Sheri Linden

Ambitious and intricately plotted — at times distractingly so — the bilingual feature is an uneven genre ride, but its appealing cast and multicultural twist on a familiar format help to smooth the rough spots and keep things engaging, if not entirely satisfying.

The collision of adolescent hormones and parental folly, hardly new cinematic territory, gets a bracing absurdist slant in Youth in Revolt.

Beyond explanation is the art itself. Animating Van Gogh’s bold impasto, already kinetic on the canvas, could have been merely superfluous. As moving pictures, though, the brushstrokes have an unexpected pull in this uneven but deeply felt homage.

Yakin and his terpsichorean cast take exhilarating chances of the sort all too seldom seen on screens these days.

Madsen brings our collective sense of identity into sharp relief through the lens of what could be called a first date with mysterious beings.

Captures a reunion between them that speaks volumes about the intense connections, complicated and big-hearted, that have fueled an extraordinary musical collaboration.

The spotlight illuminates a well-chosen quintet of subjects, all wholesomely passionate practitioners of a readily dissed form of entertainment and each at a different point in their career.

Though the shifts can be abrupt, the film provides an overview of a huge topic with admirable concision.

The actors wrestle passionately with compelling questions about attraction and love.

Like the young social activists at its center, the documentary Radicalized is propelled by a ragged energy, a fuel that's equal parts outrage and idealism.

This isn't a deep dive into what makes one man tick, but a multilayered exploration of the love and devotion that animals inspire, whether the critter is your companion or your patient. Contained within the stories in Dog Doc is a visionary approach to caring for animals and ourselves, a way of more truly sharing the planet rather than trying to control it.

Falco, involving as ever, might not be engaged in a wild gamble here, but there’s a certain risk in the ways that she and the movie circle a neat conclusion. And there’s wisdom in the way they wind up somewhere far messier, sweeter and more satisfying.

For all their layered complexity, the songs can slip into a musical and rhetorical sameness. But the concert's aesthetic power is undeniable. The swirl of sound and motion burns with a bright intensity, not unlike like the onstage Tesla coils that have been reconfigured as instruments.

More than the story of an individual, the film is a stirring tribute to endangered folk traditions.

Those not in the smackdown frame of mind will find an overabundance of head-butts, body slams and pounding aural effects -- this is a definite contender for loudest film of the year -- but also will discover instances of innovative, spectacular stuntwork and, though the comic interplay often falls flat, a story with heart.

The day-to-day takes on an understated eeriness that matches the unarticulated ache of the bereaved.

Even when the story feels strained, the chemistry among the performers has oomph as their characters taunt one another, celebrate big wins, ride out setbacks and mastermind double-crosses. And the uneven shenanigans sail home smoothly with an exhilarating and ultra-satisfying switcheroo.

Australian writer-director Kim Mordaunt doesn't always succeed at balancing the sentimental, the political and the ethnographic, but at its strongest the story is a seamless melding of history's dark undertow and a child's indefatigable optimism.

To the unlikely role of a Bogart-esque reluctant hero, Leonardo DiCaprio brings an intensity that compels even when the script falters.

An unsentimental portrait.

Though the film's second half could be tighter, the details and atmosphere ring true throughout, especially in the walking-wounded chemistry between Seimetz and Roberts' tentative dreamers.

Poehler's adept at showcasing not just the comic gifts of her cast, whose decades-long friendships began in improv theaters and at SNL, but also the joyful vamping that connects their characters.

Puts a human face on the failings of the American judicial system and the growing importance of DNA in legal proceedings.

Writer-director Peter Strickland...uses atmosphere as others would use plot, and knows how to provoke comic shudders. But he tends to repeat himself, and he doesn't quite find a satisfying denouement for the inventive premise.

Having made a number of well-regarded, female-focused short films, the Icelandic director graduates to features with a sure grasp of naturalistic performance and an eye for character-shaping landscape.

Young director Marek Najbrt, commendably, is not interested in wringing easy tears from the European experience of World War II. In the handsome drama Protektor, he brings a cool, noirish slant to a story of Czech artists and intellectuals as they accommodate and to a lesser extent resist the German occupiers.

However masterful, the first-rate stunt work, effects, action cinematography and cutting (by no less than three editors) lose impact through sheer repetition.

A fascinating glimpse of kids' role in the evangelical movement's political agenda.