William Goss

It’s the odd touch of local color — like the backdrop of an abandoned amusement park, or the arrival of a Civil War steamer crewed by Confederate zombies — that makes these routine acts of derring-do a bit easier to bear.

With its painfully plain-spoken conflicts and eventually oversold gestures of kindness, Camp X-Ray may offer frustratingly little insight into the hazy world of wartime morality, but if nothing else, it suggests that Stewart may escape her own “Twilight”-shaped prison yet.

RoboCop has sound and fury to spare and even an inspired idea or two lurking beneath that polished exterior, but much like its upgraded namesake, this watchable mess ultimately lacks a prime directive to call its own.

At best, White House Down is a sure-fire way to kill two hours, if not countless brain cells.

More focused and less preachy than its exploitation-riffing predecessor, the comparably shoddy Machete Kills nonetheless peters out in the homestretch (and, for some, surely sooner).

I’ve given A Field in England two tries now and each time found it to be occasionally ferocious and funny, severely trippy for stretches and at times outright tedious. With that said, I still can’t wait to see what the man does next.

The film’s final shot ranks among its least graphic and yet most puzzling, a slap-in-the-face piece of punctuation that reminds the most accommodating viewers that, even on his good days, Mr. Zombie is really only making movies for an audience of one.

Burdge is left to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of inviting the audience into her protagonist’s shaky state, and her performance boasts a remarkable emotional precision throughout — if ever there’s a reason to seek this one out, it would be for her.

Last Love hardly presents itself as a challenging picture, tugging as it does at the heartstrings with gentle persistence, but at its best moments, it is a sweetly considered one.

The premise is provoking and well-conceived, confidently moving things forward until the increasingly knotty rules of the film’s universe eventually come to overbear the experience a bit in the homestretch.

Driven by Paul Grabowsky’s deceptively jaunty score, Swerve is ably performed and tightly paced... But it doesn’t stick the landing.

Prince Avalanche occupies a strange space between [Green's] broadly comedic fare and devoutly character-driven dramas, and while we’re happy to see him closer to the latter mode once more, let’s hope that he’ll be back in a bigger way the next time out.

Monuments certainly isn’t unbearable to watch, but for all its quality pedigree and good intentions, the result is a frustratingly flat film that drifts from moment to moment with a curious lack of urgency and an overbearing sense of self-importance.

Europa Report doesn’t entirely sell out to convention by the end, but the steps it takes to reach its noble conclusion reflect a lack of imagination and invention, especially for a film that initially seems to champion such qualities.

Frankly, Elysium is a bit of a liberal’s wet dream: the good guys want accessible healthcare, while the bad guys want to do away with undocumented immigrants.

Like the back half of its namesake, Wonderstone isn’t terribly hip, edgy or new itself, just amusing enough to pass the time. While Scardino and friends do manage to end the film on an admirably nutty note, this gathering of comedic minds ultimately fails to produce any true movie magic.

A glimpse into how three different definitions of love can find themselves quietly at odds, the interactions between our three leads are always convincing if not always compelling.

The bloodshed speaks volumes enough, though, even if it takes some time getting to the mayhem proper.

There’s no denying the lovingly recreated production and costume design, all curved corners and wide lapels, and the era’s sexual politics and self-help movement are slyly incorporated as well... However, the droll humor on hand is more hit-or-miss.

Alas, despite the timeless concerns of adolescent bullying and burgeoning sexuality, Carrie as a film fails to become its own satisfyingly whole interpretation of coming-of-age horrors both literal and figurative. Its bloodshed may be all dressed up, but it ultimately has nowhere to go.

In the end, his (Luhrmann) Gatsby takes the fitting form of a cocktail glass, at once undeniably polished and unfailingly empty.

Even at thirty seconds a piece, 26 shorts would feel, fittingly, like overkill. The ABCs of Death has no shortage of inventive, ironic and gruesome sketches, but the novelty of its successes just barely outweighs its stillborn stuff.

Sprawling between plot lines and shifting between tones for longer than it ought to, but laden with enough pockets of truth to make you wish it had been better, more restrained, more disciplined, more trusting in its own emotional sensitivity to spare us all manner of dorky detours.

Backtracking dilutes the few simple jolts that actually work.

Much like Brandy, “List” tries and tries and tries to get the job done, but frankly, the satisfaction only ever comes in spurts.

Faithful to the superficial thrills and flaws of the original.

The fact that Johnny Depp alone gets top billing above the title, The Lone Ranger, despite not playing said character sums up the generally misguided approach taken by Depp and the creative crew behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise in bringing last century’s radio and TV hero back to the big screen in a big way.

Subtlety is hardly at home here, with Quaid’s especially earnest performance a well-suited mask for Henry’s desperation that nonetheless amplifies the phoniness of the entire enterprise.