Noel Murray

While the plot relies too much on generalities, the film as a whole thrives on specifics.

When Down Terrace gets in a good groove, Wheatley and Hill's dialogue is both funny and pointed.

There's little in the underdog sports dramedy Champion that feels vital, aside from its star.

Yet while it isn't that hard to stay a step or two ahead of Timecrimes, the movie is still a nifty little genre piece, an old-fashioned science-fiction mind-game with a healthy dollop of "Oh, the irony."

Fleeting confusion and bizarre literalization aside, though, Mad Detective is an effective mystery story, with an oddball hero--like TV's Monk, but far crazier--and some moments of visceral violence that raise the stakes.

Red Obsession is informative, and entertainingly so, with its honeyed Russell Crowe narration and sweet tracking shots through sun-dappled vineyards.

Though Theater Of War is informative--both about Brecht and about the effort it takes to mount a big New York production--Walter overreaches in trying to connect Brecht’s anti-war sentiment with contemporary protest movements, and doesn't do more than dabble with the themes of truth and representation in documentary filmmaking.

Kisses is dreary to a fault. It looks fantastic, with its shadowy Dublin alleys illuminated by the heroes' light-up Heelys. But the writing doesn't have that same glow.

It has a good heart and a good cast, mixing Hollywood veterans with some of today’s better young TV stars. But the movie is strenuously, exhaustingly unfunny, in a way that makes its phoniness harder to bear.

A sumptuously moody memory play.

For his first produced screenplay, Black took the best clichés from his favorite movies and honed them until they cut. Lethal Weapon’s heroes were edgier. And thanks in large part to the all-in commitment of director Richard Donner and producer Joel Silver, its chases and shoot-outs were more destructive. This one modestly budgeted genre exercise pumped hot blood back into a stiffening body.

The Five Devils saves some of the juiciest revelations for its final act, which can make the comparatively coy first hour feel frustratingly oblique at times. But this alluring and sneakily emotional film is never confusing.

Crawl is action-packed, with impressive special effects and some jaw-dropping images of mayhem and destruction. But a movie like this demands more storytelling discipline and logistical control than these filmmakers can manage.

Like the films it pays homage to, Ghost Stories is more classy than chilling; but each of its dark, twisty tales is smartly staged.

The real strength of Feast of the Seven Fishes is the attention to detail Tinnell brings to the wintry West Virginia setting: from the blue chill of the outdoors to the welcoming bustle of the bars, kitchens and churches.

Offers four fairly interesting monologues, undercut by ominous music, stylistic frippery, and a structure that all but guarantees the audience will be able to predict where the stories will go.

A persistent disappointment... a flabby, cutesy Bond picture, which derives most of its enduring entertainment value from its cast—starting with the man at the top.

Top Secret! replaces the scattershot-parody approach with a more precise re-creation of the dopey simplicity of WWII romances and Elvis pictures.

Both a stirring sports doc and a rich nonfiction drama, populated by characters who could have stepped out of a Damon Runyon story.

Dick Tracy has pop-art elements, imaginatively conceived montages, and a riff on crime-as-business that’s as pointed as the Godfather movies, if more family-friendly.

This film doesn’t lionize Weiner or justify anything he did. What it does is capture the frenzy of politics, the iron-clad egos of politicians, and the failure of the media to cover the parts of campaigning and government that actually matter.

Though The President's Last Bang is undeniably dense-with more than a dozen significant characters-the particulars aren't too tough to understand.

Why Don’t You Just Die! is too cartoonish and glib to have much to say about Russia or about genre films in general. But it is stylish and snazzy — a confident throwback to the knowing exploitation pictures of yesteryear.

Moon is enjoyable as much for its small scale and solid execution as for its crazy twists and creeping existential dread.

While the movie isn’t a consistently riveting four hours, Hoogendijk does keep finding images and moments that demystify the museum business while making the art seem all the more magical.

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

The end result is awfully sketchy, more a collection of ideas and memories than a proper film.

Too many of these characters behave like they just stepped out of a Noel Coward production.

Schreier elicits warm performances from Langella and Susan Sarandon, and even from his robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard).

It’s not a criticism to say that Smoking Causes Coughing doesn’t hold together, because cohesion isn’t what Dupieux is going for. He’s more about surprise and delight.

These characters are still rich, and their potential growth still compelling. Here's hoping we meet them again in another five years.

Viewers with no interest in theology may find these concerns a little esoteric, and may wish O’Brien had spent more time on the mystery of who Aaron is and why he seems to have supernatural powers. But this movie’s a must for anyone who enjoys seeing terrific actors given the space to explore their characters’ pain — and to spin riveting moments out of rich words and subtle moods.

Hellaware is short enough that its doggedness never gets tedious, but the film’s near-total absence of curveballs exposes either a limited imagination, or a lack of time and money to flesh out the premise.

The sports drama gives The Iran Job a strong hook, while the cultural context enriches the movie's real story, which is less about Sheppard's life in Iran than about the people he meets.

Viewers will either be transported by Honkasalo's somber artistry or begging for someone to stick a gasoline-filled syringe into their veins...As art, 3 Rooms is magnificent, but as a viewing experience, it's almost impossible.

This riveting and righteously furious film is about two subjects: the worrying phenomenon of police departments discrediting and even arresting sexual assault victims; and the more promising trend of journalists doing their own research into cases that may have been closed too hastily.

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.

Some of that professional lingo (like calling contracts “shows” and first assignments “debuts”) makes the story function as a sly metaphor for the entertainment business; and Byun’s stylish action sequences juice up the film’s second half.

Bob Byington’s 7 Chinese Brothers is no "Listen Up Philip," but it’s an amiable enough slacker comedy, boosted by its star.

This is an oddly inspiring film regardless, celebrating how a crafty DIY aesthetic and a twisted vision can nearly always find a receptive audience.

Jellyfish is the kind of film that will ring true for some viewers, while striking others as too slight and precious.

Williams is at his best in Good Morning, Vietnam when he’s pitched between manic and earnest: when he’s reacting to his castmates, who actually are funny. Too much of Good Morning, Vietnam, though, is self-congratulatory without giving any real reason for the applause.

From the shockingly raunchy dialogue to the ironic yuletide pop songs, this movie is a fun kind of nasty.

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 Ides Of March goes down easily, with a sophisticated bustle and a strong third act twist to test the hero's mettle. But it all feels a bit inconsequential - perhaps by design.

The Extra Man is kooky to a fault, and Dano is a major drag, with his soft voice and blank expression. But Kline gives a wild, wonderful performance, reminiscent of his work on "A Fish Called Wanda."

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

Shawn’s adaptation mostly follows Ibsen’s original text, which is what keeps A Master Builder on the level of a well-meaning but only intermittently electrifying exercise.

Even without the fine psychological shading, Garcia's story is a doozy.

That seems to be one of the main theses of Unforgivable: that nothing is as dramatic as it appears, and presuming otherwise means risking unnecessary trouble and pain.

Caged Heat is inspired from start to finish.

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.

Freaky has a lighthearted tone and a bouncy energy that keeps it watchable, even though writer-director Christopher Landon and his co-writer, Michael Kennedy, don’t do as much as they should have with a killer idea.

It’s remarkable how fully fleshed out Bateman’s hell-scape is, given that much of this movie was shot in an empty storage facility. There’s something haunting and poetic too about the simplicity of this story, which is primarily about how people find reasons to persevere once they find a companion.

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.

Even with all the metaphysical mayhem, the movie remains rooted in the lives and attitudes of its characters, and in the magnetic performances of Martini and Appleton.

Kelly tries a bit too much, favoring shock and absurdity over consistency and coherence. But the attempt alone is exciting; and it offers a refreshing alternative for those who prefer their holiday entertainment to be spooky, not sentimental.

Reality Bites embodied seemingly every odious post-Nirvana media trend. The title alone was laughably faux-hip, and the movie's portrait of slackerdom—limply enacted by Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Steve Zahn, and Janeane Garofalo—was both broad and shallow...No one acknowledges the obvious—that a heinous idea got even worse when Stiller signed on to direct.

Even though I'm not sure I understand what Stillman was going for minute-to-minute, I was swept away by how original Damsels is, and how funny.

Mostly though, The Goebbels Experiment proves that historical figures have the worst perspective on themselves.

The problem with Kawasaki's Rose is that the theme is far more compelling than the movie.

The disconnect between Wild Canaries’ two modes is sometimes too wide, making the movie come across either as a sloppy mystery or a scatterbrained melodrama. More often, the mix keeps the film lively and unpredictable.

Neither pro- nor anti-war; it’s a somber study of perpetually unsettled lives.

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.”

A little too neat, and self-consciously vague at the end. But it's fascinating to observe and try to interpret François' mysterious smile as she eyes her boss.

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.

The Future's main characters are, undeniably, dopes. But July and Linklater turn their ineptitude into a funny running joke, which becomes surprisingly affecting in the second half.

Cutesy and slight, but it's also polished and well-lit, and Muyl makes a weeklong hike roll by pleasantly, reducing it to about 80 minutes of screen time.

They Will Have to Kill Us First doesn't offer much of a primer on Mali's political or cultural histories — which is the movie's biggest weakness. But Schwartz did capture some remarkable footage of musicians who've spent the last few years taking tentative steps to reclaim what makes their nation special.

You Will Be My Son works best when it’s at its most unforced, and when the world of wine-making—with its anticipation of the season’s cycles and its fascination with subtle changes in flavor—intersects naturally with the life of a European business leader who has skewed priorities.

By preserving the exoticism and making sure the audience left the theater humming, Jewison made a grubby, European-flavored movie that Yanks could embrace.

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.

For people who are Minutemen fans and movie buffs, We Jam Econo is kind of a mixed blessing. Watt and Hurley tell the Minutemen story well, but Irwin relies too much on corroborating interviews from punk vets like Flea and Ian MacKaye, who talk about how great the band was without offering much fresh insight.

Bones Brigade is surprisingly emotional and inspirational too, as these now-grown men look back on the days when they were competitive, easily bruised kids, drawn to Peralta's calming, avuncular presence.

While Drug War is ultimately more an exercise in craft than a movie with a lot on its mind, it’s a remarkably skillful exercise, and hardly devoid of ideas.

Brunner does a fine job of conveying how the harsh, forbidding landscape where Johannes and Maria live distorts the way they engage with the secular world.

The Take tells a compelling story of courageous, industrious people, but it begs for a second act.

The Wind is ultimately more allegorical than literal. It’s not about history, or pioneer life, or bloodthirsty ghosts. It’s about a loneliness so overwhelming that it becomes terrifying.

Allen and Anderson are outstanding in roles that require a lot of levels and moods, as the central relationship goes from loving to shaky to … well, something else.

The Phenom may be choppy, but it’s saying something sincere about how the pressure to be thought of as a winner can be an athlete’s most formidable opponent.

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

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

The writer-director's overthinking on the matter is part of what's wrong with her debut film, which is sensitively shot, deeply felt, and dry as dirt.

[Reynor's] performance — fractured yet strong — is a big reason why Glassland works so well.

Marking...does her best to keep it lively, mixing in actual security-camera footage and animated re-creations, along with pieces of old tourist promotions, newsreels, and industrial films. But Smash & Grab’s overall tone is too reserved, given the subject matter.

The paltry amount of live performances is a crime. In some ways, Smith singing "Gloria" live would've been all the context anyone would ever need.

Dark Star has a stoner sardonicism: The movie feels like the product of long nights at the dorm passing around The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics and Arthur C. Clarke paperbacks.

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.

The gimmicky structure and style is more distracting than effective, and it mostly fails to compensate for an underdeveloped plot.

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.

What saves the movie is Solondz’s sensibility, which is still one-of-a-kind.

Anderson’s story becomes a tale of perseverance, about a passionate woman still searching for her happy ending.

The movie’s premise is clever; but what really makes it work is that these two use this ghost schtick as a way to examine the ways that friendship can be a hassle.

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.

Nothing about The Aristocats is pitched at the level of an unforgettable night at the movies for the whole family. It's a programmer, pure and simple.

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.

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

Beckinsale’s performance is so funny in fact that it sucks a lot of the air out the room for her co-stars. Whenever she’s in a scene, she delivers so many pithy putdowns per second that it’s hard to pay attention to anyone else. And whenever she’s not around, the movie dims.

Even though it doesn’t all come together thrillingly, Phantom Boy garners a lot of goodwill just for looking and feeling original.

Visually, Elstree 1976 is often striking, thanks to some haunting extreme close-ups of these actors’ Star Wars action figures.

The actor’s (Driver) performance isn’t just gripping; it’s inspiring. He’s not just portraying Jones; he’s embodying an ideal.

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.

For all that Tommy bungles or overdoes, it’s still a powerful experience, musically and visually.

The Woman With The 5 Elephants isn't flawless; as articulate and fascinating as Geier could be, she was also dry at times. But Jendreyko cleverly parcels out her personal history, and he isn't afraid to break up the talkiness with long silences and luminous images.

Barking Dogs Never Bite is uneven, unnecessarily provocative, and exhausts its central premise long before the closing credits, but it’s invigorating to watch regardless. After all, Bong is just doing what New Wave artists do: experimenting, breaking rules, showing off.

Darkly fascinating, as much a document of the late-'70s New York punk and pop-art scenes as it is a grindhouse plugger.

Any 15-minute stretch of Double Take proves as enlightening as any other--more like a museum installation than a movie.

That’s the nature of Truth: a promising build-up, dead-ending into prosaic pontification.

While Family Law is well-shot, it's not spectacularly well-shot, or involving in any conventional cinematic way.

In the wake of Lethal Weapon, producers across Hollywood had started running the buddy-cop concept into the ground, which made 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2 a reminder of how to do this schtick right, with just as much emphasis on loose character interaction as on violent action.

In digging deeper into the stories behind the junk--many of which involve the drug problems, legal problems, custody battles, cycles of abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorders of Mosher’s own family--October Country veers awfully close to exploitation.

Theirs is a well-worn story that may not need to be told, but they do tell it well.

Unlike “Obvious Child,” Landline plays like a series of semi-successful comic and dramatic scenes, haphazardly arranged into something resembling a story.

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.

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

Predictable and corny, but to their credit, Cary and Rose strive to make the situation real.

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

It’s an approach that works well when the audience enjoys the company of this person who’s become a permanent fixture on their TV. But it’s also one that enrages opposing voters, who can only ever see the maddening fakery.

Rarely has a movie made for kids been so devastatingly honest about how relationships can sour over time.

Some movies are meant to be messy, and some messes are strangely alluring.

Carmen relies too much on coincidences to keep its story going; and Buhagiar threads in a few too many impressionistic flashbacks to the heroine’s youth and to the romance her family forced her to abandon. But McElhone strikes a fine balance between humor and pathos.

The sense of enervation that creeps into the movie's second half is bothersome mainly because The Snowtown Murders is often brilliant in its depiction of the mundanity of evil.

As for its quality as an actual movie, well, The Jazz Singer is hardly great, but it provides solid melodrama and a valuable look at the ethnic stereotypes of early-20th-century entertainment.

For the most part, this is an absorbing and nuanced character sketch, with a well-deployed supporting cast.

Lane approaches New York’s unbalanced, inhumane economy the same way he approaches filmmaking: by putting a new frame around familiar sights, and forcing the audience to reconsider them.

Most fan-docs are fairly remedial, but Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt And The Magnetic Fields is more sophisticated than the norm, in keeping with its subject.

It’s the kind of movie destined to baffle and irritate as many people as it beguiles.

Though the movie falls a bit short in character and theme, Harder preserves the story’s shocks by having the players remain aloof and unknowable from moment to moment, which keeps the overall picture’s meaning vague.

Because Paris, Je T'Aime's episodes are so short, the duds don't stick around long enough to grate much. But the good ones also don't get to explore their assigned Parisian spaces as much as they could.

The movie balances electrifying archival footage with useful contextual cultural analysis.

The tangled plot is ultimately too simple, and the film's sociopolitical commentary too paltry. But Lowlife does have a refreshingly varied and up-to-date cast of characters. With seedy B-movies, just a little bit of ambition elevates the generic.

If not for Moretz’s expressive face, the film might stall out before it really gets rolling. It does get rolling though … and at maximum speed.

If nothing else, Julian Schnabel's concert film Lou Reed's Berlin presents the album's 10 songs with a force they've rarely shown before.

Luckily for Gibson fans, the movie’s a small gem: a good old-fashioned chase picture, thickened with pulp.

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.

Davis and company do get at the odd mix of middle-class lifestyle and cheerful doom-saying that defines the mainstream apocalypticons.

Mendes and Hawke bring a lot of depth and pathos to these characters, who gradually begin to wonder why they and their classmates are so fiercely dedicated to punishing each other.

I Care A Lot isn’t some brilliantly subversive social satire. It’s a tightly constructed, masterfully acted, lightly stylish little caper picture, which revels in just how mean it can be. It’s not essential, and it’s not for everybody. But for those who prefer their pulp to carry the faint aroma of moral rot, this movie is a real treat.

For the most part, it's too dry and quirky to connect. Still, those gags are something.

It is enlightening, though, to see Pope Francis in so many different contexts. Whether he’s comforting the suffering masses or chastising the powerful for spreading inequality, he models the many ways that rhetoric can work.

Catfish is absolutely riveting, and even nerve-wracking as Joost and the Schulmans get progressively closer to learning more about their "friends."

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

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.

Buried is as much about dropped calls, getting sent to voicemail, and being openly lied to by our institutions as it about being buried alive by terrorists.

Mostly, though, the pleasure of The Love We Make comes from watching one of the most famous musicians in the world looking totally chill, whether he's rehearsing with his band or casually chatting with Bill Clinton.

There’s barely enough plot here to fill a feature, but this energetic throwback’s DIY effects and general looniness should appeal to horror mavens.

Spinning Plates is a slow starter... But the documentary finds more of a rhythm once it moves beyond generalities and starts getting into particulars.

The movie is at its best when it’s at its smallest: when Ganalon quietly watches Colon coax a dying young man into vomiting up his “curse,” or when Ganalon is getting laughed out of his classroom because he has a burrito in his lunchbox instead of a sandwich.

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

Birth Of The Living Dead excels in Kuhns’ gathering of critics, academics, and filmmakers to analyze how and why the film works so well.

As documentary moviemaking, though, Ellis and Mueller's work falls a little flat.

Ultimately, all the metafictions and social commentary are too vague to have any meaning, beyond giving Johnson a foundational justification for this movie. But while The Dirties is in some ways appalling, it’s also effective.

Without Cage, there’d be almost no reason to see the by-the-numbers revenge thriller A Score to Settle. With him, the movie isn’t just watchable, it’s occasionally riveting.

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.

Much of the shtick used by Clark and screenwriter Roy Moore was later stolen both by countless hacks and at least one real artist (Halloween director John Carpenter), but few repeated Clark's most devious tactic, accompanying the violence with the sound of the killer's nerve-janglingly maniacal shouting.

More detail about how this concert came to be — and what it means to both the performers and their patrons — would’ve made Liberation Day more illuminating, at least as a piece of journalism. But there’s a subtly meaningful power to what the film actually does.

Better Than Something doesn't really try to resolve the mystery of how someone could be simultaneously so productive and destructive.

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.

Lively, impassioned, well-structured documentary.

The result is surprisingly satisfying, like "Jaws" for the YouTube/Skype era.

Montenegro's performance is typically multifaceted, displaying keen wit and a thick streak of self-doubt.

Fans of blood and guts won’t find what they’re looking for here (until the final 10 minutes, that is); but serious-minded genre fans should feel satisfied.

Chase deals with the mundane reality that squashes those dreams, but he doesn't downplay the dreams themselves, which he keeps honoring throughout Not Fade Away, right up to an audaciously abstract final scene that rivals the end of "The Sopranos" for sheer nerve.

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

In a clever use of metaphor, the filmmakers have built an appealing world of wonders, hidden below the moon’s barren surface — suggesting there are fragments of hope embedded within even the grimmest landscapes.

Windfall is undeniably persuasive - and is likely advocating on the right side of the wind-farm issue - but the movie's case relies more on emotional appeals and frightening images of giant machines than on real, objective number-crunching.

The best parts of Deadfall are absorbed into a scenario that frequently ditches the cat-and-mouse routine and tries instead to be about three dysfunctional families working toward reconciliation.

Kim weaves these clichés into effectively nerve-wracking setpieces, though between the jumps, A Tale Of Two Sisters becomes mired in ponderous melodrama.

What this film is not, in any way, is comprehensive. Very intentionally, Folayan and company don’t concern themselves with the bigger picture. This is ground-level journalism.

Operation Mincemeat isn’t groundbreaking cinema, but it’s well-crafted and thoughtful; and when the heroes are inventing the personal details for their dead soldier and imagining all the real lives they’re affecting, the movie becomes appealingly bittersweet.

While Memphis is similar in style and in assurance to the lower-ambition Pavilion, it reaches toward something it can’t fully grasp.

Glasshouse holds back a few provocative secrets for its final third; and throughout, Egan borrows from the likes of “The Beguiled” and leans into the sensuality of her premise, in which a handful of lonely ladies are suddenly delivered a handsome stranger.

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is too slick and too cute; Tudyk and Labine are terrific comic actors, but the movie might've been better served by less-recognizable faces.

Writer-director Dan Rush could've approached this material in dozens of ways, but the way he chooses-turning it into an occasionally wry, ever-earnest dramedy-is precisely the wrong one.

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.

The story suffers diminishing returns as it unwinds with increasing violence and absurdity. Or maybe it’s just that “68 Kill” puts the best material upfront.

First-time writer-director Jason Lei Howden (who has a day job working for Peter Jackson’s special effects house Weta Digital) has delivered something amiably silly, liberally splattered with human viscera, and scored to the punishing grind of electric guitars.

What saves 1001 Grams from being excruciatingly cute is that it does have a clean look and a pleasant tone, and it’s about a subject that’s both unusual and entertaining.

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.

A clever little contraption, even though it runs into the problem that a lot of twist-heavy suspense movies have: Once it's spooned out all its surprises about two-thirds of the way through, it loses a lot of its entertainment value.

It's so rare these days to see a documentary that aspires to be cinematic that Beyond Hatred may seem at first to be slightly better than it is.

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.

With just a few minor tweaks, Take Me To The River could play as a moody supernatural horror picture, with Logan as the dangerously curious hero being warned away from an evil he shouldn’t confront.

For all its formulaic faults, The Wheel is unusually astute about the ways some couples avoid the hard truths about each other because they’re afraid of ripping their whole lives apart.

Whatever a person's opinion of the play's accuracy, William Friedkin's 1970 film adaptation remains gripping, translating a story that takes place in a cramped apartment into a movie that rarely feels stagey.

It might've mattered to the audience too, if we had any inkling from the first hour of The Robber who this guy is, or why we should care what happens to him.

Whatever it is, Wild Grass is so overtly artificial and aggressively trifling that it's bound to put some viewers off, though it's also so bright and funny that it's hard not to be at least a little enchanted. Resnais' music is so sweet, even when his words are nonsense.

The drama feels factory-cut and shrink-wrapped, with each of three kids' stories following predictably twisty paths to ironically hopeful conclusions.

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.

The elements of a good, “Winter’s Bone”-like depiction of the rural social order are here. But they only really coalesce — and combust — when Thornton’s on the screen.

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.

Some of the stylistic fillips feel excessive, and at the end of the day, this is just a tawdry, gory B-picture, with little to say about human behavior. But it’s often funny and generally suspenseful — a fine afternoon on the water, all things considered.

If the people in Chrystal are intended to be authentic, why do none of them look like they've ever seen the inside of a Wal-Mart?

At times plays like a case study more than a drama.

Darkman is funny, but it’s no joke; it’s the work of a man who underlines the conventions of adventure stories and horror because he enjoys them, and knows that even when rendered tongue-in-cheek, they’re timeless.

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.

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

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.

This backwoods monster movie boasts compelling performances, eye-catching creatures and an effective blend of practical and digital effects.

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.

For roughly two-thirds of its running time, the big-screen video game adaptation Monster Hunter feels like an attempt to answer a question no one has asked: What would the “Jurassic Park” movies be like if they were drained of all sense of wonder? The film rallies toward the end with a few genuinely spectacular images, but even its best scenes fail to justify a tedious first hour.

There's enough mystery and agony here for an engaging documentary, but Rossier fails to produce one, largely because he doesn't approach the material in the spirit of true inquiry.

De Caunes and screenwriter René Manzor do well when they dwell on history from a mundane human perspective, but Monsieur N. is too dry and too unsurprising for its two-hour running time.

The movie is in some ways an exaggerated spoof of mid-20th century pop culture — and, in more profound ways, an explication of how greaser fashion, jazz clubs, beatnik poetry and complicated hairdos once gave repressed Americans a vent for their unspoken desires.

Sometimes this movie is unsettling; sometimes it’s funny. Mostly it’s a strange and fascinating inquiry into the nature of belief, which takes viewers far away from where it begins and then leaves it to them to find their way back.

Sayar and Schnendar are likeable performers, and if Bilu and Hager had pushed the "private school for girls" side of Close To Home a little harder, they could have had a sharp satire on their hands. Instead, it's all played straight and close to the surface.

The movie does have a charm that develops gradually.

When Attachment becomes more of a full-blown possession thriller in its final third, it loses the lighthearted charm and keen observation of its earlier sections. Still, that first hour is so sweet that the comparatively sour parts don’t spoil the picture.

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.

The differences between Goat and a Very Special Episode of some Disney Channel sitcom are, at times, limited to the amount of on-screen puking. That said, Neel, Roberts, and Green do have a good feel for the vagaries of bro culture’s macho codes.

Testin and Berg's work here is definitely promising, suggesting something better from both of them down the road.

It presents some thoughtful perspectives, both from the dedicated litigator and a community conditioned to expect disappointment from the criminal justice system — and a last chance at fairness in the civil courts.

All told, Ellison is a fascinating person to spend 96 minutes with. But you probably shouldn't risk that 97th.

Ultimately, this film is less about her final decision than about how having these choices helps her figure out who she wants to be.

The story’s a bit convoluted, though no more than most detective plots. Ultimately, it’s a solid mystery, explained well by Enola in her fourth-wall-breaking chats with the audience. The pairing of actor and role here is just about perfect, and as much a star-making turn for Brown as her breakout performance in “Stranger Things.”

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."

The Imposter strings the audience along, to get them to understand first-hand how easy it is to buy into a well-told story, even when there's no evidence to support it.

Dark Touch is meant to touch a nerve, not merely spook. It’s about deeper fears, and realer monsters.

Most of the first half of director Ellie Callahan’s supernatural thriller Head Count feel like a waste of time, made all the more frustrating once the movie starts to improve.

After watching Bettie Page Reveals All, even longtime devotees may not be able to look at one of her pictures again without hearing her voice, remembering her story, and appreciating her joy all the more.

Ultimately though, apart from the ages of the protagonists, Cloud 9 is a standard-issue infidelity story.

At first, the movie is offbeat enough to be entertaining anyway; but like the title character, it quickly outstays its welcome.

After the first hour, it's clear the movie isn't going to offer any surprising new insights into messed-up modernity.

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.

This isn't a film about abstract social ills, it's about specific people in a specific place, and how they get disturbingly comfortable with theft and violence as a way of life.

Kaboom is pure fantasy in every sense of the word: It's a riff on sexy, sassy teen movies and conspiracy thrillers that at times seems to exist only so Araki can get his beautiful young cast to strip off their clothes and pair off in every conceivable combination, just as he used to do in his earlier, more scandalous films.

What saves Chinese Puzzle—making it not just tolerable, but likable—is how well Klapisch uses New York. The movie embraces the whole city.

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.

Though it's equally concerned with sensitive young criminals in squalid communities, Schizo is no "City Of God," for better and worse.

What’s most notable is how Eastwood holds fast to the rebel spirit of the spaghetti Westerns and revisionist New Hollywood Westerns of the previous decade, but packages it in a film that’s slicker and more mainstream-friendly. 

The film’s well-made, thick with spooky 17th century atmosphere. But it’s also as dreary as its setting, with little original or exciting to add to an already limited horror sub-genre.

Anyone interested in gaming history will find a lot to enjoy here; and the general niceness helps make what is essentially a fun 15-minute anecdote tolerable for 90.

While Tamara Drew is enjoyable throughout-right up to its loony, loony ending-it's more than a little scattered.

The perverse story of a randy cowboy (played by Shepard himself) and his sister/lover Kim Basinger needs the tension of live performance for its incest-as-metaphor diagram to pop out.

Finnegan offers a vision of domesticity as a soul-sucking grind, done for the benefit of malevolent overlords. His film chills the mind more than the spine.

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.

Moore has made his best film in over a decade, and one that clarifies exactly what his strengths are.

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.

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

Because Justice is from the Wiseman school of documentaries, there's no narration and people don't share their thoughts with the camera, which means the movie can come off as a little hollow.

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.

It's a shame that a movie about the pope as a man shows such scant fascination with the actual papacy - or with humanity, for that matter.

This film engages and challenges the audience throughout, raising questions about the relationship between humanity and the technology we rely on. It’s an exciting film to watch, but an even better one to think about after — preferably in the company of a real, physically present person.

Between its dreamy Philip Glass score, vivid location shooting, and strong early performances by future stars Dylan McDermott, Courtney Vance, Steven Weber, and Don Cheadle, Hamburger Hill stands out from the pack as one of the best of the Vietnam movies.

What emerges is a rich portrait of one of 20th century pop culture’s great facilitators, whose keen observations, quirky personality and natural affinity for the outré helped greatness happen.

The plot here is too plain, but the details are vivid and the outrage palpable. If nothing else, this movie is one hell of an education.

Converts relevant contemporary history into intimate personal drama.

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.

The woodenness of China Salesman, coupled with the general oddness of a two-fisted adventure yarn about hyper-aggressive telecom companies, gives this movie some “weird cinema” appeal. But if you can’t tolerate stinky cheese, leave this one on the shelf.

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.

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

The parts of Finding Fela that best handle the tricky nuances of Kuti’s worldview are the parts that show Jones and the Fela! creative team grappling with those same questions.

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

So far, Nymphomaniac looks like a major work from a major director: a compendium of all von Trier’s career-long preoccupations with gender roles, authoritarianism, religion, obsessive behavior, and lust.

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.

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.

Even when Midnight Kiss is sputtering, viewers can tune the dialogue out and just watch the scenery in one of the most "there"-y L.A. movies ever made.

Mifune: The Last Samurai is less a comprehensive overview of the actor’s life than it is an analysis of what that life meant.

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

Well-produced and engaging, but it’s also anecdotal and conspiratorial, and damnably non-confrontational.

Gareth Edwards' low-budget science-fiction film Monsters is both a testament to what the latest technologies allow filmmakers to do, and-on the downside-a testament to the enduring importance of a good script.

Good Kill’s hero is both unsympathetic and uninteresting. That’s partly intentional. Niccol means to show how the drone program can reduce a formerly good man to mush. But making that point comes at the expense of making a nuanced, vibrant motion picture.

Beyond its genre roots and its deeper meanings, Southern Comfort is a well-honed study of characters and setting.

Return is unusually attuned to its protagonist's alienation, which is especially painful because its source isn't some horrendous event she witnessed, but the hundreds of annoying aspects of everyday life.

The movie is one of To's typically tangled meditations on the smearing of good and evil, in moments where instinct overcomes morality. And ultimately, To cares less about the motivations of opposing forces than about the spectacular collisions they produce.

The subject matter of Deliver Us is sensational, but Di Giacomo’s approach is more in the spirit of documentarian Frederick Wiseman, where very little is explained.

The Forest of Lost Souls is a bit of a puzzle, which some viewers might find too much trouble to solve — especially given that in the middle it becomes shockingly violent. But the black-and-white images are lovely to look at, and whatever’s true or untrue about the characters, they’re all clearly alienated.

The two of them (Washington/Mendez) together, playing police-procedural dodgeball, make for a good movie. Too bad there are other people on the team, and that the pre-game show runs so long.

A corporate crime thriller that explores the relationships of women in power, but while Corneau delivers a slick, well-acted piece with a surprising mid-movie twist, Love Crime is too thin and too on-point to deliver the jolt he and co-screenwriter Nathalie Carter most likely intended.

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

Even though Macaulay Culkin's alternately muggy and inexpressive lead performance hasn't worn well, the supporting turns by Catherine O'Hara and John Candy are especially crackerjack, as is John Williams' buoyantly cartoony score.

The Other Son's setup is too contrived, carried along by conversations that are either confrontational or artificially elusive.

Grapples with tough subject matter, and earns a little leeway in its approach.

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

Fast Company is an example of Cronenberg taking one step back from his idiosyncrasies, and spending 90 minutes reveling in one of his passions.

Mostly, this is a whirlwind trip through the origins of a phenomenon, with an eye toward explaining how America could find these ladies at once sexy and wholesome. The answer? Hey man, it was the ‘70s.

Aside from a few unfunny comic setpieces, Where The Boys Are is generally entertaining, thanks to vivid location footage and a likable cast.

Beautifully shot and crisply edited to emphasize the Mass Games' pageantry, but amid the synchronized blocks of performers, Gordon singles out the cranky coaches and giggling schoolgirls, subtly emphasizing how the individual endures even when she's trying hard not to.

Halftime is no warts-and-all exposé. It’s an unapologetically pro-Lopez project, revealing only what the star wants her fans and skeptics to know about how she’s dealt with her many career disappointments. But Lopez has been such a powerful cultural presence that she’s earned this kind of tribute.

Gregory’s wife, Cindy Kleine, is a skilled filmmaker, but she’s no Louis Malle, and her documentary Andre Gregory: Before And After Dinner is nowhere near as elegant as "My Dinner With Andre" or "Vanya On 42nd Street." Mainly, the movie lacks focus.

Drenner’s overall approach here is too limiting for a character sketch—which may be why That Guy Dick Miller frequently veers off-topic.

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.

The Piersons are warm, funny people, and most of Reel Paradise shows them comically bickering with each other and laughing at the absurdity of the whole project.

Johnson tries too hard to make all his mayhem meaningful, to minimal effect. Still, this picture should entertain Adkins’ growing base of fans, who ought to appreciate that the star gets more freedom than usual to be delightful as well as dangerous.

It’s intense as hell, and a supreme example of how the morally repugnant can be made to look weirdly beautiful.

During their heyday, Cypress Hill pretty much went from high to high (no pun intended), which means this movie about the group is low on drama. But it’s filled with great music and welcome insight into some under-appreciated innovators.

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.

Simon Killer is a sensual experience that asks the audience to question what it sees and hears. In that way, Campos takes all-too-common feelings of loneliness and disorientation, and shows how they can shade into madness.

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

Kern and Hennessy are always incredibly entertaining, going toe-to-toe, as Mary defies the convent’s rules and a smiling Mother Superior makes her pay.

Blood on Her Name runs out of juicy “So now what’s” by its final stretch. But Lind is terrific throughout; and it’s a welcome change-of-pace to see a story about lawbreakers where no one involved is any kind of psychopath or super-crook. They’re all just plain folks, leading ordinary lives … and making terrible mistakes.

The main problem with Him is that it takes the form of a generic indie dramedy about a hard-luck dude, desperate for a turnaround in his personal and professional life... Him does have a few scattered moments of Her-like insight and vitality, though.

Too much of Ari Folman’s half-animated science-fiction feature The Congress feels just a bit off—but every now and then, the concept, the performances, and Folman’s visual flair combine to produce something extraordinary.

She acts amazed by her own work, in hopes that we'll be too. To help the matter along, Lee underscores the action with a Mickey Mouse score, cutesy animation, and a relentlessly chipper tone. Her technique is pretty much everything that's wrong with documentary filmmaking today.