Rachel Saltz

Bel Borba Aqui gives us plenty to look at, but not much to think about.

Pulpy but attenuated, Heroine tries to do too much: deliver an exposé of the back-stabbing film business while also drawing a portrait of a woman caught in its vice.

The filmmakers retain a touching faith that most Americans won't tolerate injustice when they know about it. This film is meant to teach them.

The film world setting could be better exploited and Shanaya's jealousy made less mechanical, but Raaz 3 delivers other goods: some horror thrills, some true-love-versus-evil thrills and some unusually steamy bits.

This is an excellent story, and Ms. Draper tells it clearly and stylishly, teasing out the interesting angles and repercussions.

By turns frustrating and moving, Ali Samadi Ahadi's documentary The Green Wave, about the Green Revolution in Iran, gets a jolt from footage shot by the people for the people on the people's cellphones.

As storytelling, "The Global Catch" often falls short. It has too much to cover to be comprehensive and can seem a bit random. As a consciousness raiser, the film fares much better.

Patang ("The Kite"), Prashant Bhargava's first feature, has a lovely, unforced quality. That's because Mr. Bhargava lets his story, set during the annual kite festival in Ahmedabad, India, tell itself, unfolding slowly as he follows filmmaking's most basic and most sinned-against dictum: Show, don't tell.

Ridiculous and undeniable, it's a punchy cartoon, rightly confident of its power to entertain. Why resist?

Ms. Rohrwacher combines a documentary impulse (effective in family scenes) with a more allegorical one. Her film gets clunky when allegory has the upper hand, and that means Corpo Celeste often stumbles, along with its 12-year-old heroine, Marta (Yle Vianello).

His (Rivera) movie hits its targets, but softly, more in amusement than in anger.

Ms. Portes's script strains credulity, and it's not helped by Mr. Martini, who can't find the right tone.

The talented Mr. Ross makes Dre's panic and adrenaline-fueled behavior all too believable. You watch as he sees his horizons dim. What could be sadder?

The filmmakers have no patience for details, either basic or telling. Their elliptical method starts to seem lazy, and Jean's plight, a journey from bad to bad, starts to seem a stacked deck. Through it all Mr. Genty holds your attention with his sober dignity. Too bad the filmmakers frequently let that slip into pathos.

Occasionally funny, though its dirty riffs - most provided by Kevin Hart as the Happily Divorced Guy - are as formulaic as its earnest parts.

Through it all Mr. Allman, who played the skeevy Tommy on "True Blood," is a pleasant presence but blank. And Don's crisis of faith, which should be the movie's core and engine, is never really convincing. It's spelled out but dramatically inert, lost among the yuks of the Reed kookiness.

Ms. Hui, a rare successful female director in the Hong Kong film industry, drew her story from real events, and the movie retains a tonic flavor of the everyday: its drama unfolds simply, without explosive moments but not without emotion. She and her two excellent leads keep the film buoyant.

When a small drama sputters to life at the end, it's too late. You've already been lulled into dreamland.

Though Weil remains fascinating, Ms. Haslett's film, even when it uses more traditional documentary techniques, mostly isn't.

Gerhard Richter may not fling paint at the canvas, Jackson Pollock-style, but as Corinna Belz shows in her documentary Gerhard Richter Painting, he can be his own kind of action painter.

The happy surprise of Ek Main aur Ekk Tu a Bollywood romcom that bears a vague resemblance to "What Happens in Vegas," is that it's not crude, sniggering or vindictive. Instead it's rather sweet and sometimes even a little unexpected.

A wearisome mix of miserableness and dark humor.

Well made, and for once the talking-heads format is satisfying.

This history is too recent to seem dry, and the film gets an added emotional punch from interviews with former tenants, whose memories mix fondness with anger and loss.

Big Miracle gets off to a shaky start, but once revved up, it becomes an involving work-against-the-clock-and-the-odds action movie.

Deliberately small-scale, Five Time Champion has tough-minded moments but too often veers toward the sweet and even the treacly. It's pleasant enough, but too careful to be very involving.

Lost in all this is Halston, who comes through only in dribs and drabs. If you're curious about him, skip this film. Read about him - you'll learn far more on his Wikipedia page - and look at his clothes. And if you're a filmmaker, go out and make a decent movie about him: he deserves it.

The movie goes mushy when it should be critical, and leaves you with questions that it's not prepared to answer.