Sam Weisberg

Shrewder documentarians than directors Brent Hodge and Derik Murray would have balanced out the sentiment with grit. The movie is saccharine.

While the film, to its credit, doesn't become a trite morality play, the ending is thin and contrived nonetheless.

Bialis's growing immersion in the town is poignant, even admirable.

The performances often enliven the stale material... But the script's naïveté is galling.

The result, despite a few stellar moments, is a not-quite-tragic-enough meditation on mourning and self-healing, crossed with a not-quite-gritty-enough portrait of indie rockers trying to break big.

It's an unsolved mystery in Hollywood why so many based-on-true-life polemical films end up so unremarkable.

That Bradley King's debut Time Lapse half-succeeds is a small miracle.

As it stands, Child of God is brazenly, outstandingly bad, as vague, pretentious, and pointless as its sorry title. But it's certainly memorable, full of inadvertent howlers and destined to create a whole new subgenre of burlesque, audience-torturing cinema.

In Vladimir de Fontenay’s Mobile Homes, Imogen Poots gives a performance of such multifaceted distinction that it might be hard to believe you’re watching the same actress from frame to frame.

All the ingredients for a gritty — if familiar — coming-of-age story are here. But London Town, though spirited, is consistently tension-free.

This is a maudlin, manipulative film, and while it's never aggressively annoying, that's only because it severely lacks energy. It registers like a pesky little sister who's doped out on Vicodin.

Coldwater is almost boastfully grim.

This film is numbingly dull.

This anti-war movie is more passionate about CB radio communication than the horrors of bloodshed.

Under the Electric Sky manages to be amusing even while it’s annoying you.

Sharon Greytak's Archaeology of a Woman is a decidedly well-made, unnerving film.

Even at its well-meaning best, Refuge is listless.

There are two rules that no version of Point Break should disobey: Don't skimp on surfing and never be boring. That’s two unpardonable strikes against new helmsman Ericson Core, who also photographed this stiff, humorless, tension-free remake in drab 3D.

This is, of course, a movie about affliction, and it ultimately succumbs to the bland, sentimental uplift we've come to expect from such outings.

[A] dour, dreary drama.

The Man on Her Mind has a terminal case of the cutes.

What's fresh is Weinstock's interweaving of flashbacks, slightly altered versions of flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, so that viewers must work as hard as Lee to determine past from present.

This needlessly incoherent thriller treats its convoluted nonsense with grave seriousness. It's mawkish, maudlin, and tongue-tied — countless scenes end with characters excusing themselves to go to bed, and you may want to join them.

[Ramsis] achieves many poignant moments, especially when his subjects express that they have never felt at home anywhere outside Egypt.

Shirinian has made a swift, moody film, with impeccable art design — Abner's diorama of the car wreck is a kooky marvel — a scarily convincing feel for recurring panic, and a thunderous, heart-rending performance at its center.

In the end, Relationship Status is wan when it tries to be scandalous.

By the Gun is a gangster film wholly devoid of suspense, atmosphere, or grit.

While not as kinky, dark, or schizoid as debuting director/screenwriter Michael Medeiros intends, Tiger Lily Road succeeds on its own small, claustrophobic level.