The film is at its best when it focuses on real-life human drama rooted in character: failing marriages, crushing poverty, professional malaise. Davis in particular delivers as impassioned a performance as ever -- good enough that you wish you could airlift her character into another movie.

17 Girls doesn't try to explain its many mysteries. That would have made for a better film, but this one does a nice job showing its effects.

A surprisingly enjoyable movie.

There is something to be said for giving people what they want, but there are no surprises in Randy Brown's script, and Lorenz plays it safe. It's feel-good stuff; you wonder what Eastwood, a terrific director, might have done with it behind the camera.

This breathless science-fiction thriller isn't just gory. It practically revels in graphic violence, with several scenes shot in excruciating slow motion.

The action and the chemistry is stronger than the story, because Gyllenhaal and Peña are good. In that respect End of Watch works better as a series of vignettes held together somewhat loosely by a larger story.

The film is not an epic. It's not a masterpiece. But it is an involving study of men searching, searching for answers, for belonging, for a foothold in life at a time when footholds were hard to find.

Pure preaching-to-the-choir poppycock.

The film winds up being a collection of striking visuals without any emotional heft.

Although the film features a powerhouse performance by Clarke Peters as Da Good Bishop Enouch Rouse, it's saddled with a sloppy story.

Surprisingly entertaining, probably because it uses Wall Street shenanigans and schadenfreude as the backdrop to a crime drama.

It makes you think. And that's invaluable.

It's a style of storytelling that leaves the audience guessing, but it also gives the actors room to breathe, to inhabit their characters without having to explain them away in terms of biography or pop psychology.

It's a somewhat formulaic romp, but it's an utterly winning one.

A lush but fumbling literary melodrama outfitted with an attractive, generations-spanning cast and a puzzle box of three competing narratives.

General Education is kind of like a science-fair project slapped together at the last minute -- a sad, withered potato pierced with copper wires, rotting on the counter next to a resplendent baking-soda volcano. You can't help but feel a little sorry for the poor spud.

The perfect movie for fans of "The Daily Show" who actually stick around for the second-half interview. A cinematic memoir based on the one-man show by Mike Birbiglia, it is the aesthetic intersection of Comedy Central and public radio.

This is director Jake Schreier's first feature, and, working from a script by Christopher D. Ford, he creates an inviting world.

Ole Bornedal's film hits enough high notes to make it a worthwhile addition to the exorcism-film heap, somewhere in the lower middle.

The Day is not a classic, not by a long shot. But it's not a disaster, either. With movies like this, that counts as a small victory.

Lawless is one of those movies that feels like it's trying to say something more important than it really is. It could have been better, but with Hardy and Pearce on board, it's plenty good enough.

He (D'Souza) reaffirms many of the complaints against Obama, and when he sticks to the facts is much more persuasive.

Malik Bendjelloul really knows how to spin a yarn.

Horror comedies can be wildly entertaining -- "The Return of the Living Dead," from 1985, for instance. It sends up horror movies in hilarious fashion while still managing to be gross-out scary. The Revenant never rises to that level. Nor does it seem to want to.

Cosmopolis is frustrating, funny, thought-provoking, weird, maddening, worthwhile. It isn't a great movie. Sometimes it's not a good one. Sometimes it is. Ultimately, it is one worth working through, a valuable exercise if you're willing to make the effort.

This is a movie that's just out there, beyond our normal experience in a theater. You may walk away impressed or offended by Killer Joe, but Friedkin and McConaughey make sure you won't walk away indifferent.

The film is a live-action cartoon down to its main character's name -- Wilee, "like the coyote." It's just a few sticks of dynamite and a 10-ton anvil short of going full Looney Tunes, and is all the worse for that restraint.

Just slam the pedal to the floor, blast on past the weaknesses in the plot, and enjoy the ride.