Stephanie Merry

The documentary transmits plenty of positive vibes, but it offers nothing fresh about the Fab Four.

[A] sometimes fascinating, often convoluted, movie.

For fans of dance, Ballet 422 will produce plenty of pleasures. But as with great ballet, great movies always benefit from a little drama.

The animated comedy-adventure has a sweet and very modern message, plus strong characters. More important, the movie blends the music-minded mentality of yore with the more recent ambition (thank you, Pixar) of truly appealing to all ages.

Even if at times its structure feels overly complicated and the B-roll seems silly, the movie makes compelling points. More important, the film suggests both long-term and short-term solutions.

While the movie can feel disjointed at times, bouncing around to cover so much territory, the climax of the kids’s ballroom competition makes up for any quibbles. If nothing else, it’s heartening to see the kids so transformed.

Miss Hokusai is more adept at delivering beautiful visuals than anything deeper. That’s perhaps not all that ironic, given that the movie’s portrayal of Hokusai is as a man who valued art above all else.

The movie has an unhurried pace, lulling the teens — and by extension the audience — into occasional complacency with the regular rhythms of each chugging train.

Subtlety isn’t the strong suit of Queen of Katwe. But beneath the hackneyed aphorisms, there’s a thrilling story worthy of our attention.

Comedy today is less about punch lines and pratfalls and more about eliciting that laugh-gasp hybrid. And those jokes come constantly in Appropriate Behavior.

Under Riklis’s direction, the film’s first act lulls the audience into a sense of familiarity, before plunging into a darker reality. The effect is shattering.

The performances remain subtly powerful, especially Karam’s. Tony is a man whose unpredictable rage can be sparked by one wrong move, but Karam infuses the character with pathos through the subtlest gestures and facial expressions. El Basha, who is also moving in his role, was the first Palestinian to win best actor at the Venice Film Festival.

There is an obliqueness to In Bloom. Writer Nana Ekvtimishvili, who directed the movie with Simon Gross, doesn’t spell things out, and the complete story never comes into focus... But when the truth is so troubling, sometimes part of the story is more than enough.

Knappenberger’s documentary is smart and focused, homing in on a recurring theme of independence.

The acting ensemble has a believable, brotherly chemistry, especially Teller and Taylor Kitsch, playing a troublemaker who initially teases Brendan brutally before the two warm up to each other, forming an adorable bond.

Brown seamlessly blends the emotional, intimate stories of people with bigger pictures, using the explosion as the starting point for a ripple effect that just keeps growing.

We get Albert’s side of the story, and that’s clearly problematic. How much faith should we put in the account of someone who tells such massive whoppers? That question constantly hovers over Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary, which is by turns fascinating and unseemly.

Writer-director Stephen Bradley may make some missteps, but he capitalizes on this underdog story’s inherent thrills.

What’s true in Pakistan turns out to be universal: Misconceptions can prove as dangerous as any disease and are even harder to eradicate.

There are no huge revelations here — certainly nothing that would shock superfans. The movie offers a taste of the go-go-go pace of touring the world, which led to exhaustion and frustration, but mostly focuses on the happier times.

In some ways, this dramedy, directed by Bradley Cooper, is a familiar story about midlife crises and marital dissatisfaction, but it quickly swerves in a fresh direction, resulting in a movie that’s both resonant and hilarious.

The movie is inspiring and tragic, and, directed by street artist One9, it’s captured in an artful, emotional way that will speak to an audience beyond rap fans.

The filmmakers invite the audience to get close enough to feel the pain without having to relive the depths of the real-life horror.

The story itself never wavers when it comes to portraying the truth.

The actors make the movie’s memorable characters all the more indelible, even when Love at First Fight loses its sense of originality.

The Kill Team is expertly edited, at one point overlaying interviews with the men who participated in the war crimes with B-roll of infantrymen milling about, weapons in hand. And it’s all set to a brilliantly spare and evocative soundtrack. It’s a beautiful way to lose faith in humanity.

For all the story’s cosmic echoes across the ages, the pacing just feels off. Still, the approach is inventive.

The latest film adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd will delight fans of period dramas. It checks off the required boxes with solid acting, gorgeous cinematography and all the frustrating, glorious emotional restraint that you expect from a romance set in Victorian England.