Co-produced and edited by Austin filmmaker Karen Skloss, Have You Got It Yet? is as exhaustive a study of Barrett as possible. It does suffer from the flaw that affects so many biographical documentaries, that the subject is somehow unique.

Nanny isn’t able to follow through on all of its ideas, but those ideas are pretty undeniable.

It is, however, a very satisfying film, and surely the first in a long franchise (it does, after all, bear the subtitle The Vampire Chronicles).

Gordon-Levitt, however, nails the part completely, physically hunching down into himself and getting Snowden’s halting, thoughtful speech patterns just right, while Stone, working with screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald, creates a whirlwind ride nearly but not quite worthy of The Parallax View-era conspiracy thrillers.

Farcical mayhem. A convoluted plot that's easy to follow but hard to describe.

Viewers unfamiliar with Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary output over the years may find Never-Ending Man an exercise in tedium – the creation of an animated film, even a short one, is a famously slow and exceedingly precise process – but for those who, like me, adore his life’s work, it’s a precious and fascinating glimpse into the inner life of the world’s greatest living animator.

Sweet, silly, with that profoundly bizarre world view that makes a snail trail gag open to everyone for a laugh, this may not change SpongeBob forever, but it's more SpongeBob as we love him, and that's all the fun you can need.

The film is an action-packed thriller-Western hybrid, but it takes a dreamy pace in setting up the story (the first 20 minutes or so are rather languid).

For those viewers who can relate to Melanie's and Jack's lives, One Fine Day offers light-hearted romantic fun, but for younger viewers the film may not quite hit the mark.

It's not the most flattering depiction of Jews I've seen. Still, The Passion of the Christ is something of a masterpiece, terrible to behold, unfit for children, certainly, but very much the work of a director in the throes of his own distinct passion.

Narratively, we all know where the trajectory of the story is headed, thus the culminating match (nearly 20 minutes) takes up too much screen time without adding anything new to the drama.

Those who just want to watch dinosaurs eat people in creative ways? They’re destined to get their money’s worth.

Although its ambitions often exceed its reach, the meta-mad Filipino film Leonor Will Never Die (a terrible Americanized title) bursts with imaginative impulses, scoring slightly more hits than misses in a Charlie Kaufmanesque storyline that flip-flops between reality and fantasy using the tropey device of a movie within a movie.

We may come to Empire of Light like moths to a flame but, ultimately, the film’s glow lacks incandescence.

Isn't quite a home run: The visually flat film leans on a pop culture crutch that probably won't age very well, and the finale – while terrifically funny – feels piped in from another, far sillier movie.

Playing out like some bizarro hardcore version of an episode of "Girls," Wood’s feature debut infuses a hefty dose of white privilege mixed with more than a sprinkling of gender politics, all wrapped up in a sleazy, sweaty, strung-out package that wants, no, needs you to react to the various bad decisions every character makes.

Relentless and mercurial, this new outing by "Swingers" director Liman takes off somewhere around Mach 3 and never lets up, leaving you with either a pounding headache or a wicked grin, or perhaps both.

The internet is infinite. So, too, are the ways it can breed creepy behavior and new opportunities to commodify human connection. People’s Republic of Desire explores only a tiny swath of the internet of grossness, but it’s a subject so epic it deserves much longer examining than a quick 95 minutes affords.

The B-Side is not one of Errol Morris’ finely focused film essays; instead, you may feel a desire to “shake it like a Polaroid picture” in an effort to encourage its development.

Spoiler Alert is at its best when it's not afraid to be mawkish, sentimental, soppy, honest, and downright charming.

It’s not a movie for you to turn off your brain, but rather, a movie to engage with the most primal parts of possessing a fundamental need for cheap entertainment.

An amazing argument no matter which side of the debate you favor, Stone’s film manages to restock and bring a fresh voice to an old controversy. The documentary is well-made and articulately argued, although that doesn't mean it isn't going to have as many adversaries as champions.

It's an endearing romantic daydream, but misses the bus where matters of reality are concerned.

The movie is a lot of fun if you don't think about it too much, the stuntwork should satisfy the genre fanatics in the crowd even though it doesn't set any new plateaus, and the rapport between Davis and Jackson is enough to keep the sticklers for realism in abeyance at least until the final credits roll.

It's less cheesecake than angel-food: frothy, light, and delicious, sure, but two hours later you're ready for something slightly more substantive.

In its own peculiar way, What Love Is is a testament to the redemptive power of words. Thankfully, Callahan knows to keep it short and sweet, lest his audience go mad from the noise.

Made by teachers for teachers, this local indie – which now sports the imprimatur of executive producer Morgan Spurlock – offers no easy answers to its statistic that 50% of teachers quit within their first three years on the job.

In the end, Tea With the Dames peters out as a conversation, given there’s no real beginning, middle or end to the film. It’s a privilege, however, to have been given a tableside seat to listen to this foursome reminisce and ruminate for an hour and a half, with laughter punctuating the conversation every few minutes.

Cyrus is very funny, and Keener's supporting work as John's divorced ex also amuses. A pat conclusion nevertheless negates the strength of the restive narrative that precedes it.

It's nonstop chaos, and the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink style of comedy is taxing despite the frequent moments of pure comic genius.

Ms. Elliott's film is, in part, an effort to reverse his slow slide into obscurity. On this level it's an unqualified success.

You’ll leave the film wondering why you've never seen a TV ad for an electric car, or why GM is all about selling Hummers these days.

The longer it goes, the more True Mothers gets weighed down by its melodrama. Kawase is just hopeful and soft enough to keep her film glowing, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing, and is a bit frustrating with its blatant red herrings.

Chills to the bone -- and beyond, but for pure excitement it's best not to look far beneath the surface.

Meet Bill is a typical storyline given new life by an overabundance of antic energy.

Surprisingly well-crafted for something as aggressively dumb as this, the real surprise is the cast.

Po (Black) may be an animated panda bear, but make no mistake: Deep down he's really just a nerd with a pop-culture obsession.

The bulk of the documentary observes Pipkin as he traverses the world showing us a score of examples of solutions that are presently working.

Square peg, round hole. That's what the twentysomethings who drift through Margarita Happy Hour are like.

While never taking credit away from the other rescuers who also risked life and limb, The Rescue comes back to the bunch of self-described oddballs who got the kids out.

Even at its most contrived, the filmmakers believe in this project so passionately that its atmosphere seems absolutely real.

An undeniably novel film that nevertheless lost its novelty for me around the time the Shakers washed up on American shores (that’s about an hour in?), The Testament of Ann Lee still had me in its grip every time a musical number rolled around, which is often enough.

It's always odd to see Robbins, a political activist in his own right, playing at villainy, but here he descends into the role so thoroughly that the lopsided smile becomes less a notation of cockeyed boyishness than a treacherous Cheshire smirk.

There may be two genres at work in The Invisible Man, but there’s only one Elisabeth Moss, and her performance makes Whannell’s film worth discussing far beyond the realm of the title character.

There’s much to enjoy, even if the funny bits don’t add up to Spinal Tap greatness. And the titular anthem, performed in a star-studded closing jamboree, has a wickedly funny payoff.

Even though some of the religious and traditional aspects of the film may not travel well, its spirit is universal.

The delectably atmospheric Asylum remains gothic to its morally maggoty core.

Equity is a movie about working women that was made by and financed by women, providing a backstory that’s almost as interesting as the movie itself.

With its understated moral power, generous spirit, and bracing flashes of dark humor, Titanic Town offers a fresh, subtly illuminating take on an ancient sorrow.

Homer's rendition of "spider pig" is comedy gold.

Giamatti is masterful.

No matter the movie's pitfalls, Ray, we can't stop loving you.

Borrowing tonally from the likes of Kill Bill, Jennifer’s Body and John Dies at the End, its message is strong, but, despite its merits, the journey for this hyped gaslighting nightmare is generally lagging.

Whenever War Dogs plods, close your eyes and count the seconds. Hill’s next deranged little giggle will be along shortly to pick you up.

Hallström's latest is fine but unambitious, content with what it is – an arthouse trifle for the masses.

As an experiment in mood, as a love song to Paris and to the French New Wave, as a fun, flirty little number, Charlie provides a giddy satisfaction.

Like the character of Rocky, it's got heart to spare, and is by turns one of the sweetest of the sweet-science pictures as well as one of the most doleful. Fighters fight, it's what they do. And Balboa, god bless him, fights on.

It's a kinder, gentler "Tales From the Crypt" that, in the end, is neither kind nor gentle.

As directed by Taymor, it's a competent and nicely designed biopic that for all of the director's attempts to link surrealist film imagery with Hayek's depiction of Kahlo somehow manages to be generally lackluster.

Neeson, taking a welcome break from his late-career reinvention as a man of action, and Manville (Another Year, Phantom Thread) are such gifted performers, and they play this couple – their tenderness and stress – at a likably subtle frequency.

There’s enough intelligence and wit here to sustain your interest, especially when Curtis and Lohan are in peak form. They put the freak in this Freaky Friday.

The split screen is distracting enough, but it is the choppy scenes representing the passage of time that make the story hard to follow. More American Graffiti is not without its moments, though, and Cindy Williams' moment of realization -- when she defies authority to lead a police wagon full of women in singing Baby Love-- is a joy.

Ultimately, no matter how fascinating the subject, there are only so many shots of rich people relishing amuse-bouche, especially when it never feels like the main course arrives.

This is some dumb, thoroughly predictable, drive-in flotsam, but between the cast and the nonstop action, it's fun nonetheless.

Fake beer brands, star cars, crotch shots – a boy’s life unfolded, according to co-writer Uhelszki. Red Hot Chili Smith opines Mad magazine meets Esquire, and Uhelszki echoes equally extinct forces: “Everybody was politically incorrect. No one watched their words. That’s what made Creem so good ... If you put it through that politically incorrect filter, you would have lost 60% of what made Creem great.”

Altman-esque in its disjointed narrative but clear as day in its complexity of vision, Schimberg's film works best in its individual scenes, and scenes within scenes.

At its heart the film wants nothing more than to make you giggle, and at that it succeeds admirably.

When the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River began construction in the early Nineties, an estimated 2 million people's lives were impacted. That's a staggering number to contemplate, but Up the Yangtze effectively personalizes that near-meaningless number by putting a face on at least a few of those 2 million.

There's a sense of joy, distilled through a juxtaposition of images of celebration and ritual: women in a forest in Belarus, placing floral tributes on water; an elephant illuminated in a street fair; lanterns lifting into the air over Thailand like shooting stars in reverse; a Chinese cormorant fisherman with his bird; masked revelers at Bolivia's Carnaval de Oruro.

The film has lots of small moments that make it a worthy effort.

Unsurprisingly, your enjoyment of Shrek 2 will likely be predicated on your enjoyment of Shrek 1.

By the end, Kate admits “[her book] could be better.” Maybe this is a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement that real life doesn’t always make for a great movie.

While the dour pacing and tone rank right up there with watching water freeze in terms of gutpunching suspense, by the time the final, grisly revelation is at hand you're hard-pressed not to sweat.

Honeydripper’s story isn’t anything you haven’t seen a dozen times before, but where Sayles succeeds (where Sayles always succeeds) is in his ability to dramatize the psychological and linguistic details that give identity to a subculture struggling for survival.

You couldn't have gotten a more pleasantly bizarre film if Salvador Dali himself had directed, which says a lot for Miller's rabid talents.

Doesn't say much of anything at all about the Balkan conflict -- it's more concerned with MacDowell's shattered face and Brody's passionate, paranoid whinny, which, come to think of it, is just good enough.

Ultimately, Facing Nolan paints its picture of a baseball great with broad strokes, but they cohere into a warmhearted image that baseball fans and their uninitiated families can enjoy together.

It may not be spring yet, but this sweet little gem of a movie is the perfect antidote to that lengthy stretch of grimy gray weather Austin endured a while back.

Everyone knows that the villains are usually the most interesting characters in any movie. So the makers of Despicable Me were wise to cut to the chase and make the megalomaniacal Gru (voiced by Carell) the central character in this animated film.

If you’re looking for a thrilling whodunit, there’s nothing in this film that hasn’t been done – and done better – a dozen times before.

Silly, inconsistent, and completely frivolous, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby also happens to be one of the funniest movies this side of 2006.

A paradox, balancing the contradictions and ambiguities of its characters and setting with a careful hand that rarely falters, even though the film seems dramatically thin at times.

Burn After Reading, the new film from the Coen Brothers, won't be mistaken for "Fargo" anytime soon. Or "Barton Fink," or "The Man Who Wasn' There." Those films were black comedy done to perfection.

For all his superfan's intimacy with b-ball culture, he focuses less on the sport's fascinating mystique than on generic recapitulation of how celebrity culture seduces and devours young minority athletes.

Loses something in its translation to celluloid.

Predictable but never coy about it, After Words speaks to the fateful connection that sometimes occurs between two people under the most improbable circumstances.

A nice-looking, nice-feeling exercise in conventionalism that sure could use a couple of transvestites and maybe a house falling from the sky.

For the most part, it's all fairly predictable material, although McAvoy and his costars invest the movie with dynamic performances that manage to keep the story's characters just this side of stereotype and mediocrity.

The resolute commitment to finding tiny sparks of hope in a pitch-black cosmos yields its own bitter and oddly warming reward.

With a big, domineering performance from Yash front and center, a love of bonkers action and unrelenting brutal violence, stunning camerawork from Bhuvan Gowda, and a director with flair to spare, crime and action lovers would do well to give it a chance.

Elcar's setup may be minimalist, but Brightwood turns that simple idea into a well-crafted baroque puzzle box.

Taken for what it is, Brick Lane is something entirely its own.

We've heard tell about the rebirth of the Western at least since Clint Eastwood's vicious, "Unforgiven" 16 years ago, but since the genre never truly died in the first place there's no need to flog that horse here.

Teenthrob Efron will be missed in future episodes by both adolescent girls and their moms who are only too happy to accompany their daughters to the theatre, but he's a handsome talent who's graduated to bigger projects.

This new iteration of Ms. Croft, played in a far more realistic fashion by Vikander (of Ex Machina fame), is somewhat more serious in tone, but altogether more fun to watch.

The fun of Wild Things -- and there's a lot of it -- is in its never-ending game of cross and double cross.

The all-around excellent cast swings with aplomb from silly to sweet.

When Day-Lewis and Bean are allowed to be real brothers in arms, Anemone truly blooms.