupy this inhospitable planet. To Rockefeller’s credit, he doesn’t offer any pat answers.

When “Chasing Trane” serves up mesmerizing footage of Coltrane lost in the middle of a long solo, the film communicates something beyond words.

This is an alternately handsome and harrowing ghost story, about a civilized society haunted by its own unspeakable needs.

Co-directors Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke (the latter of whom wrote the screenplay) sacrifice some tension with their more character-based approach, but the cumulative effect is emotionally powerful.

Even at its most pulse-pounding, Bloody Marie remains locked on its sympathetically pathetic protagonist.

Ultimately, this film celebrates living — including the part that includes taking big swings and making terrible mistakes.

Her is such a well-drawn character sketch—with such a fantastic Chastain performance—that it practically justifies the whole experiment.

This is a darkly astute study of how men in big groups can feel obliged to live up to the expectations of “boys will be boys” whether or not they actually enjoy it — and no matter where it may lead.

Genre fans may be disappointed that Spell is more of an artful character sketch than a supernatural thriller. But by focusing on despair and regret, the movie is still pretty haunting.

The cold irony that Foster provocatively presents is that if the idiocy surrounding pain clinics hadn’t become too gross and widespread for the authorities to ignore, people like the Georges might still be getting rich off of addiction today.

Polanski’s direction of Venus In Fur is masterful—a pleasure in and of itself—but Seigner is the star attraction here, giving one of the best performances of her distinguished career.

The Butler-Harts built their story around the place, and don’t squander any of the spectacular scenery. This island looks like something from a dark fairy tale — so that’s exactly what the filmmakers have made.

From the jargon-heavy dialogue to the loving shots of tricked-out autos, Corvette Summer is heaven for people who love hot wheels.

Miike retains his twisted sense of humor, with mangling and disemboweling deployed for comic effect. And after 99 movies, he certainly knows how to make action memorable. When 300 brightly clad actors with sharp props come storming in for the story's climax, all a martial arts fan can do is sit back and salivate.

What's so remarkable about the movie is how matter-of-fact it is.

The themes of Jakob’s Wife are a bit simplistic, but the lead performances are incredibly complex, drawing on the two stars’ decades of screen (and life) experience.

After a strong start, Shelley becomes frustratingly vague in the middle, before rebounding with a finale that makes the implicit menace more explicit.

Do I Sound Gay? gets into the mysteries of homosexual attraction and eroticism, and suggests that if Thorpe wants the kind of long-term relationship that Takei, Sedaris, and Savage have, he’ll have to get over his fetishization of the macho and learn to accept himself. That’s a poignant, powerful conclusion, all from asking one question.

Tim’s Vermeer is more of an engineering lecture. And while it’s edifying in and of itself, it’s almost more fascinating because of the reasons it never transforms into anything else.

There’s a lived-in quality to Dig Two Graves that’s all-too-rare for low-budget movies in this genre.

For the most part this is a clever and confident expansion of a terrific short. It stings less but packs plenty of poison.

While far from perfect, I Believe In Unicorns is unusually attuned to how it feels for a teenager to have her first intense, quasi-mature relationship, and how it feels for her to use that love affair as an escape from some serious problems at home.

Troll has a blockbuster polish without the Hollywood heaviness. The story’s nothing special; but the action is spry, the characters are likable and the emphasis on Scandinavian folklore keeps Troll from becoming just another generic “Godzilla”/“Jurassic Park” riff.

The Wrecking Crew is a provocative look back at an art form in transition, reflecting on the moment when it started to matter whether Mickey Dolenz was actually playing drums on The Monkees’ albums, and the moment when, according to Dolenz, people started to “take the rock ’n’ roll very seriously.”

“Onoda” is an insightful portrait of fanaticism, illustrating how bad ideas can take root simply because people are naturally resistant to change.

This revealing film is filled with pleasant balladry from a likable troubadour; but it also shows what it’s like to sing his little tunes while under unfathomable pressure.

The film is also valuable for raising awareness about Leth, whose work hasn't been as widely recognized as that of his European contemporaries, but who now makes an impressive case for his skills, five times over.

Lively, impassioned, well-structured documentary.

Both Stallone and the assured young actor Walton give fine, nuanced performances — as does Asbaek. The premise of “Samaritan” is the stuff of cartoons, but the actors makes the stakes feel real.

Reece’s ideas don’t always fit together neatly, but by gosh he has a lot of them. It’s a treat to watch him play.

Even when Alice doesn’t work, it remains gripping. Ver Linden underdevelops her “what if” scenario, but thanks in large part to Palmer the film is a fascinating character study.

Compared to other true-crime docs, “Beyond Human Nature” doesn’t blow the lid off a huge conspiracy or untangle a complicated mystery. But this is a fascinating story with something to say about how the legal system can’t always offer a definitive answer about what’s true.

For the most part, Sick is just a slickly formulaic mid-budget horror movie, well-crafted by the screenwriters and directed with style and energy by the skilled John Hyams. But the real-world wrinkles aren’t just a cynical way to make the routine more relevant. They give all the bloody murder a meaning.

The overall tone is more tongue-in-cheek than terrifying. Though some of the directors involved — like Lucky McKee ("May") and Neil Marshall ("The Descent") — have a hard horror pedigree, the emphasis here is on slickness.

Álvarez and Sayagues have delivered a blood-spattered potboiler that’s no work of genius but is much better than average.

As an exhibition of visual style and acting prowess, “Mother, May I?” is impressive.

The Great Flood works as a wordless narrative of human endurance, showing communities gathering to stack sandbags, then gathering again to dig out of the muck after their previous efforts failed.

Leatherface is well-made pulp, not a masterpiece like Hooper’s original. But given what this character means to horror history — and how badly he’s been treated — any upgrade’s a gift.

Like Smith’s pictures, this movie is direct, compelling and hard to dismiss.

For a film so slight, Doomsdays makes a strong impression.

Mixing freaky folklore with slapstick splatter, writer-director Fabián Forte’s Argentine horror film Legions tells a story that spans generations before landing in a surprisingly emotional place.

Beneath the affectations, there’s poetry in Kid-Thing, and truth in its depiction of how absolute freedom can be a kind of trap.

Never Grow Old isn’t a top-shelf western, but it’s thoughtfully made, with something to say about how even in a country that encourages rugged individualism, community matters.

While Fanon wrote with intense anger, he made his case more on an intellectual level than an emotional one, seeking to use his enemies’ words and logic against them. Olsson prefers to swing wildly.

McGregor has a good command of horror’s visual and sonic cues.

There’s a lot about the whole sorority phenomenon that could never fit within the narrow rectangle of a cellphone app. So “Bama Rush” widens the frame.

It’s rare to see a horror film so devoted to intricate plot mechanics and so concerned with driving to a satisfying payoff.

Just when the seemingly endless scenes of Johansson's nagging threaten to sink Match Point for good, the movie becomes the thriller that early reports promised.

Cronenberg has a lot of high-minded ideas, but he grounds them in human behavior and has found the right humans to tell his story.

It’s stylish and well-acted, and it does keep viewers guessing. It does its job well. It’s a pretty-looking puzzle.

While a film like Serial Killer 1 may disappoint anyone expecting “Bullitt” or “Lethal Weapon,” its focus on legwork and motivation could well appeal to fans of “Law & Order” — the TV show and the social construct.

Plenty of first-time feature filmmakers have combined grubby genre kicks with more personal concerns; but there’s a confidence and energy to “Stray Bullets” that compensates for the rather rudimentary, over-familiar story.

It’s the moments of more personal observation — about how the girls relate to each other, to their elders, and to a culture that’s a sometimes uneasy blend of Canadian and Indigenous — that gives this picture its spark of originality. There are lots of genre movies like this. None are this one.

Refreshingly dark and sick, this is a movie for those who like cinematic monsters that hit so hard they leave a mark.

It's best enjoyed as a crackling performance piece.

The movie comes to life whenever Hamed Behdad appears.

Contrivances aside, though, Janie Jones is one of the more realistic depictions of what the rock 'n' roll lifestyle is really like.

Though Flesh + Blood tells a terrific story, written by Verhoeven with his longtime collaborator Gerard Soeteman, the presentation is rough, and not just because the film is packed with gore and rape. Verhoeven doesn't believe in tasteful framing that implies nudity; he prefers the bare-assed variety, the kind that makes the body's frailty plain.

Girls Rock! is cutesy and quick-cut, emphasizing the absurd while trying to keep the audience's interest with animated interludes and footage from corny old industrial films.

There's something uniquely pleasurable about watching a director in total command of his craft, even when that craft is in service of a scattershot melodrama with pale intimations of social relevance.

No Restraint misses a lot of opportunities, like the chance to contrast Barney's work with artists working on a lower budget, or to examine his positive and negative influence on modern art, or to break down an economic model based on selling off the pieces Barney discards along the way.

Some kind of wonderment.

The contrast of a warm maternal figure and a remote army outpost is undeniably affecting. But when Vishnevskaya opens her mouth, she spoils the mood.

It's just too bad that Legend Of The Fist breaks up that action with long scenes of well-dressed men and women sitting around in nightclubs, talking politics.

This story--or stories like it--has been told and re-told too often. Lemon Tree works best when Riklis cuts out the predictable melodrama and trusts the fertility of his central metaphor.

The Wild Blue Yonder has a small message to deliver about the importance of ecological conservation, but mostly, it's an excuse to cut together mesmerizing undersea and outer-space photography while a hypnotic soundtrack drones on.

Hardcore Disney fans will appreciate how serious-minded and intimate this movie is, but for others, Walt & El Grupo might feel like an expensive vacation slide show, assembled by strangers.

When the crazy comes, it's pretty good crazy. Ferrell is in full-on brazen redneck mode, doing a variation on his "Saturday Night Live" George W. Bush impression.

It all begins to feel tawdry, especially since Paul H-O never seems to realize that even though he wants everyone to know who he is, he’s never given a good reason why we should.

Keyhole's flashes of actual B-movie coherence are enough to make longtime Maddin-watchers wonder if he could've played this material straighter, with more of a plot and fewer reveries.

Whatever The Blood Of My Brother's journalistic weaknesses, it's valuable as yet another view of what may end up being the most thoroughly documented war ever waged.

Road To Singapore isn’t as funny or as cleverly self-referential as what would come later; it became a hit largely due to the fast-paced, partially ad-libbed repartee between the two stars, which was unlike anything that movie audiences had heard before.

Though it's a well-worn story, Candy does touch on a universal anxiety. For two people basking in the heat of an all-consuming love, what happens when the power gets cut off?

El Topo is never boring, but neither does it hit the trippy heights of something like The Saragossa Manuscript, or the best of Luis Buñuel and Federico Fellini. And with its emphasis on one virile stud's journey to manhood—with women grasping at his cloak—El Topo isn't just drippily New Age-y, it also offers the kind of stealthy paternalism common to the counterculture.

Stella Days' strongest asset is Sheen.

Séraphine is far more powerful when it lingers on Louis at work.

In many ways, Fugitive Pieces is a beautiful film. But it's a bit TOO beautiful.

From Valentino Garavani's imperious carriage and diva fits to his coterie of tiny dogs, the subject of Tyrnauer's doc comes off like a fictional character, scripted by a writer with a weakness for cliché.

Yes, the idea that the tree/father is literally tearing this family apart is way too blunt, but Gainsbourg and Davies sell it by playing the scenes naturally, with minimal histrionics.

If nothing else, Leth shows how wrung-out and careless everyone gets amid constant bloodshed. "We don't need peace," one says. "We need school for our kids. Food. Sleep."

Between their bickering, Grønkjær's offscreen prompting, and the sappy, ubiquitous soundtrack, The Monastery is like the opposite of "Into Great Silence."

Hammer has a nice eye, and his premise develops engagingly in the final half hour, as he raises provocative questions about whether one man can truly step in for another.

Is this the stuff of gripping drama? Not at all. But like nearly all of Kiarostami’s films, it’s the stuff of good conversation.

There are certainly worse ways to spend the holiday season than in the company of two charming old actors, being reminded that human companionship makes life worth living, even as it makes dying a little tougher.

As a political thriller, Christian Carion's Farewell is fairly feeble, rendering some of the oldest clichés of Cold War potboilers without much urgency or stylistic flair.

The film doesn’t always work as a genre exercise, but it’s a winner as a character study, in large part because of how committed Hagan is to playing Janie’s derangement. Casting directors in search of the offbeat should take note.

This Wilson is sweet and pleasant and occasionally riotously funny. But it’s still the simplified version of a much more complicated work of art.

Marston and Sheppard have come up with a terrific premise, and have worked it into an often highly entertaining movie. But after a while, all the narrative ellipses and question marks start to feel like an affectation — beguiling on the surface, but un-genuine.

Buffalo Girls' main problem is that Kellstein can't seem to settle on whether he's making an inspirational sports movie (complete with triumphant music on the soundtrack during the fights), or an exposé of child exploitation among the Thai underclass.