Sheri Linden

Cunningham's 1990 novel makes an assured, if not entirely satisfying, transition to the big screen in this terrifically acted exploration of the bonds that transcend traditional notions of family.

Mary Mazzio’s eye-opening documentary reveals that the buying and selling of tweens and teens, long recognized as a plight in some developing nations, is also very much a domestic problem.

It’s never dull. Without destroying the sheer poetry of the matchup between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, Hock explains it all, and in the process pays tribute to the extraordinary speed factor of a game that has been damned for its slowness.

Megumi Sasaki's follow-up to her first documentary, 2008's Herb & Dorothy, is as engaging and unpretentious as its subjects.

There are big questions churning beneath the story, yet even Hildy’s personal turmoil feels somehow too neat. In the film’s sharp comic observations, though, and especially its two fine leads, something real and messy sparks to life.

Despite the more forced and obvious aspects of the story, Barrial taps into the everyday reality of his characters’ New York with an impressive immediacy, abetted by especially fine contributions from cinematographer Luca Del Puppo and composers Lili Haydn and Christopher Westlake.

Delving into company archives, the director (whose grandfather, the animator Ub Iwerks, was a crucial contributor to early Disney films) has composed an official story, but one that wisely avoids “why this matters” talking-head commentary. Disneyland Handcrafted is instead an immersive bit of time travel.

Solomon crafts a quality horror piece from strong performances and effects. The chief disappointment of An American Haunting is that it doesn't exploit more opportunities for the sublime subtlety of performances by Sissy Spacek and, especially, Donald Sutherland.

While the foreshadowing proves more fascinating than the upshot, the two leads breathe jittery life into every sinister twist.

No subtext goes unexplained, and at times the score underlines what we already know. But the actors always find the grace notes, and there are sparks in the way everyday exchanges turn sharp with compassion. There are welcome laughs too, particularly in Bracco’s grump-meister line readings.

Well-told and charming, debuting writer-helmer Georgia Lee's comedy-drama Red Doors is big on heart but never sappy. Without overdoing the quirk factor or the melodrama, Lee shows a sure feel for family dynamics, and her light touch brings out the best in the ensemble's lovely, understated performances.

Nothing in the film has a fraction of the dramatic impact of the emotional roller-coaster Colman’s performance embodies.

Those who stick with Martian Child won't entirely avoid mush, but they will find terrific performances.

(Untitled) assembles a collection of vivid character-types, sometimes a breath short of caricature. But for all its sharp comic angles, Jonathan Parker's film takes its central questions seriously and avoids the pat follow-your-bliss answers Hollywood prefers.

Beyond its eye-opening archival material, the flawed but rich mix of personal history and showbiz annals is an illuminating reminder of how quickly the first (or best-promoted) story becomes the official story, and how easily biographers' career-boosting conjectures are calcified into "fact."

[A] fascinating and frustrating documentary.

The clunky organization and very basic production values give way to something inspiring.

Supplementing the interviews with well-chosen archival material, Hanks assembles a capsule history of the music biz and youth culture.

Within the story's sometimes too-neat outline, Volpe lets most of her characters breathe.

Although the film's jabs at TV journalism are nothing new, Carrey brings to the material the sense of someone who's too smart for his work yet loves it -- the essence, perhaps, of being a ham.

Barbara Sukowa's performance in the title role is the kind that reverberates long after the screen goes black.

The movie’s wry hijinks and spirited affection for its characters prove gratifying.

With its sly, unsettling mix of politics and psychology, Anniversary is both over-the-edge and utterly recognizable.

Though the combination of social critique and unhinged laughs doesn’t always jell, the movie is quite gloriously a thing unto itself, even as it draws upon obvious inspirations.

Feliciano's mix of social commentary and old-school melodrama can be sharp, but it can also be distractingly on-the-button.

Within the doc's brief running time, Lambert sculpts a discerning overview of the artist and her filmography.

Though it hasn't the sweep to be greater than the sum of its parts, the movie offers an absorbing mix of melodrama and historical detail.

At its best, the movie achieves a broody dazzle, even as the narrative proves less memorable than one would have hoped. But the fluency of Mann’s direction and the slow-burn chemistry between Chris Hemsworth and Tang Wei counterbalance the more ordinary, and not always involving, procedural elements.

A choppily told tribute to the Apollo astronauts that makes striking use of never-before-seen archival images.

For all its winking jabs, this blend of giddy bits and teachable moments eventually follows the same old playbook.

A dynamic glimpse of contemporary Los Angeles funneled into an old-fashioned coming-of-age saga, Lowriders isn’t always persuasive, but it has plenty of heart.

Distractingly lovely to look at, the film can't make Sangaile's struggles or triumphs matter. Its soaring conclusion feels anticlimactic, the story drifting off into air.

Heartfelt, if not entirely satisfying, Walk With Me provides an up-close glimpse of the life of devotion, focusing on the monks and nuns who live at a rural monastery led by Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Chilling Kafkaesque encounters give way to portrayals of thuggish cops bordering on caricature. In distractingly blunt ways, the film emphasizes what's already powerfully clear: the monstrousness of Mariam's situation and her courage.

Elliptical storytelling is both a strength and a weakness in a visually striking mystery thriller.

The picture's quiet performances and occasionally surprising moments take it just far enough off the beaten path to make it more than a transparently formulaic feel-good story.

More a middle-of-the-road rom-com than a teen-spirit sendup, the pic weaves its lighthearted mix of silly and serious with increasingly heavy-handed spiels on self-esteem.

Without pandering to audience sympathy, Silverman's dark shadings lend something unexpected and real to the role.

The good news is that Christopher Walken, resplendent in purple silk, isn't the film's sole redeeming element. The bad news is that even his arch-villain can't save Balls of Fury from losing bounce as the story proceeds.

Full of insights on love and sex -- which will have more resonance for lesbians but pack a universal punch.

The directors and screenwriter Karen Croner are attuned to the different ways that Phil and Sandy selfishly draw their kids deeper into the domestic mess.

Though the story is drawn in broad strokes and overloaded with melodrama, director Mat Whitecross' exuberant feature understands the communal joy and personal necessity of rock 'n' roll.

Taking satiric aim at a familiar target, conformity, Australian playwright Tony McNamara's film debut is by turns incisive and broad.

The talking-head commentary, however firsthand, personal and eloquent, can be repetitious, while the filmmaker leaves unnecessary basic information gaps in the story he’s telling. But Midsummer in Newtown is nonetheless an affecting chronicle.

The preceding journey might have been smoother, but the doc is a reminder that we still know so little about the oceans and their inhabitants, and an illustration of how much hope we attach to them.

At its most hopeful, the film traces a story of medical diplomacy, involving a young Gaza boy's life-saving surgery by an Israeli doctor. At its most searing, it illuminates the seeds of hatred and the depths of suffering and mistrust.

It’s a handsome period piece that’s often too smooth around the edges, but with its old-fashioned sincerity and unforced insistence on team spirit, it has a certain all-ages appeal — assuming audiences of all ages are going to the movies this holiday season.

Despite effective moments, VanAlkemade's film is too diffuse. He gives us snippets of the group's spirited performances, but their effect on audiences remains unclear.

Even with director Mira Nair’s typically vivid sense of place and the charismatic central performances by David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong’o and a striking newcomer, the film hits every note of plucky positivity so squarely on the head that it leaves little room for audience involvement.

Droll, unforced humor and low-magnitude emotional tremors register persuasively thanks to the natural performances of the three leads.

If director Emmanuelle Bercot's feature isn't always dramatically satisfying, it is fueled by the fine, flinty chemistry of Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel and newcomer Rod Paradot.

An affecting portrait of a young widow and her two teenage daughters.

Sophie Deraspe's film is a compelling anatomy of an Internet hoax.

Joan’s story unfolds all too neatly, but in Allen’s spark and grace there’s a real sense of discovery.

Familiar but never overly broad, this well-cast, crowd-pleasing comedy benefits from a low-key emphasis on character over high jinks.

Sunset Song, Davies’ adaptation of a 1932 novel about a Scottish farming family, falls short of the intended cumulative effect, its emotional power undercut by its studied, episodic unfolding.

The English dubbing is far from picture-perfect, with uneven voice performances and choppy synchronization dulling some of the material’s spark.

It can feel repetitive and oversimplified. Aesthetically, though, it has an aching, dreamlike pull, constructing a panoramic view of history through the prism of collective and personal memory.

A dramatic thriller tackling serious themes — the aftermath of war, the cost of retribution and the possibility of redemption — the movie can't always get out of its own way, as reliably effective as Rapace is.

A handsome production but one that struggles to integrate its various elements -- cabaret-society glamour, intellectual fervor, family drama, impossible romance and droll humor.

Starting out with a bracing, off-kilter wryness, Ove moves steadily, and disappointingly, toward the crowd-pleasing center.

The central drama never fully engages, but the jolts that Banshee delivers are check-the-locks scary.

The inspirational memoir Miracles From Heaven transfers to the big screen as a wholesome, crowd-pleasing drama, one whose subject is faith and gratitude. The tone is frequently more searching than self-satisfied, and the harrowing medical crisis that drives the family story gives it the nonreligious urgency to preach beyond the choir.

A story that might have been alive with messy complexity is instead genial and polite.

Concerned mainly with the mechanics of the undertaking, the movie is less an incisive chronicle than a galvanizing tool for parents who are, understandably, frustrated with the system.

The movie, though uneven, benefits from a strong sense of place and an exceptionally well-cast lead.

But for all its vividly detailed eccentricity, the movie, like Abby, connects the dots rather too easily. As Clifton Hill digs deeper into exceedingly sordid stuff, it doesn't dish up the kind of aha moments or chilling frissons that would lift the story from clever contrivance — until a final, delicious twist pulls the rug out from under this richly atmospheric but not always convincing tale.

The drama works only in fits and starts. The vague danger that shapes it, and the narrative's underlying emotional intricacies, are too often explained rather than felt.

First-time actor Garrett is better at conveying Paganini's artistic sensitivity and self-indulgence than his innovative fire. When he picks up the fiddle, though, he speaks with eloquent authority.

Nothing feels truly at stake, no matter how weighty the risks the characters face, but there are charming moments along the way.

The movie could have made its points — war is bad; music is the universal language — in half the time. But the harmonies are sweet, the acoustic picking impressive.

A decidedly old-fashioned war film that reaches for epic sweep but is often bogged down in cliched drama and two-dimensional characters.

Full of incident but nearly devoid of dramatic tension, The Children of Huang Shi is a based-on-fact saga that has lost much of its power on the long road to the screen.

At times disarming, at others plain silly, it takes a few daring leaps without quite avoiding middle-of-the-road sitcom territory.

The simple but affecting film begins a weeklong award-qualifying run Friday before opening in stateside art houses Jan. 21, and is worth a look for its gutsy and commanding central performance.

Causes don't get much worthier, and Smile is a labor of love, a portion of the film's proceeds earmarked for the humanitarian group.

Delivering visual drama and understated character study, sometimes in disappointingly formulaic fashion, the feature has its incisive moments but falls short as both epic and intimate portrait.

Though it’s not without cinematic touches and affecting, sometimes harrowing moments, and even with a convincingly fragile and unmoored Amanda Seyfried at its center, the drama is often hampered by an instructive sensibility that gives it the air of a feature-length PSA.

At once understated and slightly pulpy, the film comes down squarely on the side of compassion. It’s no polemic, but neither is it as character-driven as it aims to be.

The blurring of fact and fiction has been a part of the Amityville saga since it became public, but for Lutz there's no gray area in his memories, whose power is undiminished.

A modestly scaled feature whose plainspoken sincerity is a hindrance as well as a strength.

Thomas’ direction, especially of the villainous roles, gives a lot of the action a self-conscious, not-quite-real quality. Some aspects of the movie’s intentional artifice work better than others.

Meredith has woven together a half-dozen portraits of contemporary lives-on-the-edge in this quietly searing drama.

Rey, whose previous features include Unexpected and Empire Builder (released when she was married to fellow director Joe Swanberg and used his last name), has a knack for recognizing everyday stabs of awkwardness and turning throwaway lines into grace notes.

Despite the wildly uneven plotting, Gordon’s atmospheric direction in coastal New London propels the drama, as does her sensitivity to what remains unspoken between people. That everyone in the film is drastically off-balance may just be the point.

Character eccentricities and off-kilter group dynamics play out with a comic vengeance.

Boilerplate shootouts and conflagrations get the better of the movie's second half, but for the most part, first-time director Park Hong-soo strikes the right balance between take-no-prisoners espionage and teenage angst.

Neither as breezy nor as edgy as it pretends to be.

Director George Hickenlooper captures the energy and ultra-irony of Warhol's scene, but his attempts to give the film a conventional biopic arc end up wallowing in dime-store psychology.

Boasts appealing leads and dazzling court play, but the film never rises above its by-the-numbers plot to generate emotional heat.

Magic Farm features a stupendous cast fully in sync with Ulman’s deadpan absurdity. The actors effortlessly entwine the droll and the ingenuous, but as Ulman juggles more characters and more plot angles than in her first movie, there isn’t necessarily more payoff.

An affectionate and sometimes vibrantly imaginative biographical sketch, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards could have used more shoes and fewer people.

White's film is a love letter not just to Kelly and the Beatles, but also to postwar working-class Liverpool.

Forbes pushes the positivity a bit insistently, yet one of the most appealing aspects of her film is its depiction of kids thriving in an unorthodox household.

"Him" and "Her" are hardly groundbreaking cinema, but they are more rewarding than "Them."

Though much of the drama is clunky and flat, the taut, visceral performances by David Oyelowo and Kate Mara never err.

The story comes to life only fitfully, even with — or perhaps because of — its court intrigue and supporting characters.... But there are striking glimpses of grit, muck and voluptuous beauty (the great Ellen Kuras handled the cinematography) and, above all, there's Winslet.

Offers proof that the Korean animation industry is poised for the big leagues.

As clunky as the movie can feel, there’s a winning toughness to its unsentimental view of childhood and its nostalgia for a pre-digital age.

It's the chemistry between Domhnall Gleeson and newcomer Will Tilston, as the awkwardly matched father and son, that makes the movie more than a mélange of inept parenting and Tigger too.

Doesn't depart from the inspirational coming-of-age formula. But it has got enough heart and disco-fever exuberance to connect with audiences.

[Gottsagen's] sensibility infuses the modern-day fable with an engaging forthrightness. But the unequivocal material often sticks close to the surface, and the film built around him, for all its physical sweep, can feel constricted by obviousness.

Director Maria Sole Tognazzi gently explores what it means to be unmarried, middle-aged and female. She illuminates a seldom-seen line of work, bathes her flawed characters in affection, and makes points both obvious and astute, soft-pedaling her insights with celebratory travelogue touches.

Well-meaning but implausible story.

There’s a clumsy, soapy tepidness to the procession of plot points, but within individual scenes, the actors pierce the genteel surface.

The movie is character-driven every step of the way. That’s why, even if the world created by Jones and his talented design collaborators, both old-school physical and cutting-edge digital, isn’t seamlessly believable so much as staggeringly crafted, it casts a spell.

As to truly exploring the phenomenon of a live-tweeted collective fiction, the documentary makes a couple of intriguing observations but doesn't look far beyond the metrics, content to exult in the wow factor of it all, which admittedly is considerable.

Though Dockendorf doesn’t deliver the intended dramatic punch, he’s fully in sync with his lead characters, and Cook and Johnson are never less than engaging.

None of it is quite satisfying, especially when old-age makeup takes center stage. But striking moments develop along the way, jolts of weird joy and melancholy as menace gathers under the Mediterranean sun.

A shiver of cosmic comedy runs through the film's tragic turns.

The film offers fascinating glimpses of a hardworking but unhurried way of life, though it doesn't have the powerful dramatic hook of "The Story of the Weeping Camel."

This introduction to the Buddha's Eightfold Path is often clever and occasionally exasperating.

In terms of dramatic oomph, the problem isn’t that everyone behaves with decency and compassion, but that everyone unfailingly says what they mean, robbing the movie of moment-to-moment friction, dimension and subtext, even as its lessons in gratitude and self-forgiveness hit the mark.

Whatever license the word “fable” grants Hamilton, it doesn’t redeem the narrative muddle. But there’s an undeniable gutsiness to her filmmaking. The American dreamscape she creates is memorably unsettling.

The rare feature to be shot on location in Gaza, The Idol offers implicit commentary on everyday deprivations and work-arounds. Yet the screenplay stumbles when it plants self-conscious observations in the mouths of characters of all ages.

Unfolding elliptically, the new film can feel abrupt and unsatisfying, but it’s filled with sharp commentary on class and servitude, and the actress delivers another extraordinary performance.

At its playful best, the screenplay by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey sends up crime-movie clichés with a light touch, and Hess shows uncharacteristic restraint in letting those moments play out without reaching for punchlines.

Though his treatment of the subject is often superficial, Perlman makes a clear argument for the broader implications, especially for Western consumers.

A less muddled, less self-conscious Queen & Slim could have been an indelible waking dream. Instead, it's hit-and-miss. But Waithe and Matsoukas are on to something, and it's the undercurrents rather than the filmmakers' more obvious exertions that hit the mark.

Even with its well-observed moments, the movie’s nonmusical interactions, whether reaching for laughs or poignancy, too often feel flat and forced.

The decidedly irreverent nature of much of the proceedings will be a turnoff to some viewers, a tonic to others.

While the intended dramatic payoff proves a letdown, it doesn’t undo the allegorical power of the movie’s searing depiction of groupthink and its fallout.

Shelton's affection for her characters is evident but it's not enough.

Some stories drag while others have zing in this anthology; binding them is a compelling sense of cultural identity — the tension between tradition and free-market modernity.

Fascinating anecdotes unfold, illuminating the spontaneity and daring that went into producing the groundbreaking periodical.

As a glimpse at the nitty-gritty of building a music career in the '60s and '70s, the film is instructive, though the record-by-record trajectory could have been tighter. Tracing the ups and downs and stops and starts, Firmager sometimes lands in the weeds and loses the beat. The film is strongest in its portrait of the formative years of Quatro's career and their emotional residue, which turns out to be the core of this chronicle.

Adding wrestling to the rom-com mix doesn't quite disguise how by-the-numbers this girl-meets-girl story is. But with its likable characters, local color and cross-cultural sparks, "Signature Move" has unsentimental sweetness and pluck.

Less compelling as a thriller than as a trip through a mind tormented by loss, the film depends on a minimum of dialogue, with extended sequences of wordless action.

Although it is overloaded with backstory and often tries too hard, Aurora Borealis finds a reasonable balance between romance and family drama.

When it isn’t trying too hard to be instructive or jokey, Tykwer’s film fluently conveys the hard truth of diminished relevance, geopolitical as well as personal. Hanks’ portrayal of a man caught between utter defeat and a yearning to begin again is pitch-perfect.

The laugher about a meek middle manager who finds a life-changing fortune takes a while to hit its stride, but in its best stretches, it offers deliriously spirited farce.

Whatever nuance can be found in Front Cover, the story of an openly gay fashion stylist and a seemingly homophobic Chinese movie star, belongs chiefly to the performances of Jake Choi and James Chen.

The sad truth is that we’ve heard countless harrowing stories of the Holocaust, and this one, for the most part, isn’t presented in a way that makes it indelible or urgent.

The romance at the movie’s core doesn’t deliver the intended emotional impact, but there’s a tender, potent resonance to other aspects of the story.

Although it offers no new angles on the story engines of loyalty and revenge, the French film boasts an intriguing milieu and the off-center, hair-trigger intensity of Samy Naceri as a crime boss.

At its strongest, the movie dissects such pat notions as “closure” and “moving on” with wit and intelligence.

It’s Wang’s eye for social realities, brought to life by her cast, that gives her film its edge.

Aiming for wacky and heartwarming, the film is, at its sporadic best, a mildly diverting coming-of-age story. At its worst, it feels forced.

The two young female leads, exceptionally well cast, deliver strong performances, and the drama benefits from Weber’s interest in understanding rather than demonizing the bully.

Hubbell lays the groundwork for a nuts-and-bolts examination of changes over the decades in treatment and teaching techniques. In the present tense, however, the first-person aspect of his documentary can veer toward the cutesy.

Cranston turns every moment of duplicity, which is to say nearly every scene of The Infiltrator, into an emotionally textured high-wire act.

With its overt nods to movies, nonlinear structure and purple-tinged dialogue, the self-conscious artifice of Hauck’s first feature can be suffocating. This narrative puzzle should be more fun than it is.

Along the way, the film stares unblinkingly, but with tenderness, at late-middle-age questions of career, identity and the torturous question of whether to let go of a dream that’s not paying off.

As robust as the lead performance is, though, the movie around it, directed by Stephen Gaghan from a screenplay by Patrick Massett and John Zinman, too often feels serviceable rather than inspired.

Has the feel of a contemporary screwball romance, if not the crackling one-liners of classic screwball. But Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine make a charming star-crossed couple, and tweens and teens will find enough plot reversals to keep them hooked.

Pleasant and atmospheric family romp, offering enough mildly chilling thrills to keep everyone entertained during its brief running time.

There’s no question that the feature is a leaner, meaner affair than its predecessor. That’s not enough, though, to counterbalance the often oppressive self-seriousness (though Miles Teller gives it a welcome shot) or to plaster over the holes in the premise.

Shepard’s reach might exceed her grasp, but there’s no question that she takes risks and is a filmmaker of notable promise.

The film veers between inspired and strained and finally settles into the realm of self-improvement pop psychology.

The wan drama is enlivened by bursts of black comedy, some bits more effective than others, and though it ultimately disappoints, there's promise in the understated creepiness of Riley Stearns' debut feature.

Amongst the cardboard-cutout supporting characters, Lauren Graham brings a welcome deadpan sensibility to the overeager proceedings.

The immigration-themed messages of acceptance and encouragement are clearly spelled out, often in heavy-handed fashion, and an overriding blandness mutes the drama. But there’s also something apt in the straightforward telling of the against-the-odds adventure.

The film can be intensely moving, yet there's a self-congratulatory tone to much of it, especially in the domestic drama.

Two Lovers and a Bear is above all thrillingly cinematic, even when its elements of lived-in intensity and jokey fantasy refuse to coalesce.

Whether founder and conductor Favio Chávez has found deep-pocketed donors or is involved in constant fundraising efforts, the film offers no clue. But it leaves no doubt that Chávez’s visionary cause is one to celebrate.

[Gibney's] chronicle informs rather than inspires, but it's a solid introduction to a fascinating figure.

Owens’ triumph is long overdue for big-screen treatment, and director Stephen Hopkins delivers stirring moments amid the tension-free stretches, particularly once the action moves to Berlin.

Frost is a likable lead and an easy rooting interest. But his affability isn’t enough to give this silly-sweet feature the edge and dimension that would make it a memorable contribution to the subgenre epitomized by The Full Monty — comedies in which middle-aged, unassuming Brits discover their inner showman.

The feature spikes its lonesome mood with shots of dry humor, animated sequences and flashbacks — at times overplaying its hand, even as Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff wordlessly convey all that needs to be said.

The earnest mash-up of spoken-word performance, domestic drama and soapy romance in Things Never Said is unwieldy, to be sure, and would have sunk a less charismatic cast.

Despite its clumsiness, the film conveys the melding of modern and ancient, sensuous and sacred.

The knack for biting dialogue that Mills brought to Guidance is still evident, although his new effort can’t match the bracing sting of his wickedly funny debut.

Though it’s strictly for the faithful, the tween-friendly mix of cute and earnest has a forthright sharpness and is never cloying.

The drama’s power may dwindle, yet its end-of-the-world scenario remains oddly recognizable.

It's a plot that never takes hold, a mystery devoid of suspense... But the actors' unforced chemistry defies the artifice.

We know the achievements and victories of the era Nagy depicts, and yet, because she and her fine cast bring the story to such vivid, immediate life, the final moments of Call Jane are powerful with unanticipated joy.

A decidedly upbeat number, centered on a good-hearted character.

Instead of subversion, Mazer's first outing as a feature director offers only a tweak of genre conventions. He does achieve an above-average share of laugh-out-loud moments — welcome compensation in a romp that grows more forced with every turn.

Some legs of the journey are detours, and the film can feel overlong and diffuse, but as a capsule history it offers revelatory insights, particularly in its emphasis on the role of distance running in the women’s movement.

Offers more laughs than most comedies of recent vintage. But what was subversive on the tube feels muted at feature length.

A thoughtful piece of advocacy journalism.

Fine performances and bristling language compel in this overlong, often off-putting but well-observed New York story.

The filmmaker's grip on the storytelling could be tighter, especially in the second half, which at times seems to lose focus, much like the floundering protagonist. But when it clicks, the film is a provocative combo of emotional fumbling, droll asides and shrewd insights.

The movie has the taut efficiency of a well-constructed crime thriller, while its real-world underpinnings play out with a less convincing sense of urgency.

Anyone seeking an empty-headed, derivative joy ride through crime-comedy conventions could do far worse than Silver Case, a brisk, good-looking and never dull B movie.

Hall and Brown are a glorious kick to watch, their physicality at times bordering on slapstick.

Pig isn’t the gripping mystery Sarnoski might have intended, but as a crawl through the underbelly of a hipster city’s glamorous foodie culture, it’s a gutsy narrative recipe, even if the final dish is less than the sum of its ingredients. Through it all, Cage plays the enigmatic central character at the perfect simmering temperature, and without a shred of ham.

In engaging but not always satisfying fashion, Jody Shapiro's film reveals the man behind the logo to be a taciturn, plain-living refugee from city life and an unlikely globe-trotting corporate spokesman.

Between the heavy-handed lines, director Adrian Popovici provides telling glimpses of a provincial, aggressively retrograde attitude toward women and the seedy nightclubs where they're preyed on. He elicits uneven performances from a cast working in several languages.

The story itself finally feels lost beneath the levels of artifice rather than heightened by it.

Cute and cartoonish rule the day, and teens and tweens will be the film's chief audience.

Effectively moody but offering frustratingly skin-deep chills, The Woman in the Window underestimates its hero in more than ways than one.

The setting abounds in beauty, and the storytelling abounds in obvious cues that mute the intended suspense, if not the horror.

A slow-moving, never-igniting tale of calendar-crossed lovers that grows less convincing as it proceeds.

For more than half the film's running time, it's an engaging one. Centering on the boys' hardscrabble formative years, first-time director Breno Silveira delivers an assured first hour before losing grasp of his material.

It's an affectionate and admiring collection of moments, but the director's wobbly choreography never locates a dramatic core for this corps' story.

Signed, sealed and delivered, Book Club: The Next Chapter is an unabashed love letter to four great movie stars. As a vehicle for their talents, it’s less of a sure thing.

A winningly restrained lead performance by Tommy Lee Jones, who also exec produced, isn't enough to put the film on the boxoffice scoreboard.

A lifeless period romance of the cutesy-cantankerous persuasion.

Feels padded in some places, truncated in others. It also feels too respectful, especially when its subject is such a deep thinker and questioner of authority.

The frenetic pace detracts from the film's wealth of personalities and vivid visuals. There's the unshakable sense that Rugrats Go Wild is trying too hard to please kids and adults and as a result falls somewhat short for both sets of viewers.

If only anything felt at stake in this story's dark spiral.

The film's insistence on laughter through the tears too often feels strained.

Wavers between would-be satire and romantic drama, inhabiting neither mode convincingly.

Though the movie’s well cast, its central story rarely shakes off the derivative cloak to become involving. But Ron Livingston’s turn as a sorrowful Elvis Presley is a quiet revelation.

Mistaking provocation for insight, and failing to sell the presumed heroism of its cunning central character, the movie grows less involving with each step. It can't make Erica Vandross' fate matter, but in Deutch it gives us a motor-mouthed wonder who commands attention.

Oscar-nominee John Hawkes' convincing portrayal of real-life "crop artist" Stan Herd is the exceedingly quiet center of an exceedingly nonabrasive film that has all the dramatic energy of plants growing.

The handsomely downbeat atmospherics overwhelm its themes of love, parenthood, crime and punishment. The narrative doesn't quite coalesce, and except for a few late-in-the-proceedings moments, it doesn't deliver the grim, indelible shivers of the best noir.

Girls ages 6-14 will get a charge from the fashion show, animation effects and, to a lesser degree, the cartoonish antics. But like most adolescent histrionics, the pic's impact on adults will be limited to mild amusement alternating with annoyance.

It’s the glimmers of penetrating observation that make the overload of clichés so frustrating in Onah’s first feature, and suggest better things for his second.

Working from a screenplay by Douglas Soesbe that juggles contrivance and insight, Montiel labors to avoid sensationalizing Nolan's story, and in the process he overcompensates.

While Passengers offers a few shrewd observations about our increasingly tech-enabled, corporatized lives, its heavy-handed mix of life-or-death exigencies and feel-good bromides finally feels like a case of more being less.

Though there’s clearly a compassionate impulse behind Leon F. Butler’s class-conscious screenplay, it rapidly devolves into implausible melodrama.

Though handsomely photographed and featuring a compelling cast, the Ireland-set memory piece — adapted by John Banville from his Man Booker Prize-winning novel — will leave audiences wondering how much more satisfying the muted drama might be on the page.

With its old-fashioned gloss, the incident-packed story proves only mildly engaging and finally has little to say.

Director Amelio turns Antonio's brief stint at a "real" job into a piercing and visually striking glimpse of hypocrisy and corruption — a glimpse too of the film that might have been.

A light touch keeps the film from being an ordeal, but the story's trajectory is as predictable as the setup is contrived.

The film owes whatever persuasiveness it has to the teen leads' sharp performances — their sisterly chemistry and their filial friction with an alcohol-addled mother, well played by Mira Sorvino.

As a harmless time-waster, Good Trip has its charms, but also its oversold shtick.

A work of deep but unsentimental optimism, Wrestling Jerusalem gives us plenty to wrestle with, but presents it at such a relentless clip, in such self-conscious fashion, that it becomes wearying rather than involving.

It's great to look at, nearly giddy with pop-culture love, and its particulars are intriguing. But those pieces — by turns weird, soulful and exhilarating — merely accumulate, when they should be generating magic.

Without creating fully fleshed characters or truly involving conflict, the film aims instead to provoke howls of recognition and tears of gratitude by appealing to very basic notions of parent-child love.

The child's discovery of the beauty of nature, the workaday brutalities of farm life and the adult world's disappointments and betrayals rings true, to a point, and the young actor in the role is memorably guarded and watchful. In Hjörleifsdóttir's adaptation, though, the themes are too studied and neat, playing out in a way that can feel oppressive rather than revelatory.

It’s tricky, to put it mildly, to use suicidal impulses as a story engine for a comedy, and director Rob Spera and screenwriter Jared Rappaport don’t quite pull it off as they navigate the middle ground between dark humor and emotional catharsis.

At the helm of this ultra-earnest entertainment, with its expository dialogue and meticulous visuals, Craig Gillespie isn’t able to conjure a stirring cinematic experience. The pieces don’t fuse so much as fit together, and much of the action feels instructive rather than immersive.

Dunne creates a full-blooded character. The film around him, unfortunately, takes low-key to the realm of tepid.

The film is not without flashes of charm amid its clichés, and leads Lily Collins and Sam Claflin pine for each other prettily.

Life Is Strange is unfocused yet intermittently effective as an illustrated oral history.

Though its running time is brief and a lot of the writing is sharp, the tug-of-war between a onetime literary lion and his wide-eyed No. 1 fan lacks the necessary tension to make the drama's outcome matter.

The story remains an academic argument, struggling to pierce the handsome surface.

Ratcheting up Eddie’s malevolence in ways large and small, Cage delivers the latest installment in his singularly unfettered brand of over-the-top screen madness.

The idea of a literal crypt of living family secrets has a movie-ready, over-the-top absurdity, but in this smoothed-over telling, there's no dramatic juice, no impact — just pieces on a chess board, waiting to be maneuvered.

Turning his famous furrowed brow away from the realm of life-and-death nail-biters, Neeson elevates the proceedings with his dry delivery and nimble comic timing. Made in Italy makes you wish the actor did more comedy.

The chemistry between the leads and a few finely etched supporting turns provide welcome counterweight to the movie’s formulaic progression, welcome especially for those who have seen their fair share of entries in the love-story-with-medical-complication subgenre.

Lerner alternates between well-observed character detail and clunky mystery-solving developments.

It’s Hamm’s emotionally wounded small-town top cop who gives the film its engine, especially in his dealings with Mohammed and Fey’s characters. The schemes and cover-ups and collateral damage spin round with little dimension, or, as Police Chief Sanders sums it up, “Just a bunch of people that deserve each other.”

Tonal swerves can be a source of useful friction; here they’re simply awkward, and Robespierre’s efforts to meld sentiment and laughs grow increasingly strained.

However nuanced and artful, the nightmarish unease is laid on so thick that, in combination with the cryptic narrative, it gradually turns to murk.

For all the personal ties to the material, the film too often reaches for broad-strokes inspiration in a way that feels generic.

With its developers-versus-ranchers intrigue and touches of magic realism, the movie ends up playing like a mild-tempered oddity.

Despite a few playful flourishes, filmmaker Luc Bondy’s experiment in artifice never takes flight.

For all its playful touches and neat-o nostalgia for nondigital entertainment, the whimsy feels forced.

With the exception of a few unpredictable moments from Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell, Winter Passing finds only cliche as it reaches for profundity.

At its strongest, Dark Night taps into the emptiness, hurt and longing beneath the pings and swipes of our "connected" world. But for all its artfulness, the film doesn’t shed light so much as push buttons.

If you’re looking for a brilliant talking-animal film, it ain’t this one, babe, but it’ll do — specifically as a lead-in to potential pet adoptions; the filmmakers are partnering with rescue groups for opening-weekend events.

Ultimately Fear X feels more like an intellectual exercise than a convincing drama.

Ross is to be commended for taking chances on his first outing. He delivers grown-up shivers with a strong cinematic sensibility. But however suspensefully the score groans and cries, the emotional stakes dwindle with each overemphatic narrative curve.

The intriguingly bonkers premise rests somewhat soundly on matters of climate change, overpopulation and genetic engineering, but its most burning question is “Are seven Noomi Rapaces better than one?” To which the answer is a resounding “Sure, why not?”

Reaching for a memorable blend of whimsy and portent, Stine has come up with something that feels scattered and decidedly lite. Yet the glimmers of promise in Virginia Minnesota suggest that with a more streamlined, focused narrative, he could spin a Midwestern yarn to remember.

As the writer-director's sly gaze shifts into an insistently upbeat appeal for female empowerment, the movie loses its comic steam.

It's a letdown that the film itself, written by Patrick Tobin and directed by Daniel Barnz, doesn't take half the chances its leading lady does and is content to paddle around the shallows rather than plunge into the deep end.

Mumblecore meets Arthur Conan Doyle in the ambitious, if not always satisfying, Cold Weather.

Stars Aubrey Plaza and Dane DeHaan are game, as is the lineup of mostly wasted supporting actors. But what might have been a snappy short is interminable at feature length, the mayhem-in-suburbia conceit generating few laughs as it stomps along.

While the 1977 Fun With Dick and Jane was a reasonably diverting sendup of conspicuous consumption with a subversive if not always razor-sharp comic edge, the new version... replaces smart performances with tired shtick.

Though it's built around a kernel of tender feeling, the comedy never transcends its basic contrivance.

Although its goofy high-concept premise won't bear much scrutiny, it offers a less predictable ride than their first pairing, and lush Hawaiian locations to boot.

How About You is not without its moments of insight, but its emotional arc is a straight line from A to B, a path made all the more obvious by the heart-tugging score.

The movie is a testament to the star power of Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, who, as the longtime friends at the center of a run-of-the-mill comedy, are the only reasons to see it.

Even given the character's extreme introspection and withdrawal, Tautou's performance is too often opaque.

Director Anais Barbeau-Lavalette builds a persuasive sensory immediacy in Inch'Allah, even as her story grows increasingly contrived.

New Orleans locations and stirring tunes lend texture, intermittently breaking through the film's overriding flatness.

Director Patricia Riggen finds a rigorous and affecting visual language for The 33, but she and her international cast are hampered by a screenplay that too often gets in the way of a powerful story.

An actors' piece, director Michael Patrick Kelly's first narrative feature registers low on the cinematic-oomph scale, the production's low budget sometimes all too evident. Its aim is true, though, and Kathleen Chalfant infuses the lead role with an elegant ferocity.

Montiel treats his story's happily unsung oddballs with sincere affection. He doesn't hold them up to ridicule, or insist that they snap out of their quirkiness and conform. But he doesn't quite know what to do with them.

It works mainly in fits and starts, though there's no question that the movie's depiction of the effects of Soviet rule on a nomadic population will be eye-opening for many Western viewers, and deeply resonant for Kazakhstanis.

Compared with the first film, this one embraces the premise’s essential preposterousness, although not necessarily to winning effect.

Good-looking and technically well crafted, the film struggles to get past pastiche and conjure an involving world of its own.

Garcia never gets a grasp on her protagonist’s contradictions, or those of her story — certainly not enough to pull off the movie’s jaw-dropper of a twist. But she conjures a powerful sensuality, and Cotillard burns ferociously bright, even when the center does not hold.

This inspirational sports drama unfolds in such generic fashion that it feels contrived more often than it rings true.

Had the comedy been sharper, this movie-loving movie might have convincingly meshed its Technicolor caricatures and antifascist heroics.

On the way to its mildly satisfying final punchline, this uneven comedy loses its thread.

A frequently charming, if ultimately slight, coming-of-age tale.

Spends too much time on unconvincing romantic-comedy contrivances to be consistently engaging. Throughout the uneven film and its mixed bag of performances, the compelling point of focus is Diane Keaton's smart, funny, spot-on natural portrait of the formidable Stone matriarch.

An inert and muddled mash-up of romantic comedy and theater of stupid cruelty.

To penetrate beyond the camaraderie and capture the depth of the experience would require less conventional filmmaking.

The movie finally feels more manufactured than organic, a travelogue of portent, complete with plangent guitars and peopled by characters from the backwoods playbook.

However heroic a figure Fanning’s Liz may be, however much this fine actress makes us feel her terror and determination, any sense of triumph is steadily, grindingly undone.

Rather than explore his place in the arts and balance all that adoration with insight, Corsicato opts for hero worship. The result is a visually exciting but emotionally monotonous film.

The earnest film’s straightforwardness and down-to-earth characters — especially the lead performance by Maggie Baird — have a gentle appeal, but its tendency to spell out every emotion and theme in on-the-nose dialogue undercuts its potential impact at nearly every turn.

Amid the not-so-troubling setbacks, unbelievable triumphs and perpetual spring break, the movie takes one or two nice twists.

Neither good nor so-bad-it's-good, Perry's odd oeuvre has an allure all its own.

A small-scale character piece that genuinely likes its protagonists: an overweight teen girl and an overage delivery guy. But for all its quirky touches, the comedy cleaves to formula in its depiction of how they challenge and change each other.

The historical overview they provide is insightful and lucid, yet their polished production intermittently lapses into dry chronology while they bury the lead.

Though the movie is not without thoughtful observations on gender roles and the effects of war, Hart's characters tend to speak in poetic truths that call attention to their authorial polish. The cast breathes what life it can into the proceedings, with Otaru particularly impressive.

Yet another Hollywood romantic comedy that's all but devoid of romance and laughs.

Finally, a postfeminist multicultural musical extravaganza for 8-year-old girls. Is Bratz not the most totally stylin' movie ever? Grownups won't think so, but for their daughters who share a "passion for fashion" with the dolls that are giving Barbie a run for her money, it will be the event of the season.

Christopher Smith’s self-consciously stylish genre homage finally feels like a baby film noir, playacting without the requisite bone-deep dread.

The real crime in Going in Style is its waste of acting talent.