Rob Nelson

A masterfully composed and suitably outraged look at the neocolonialist exploitation of South Sudan.

As much as the movie rocks, Lambert & Stamp drops the needle to reveal the deep pain barely hidden in the grooves.

The effort of sussing out this satire’s attitude seems silly for the fact that its jokes just aren’t funny enough.

If a dominatrix is one who takes total control of her passive partner, then R100 is the cinematic equivalent of a kinky femme fatale in black leather and stiletto heels, cracking a whip and a smile.

Some genre fans who prefer the silly to the satiric may bite, but the anemic pic isn’t remotely weird or witty enough for cult immortality.

A dynamic and immersive piece of you-are-there verite.

The docu’s accomplished summary of tension-filled events as they transpired from minute to minute comes at the expense of wide-angle historical context.

A digressive, daringly experimental study of a flailing musician, magnetically played by accomplished bluesman and poet Willis Earl Beal.

An extraordinarily engrossing tale becomes an extremely uncinematic experience in the hands of Israeli documentarian Nadav Schirman.

An aptly intense and innovative study of pioneering rock poet Nick Cave, 20,000 Days on Earth playfully disguises itself as fiction while more than fulfilling the requirements of a biographical documentary.

Rossato-Bennett’s over-the-top narration often sounds cloying and banal... But the filmmaker succeeds in providing context, medical and historical, in between awakenings.

Camp X-Ray is most commendable for believably depicting the U.S. military from a female’s point of view.

[An] initially playful, ultimately haunting documentary.

Overly melodramatic but fairly engrossing.

The narratively jumbled film...features too many scenes that amount to mere stargazing.

Though the ugly phobia that gave rise to the killing and permeated the legal proceedings boils the blood, the film’s tone is somber rather than angry, and its effect is quietly devastating.

Director Argento half-heartedly mixes schlocky 3D f/x with one-dimensional characters for a near-two-hour joke that ought to have been funnier.

The ups and downs of a decades-long friendship are charted with warmth and sensitivity in Shepard and Dark.

Acquitting herself capably in a lead role that strips her bare in more ways than one, Robin Weigert (HBO’s “Deadwood”) proves worthy of a future in features, whereas first-time writer-director Stacie Passon mainly exposes her background in commercials.

Milkshake sucks all the flavor out of a tasty premise.

Escape From Tomorrow is a sneakily subversive exercise in low-budget surrealism and anti-corporate satire.

Director Jesse James Miller’s bio of ‘80s-era World Boxing Council lightweight champ Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini connects on emotional levels in the telling of an up-from-nothing brawler whose colorful career climaxed in tragedy.

The brisk, brief feature appears more atmospheric than terrifying, but its bare-bones tale gets under the skin.

By turns pulse-quickening and contemplative, The Crash Reel is a thoroughly winning docu portrait of former pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce.

Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy (“The Garden”) favors formulaic uplift over investigation, failing to offer a p.o.v. on whether young creative people should be driven as mercilessly as these. Lackluster videography further dulls the pic, which culminates in frustratingly fleeting glimpses of the students’ year-end performances.

Bursting with cheap f/x, the pic is often tedious when not repugnant, but it’s hard to dislike.

It takes pains to make the political personal, forging the viewer’s identification with Scahill by making persistent use of his voiceover narration and keeping him oncamera throughout.

Abundantly goofy, but atmospheric only in spots, this flat-affect screwballer has its moments, and may attract a minor cult.