Although The D Train doesn’t completely live up to its potential, the film earns lots of points for treading a distinctive path through a conventional setup.

It is the product of a machine perfectly evolved for the sole purpose of annihilating boredom, a machine whose primary weakness is the utter indifference of those uninitiated or unimpressed by this point. For the rest of us, it’s a hearty helping of fine.

The Salt of the Earth travels to the heart of darkness, but thankfully comes out on the other side and leaves you with a hopefulness that no matter what kind of madness and repression happen in the world, there is still hope for humanity.

The language barrier borders the Babel-esque; it’s a surprise fount of humor, too, as when a translator is terrified to pass along an Italian tailor’s request to the French-speaking chief seamstress, knowing she’ll be furious at the added work.

Although there are shades of "All About Eve" here, the resonances lean more toward the fluid identities of the actresses in Ingmar Bergman’s work or even Assayas’ own "Irma Vep."

For all its unsubtle sentimentality (including a you-can-see-it-from-a-mile-away plot twist), it remains unclear whether Little Boy intends to celebrate the conviction of belief or to mock it. It’s an unfortunate confusion that permanently stunts its growth.

A far more profound and moving film about this particularly Aussie/Kiwi campaign (and one that will probably never be topped) is Peter Weir’s devastating Gallipoli, starring a very young Mel Gibson. Given the choice, I’ll take that over Crowe’s earnest bombast any day.

Lively’s performance grows more engaging as her facade finally begins to crack, and Huisman serves as a sufficiently handsome foil throughout, but if anyone rises to the occasion, it’s Harrison Ford as a former flame reunited with Adaline through a perverse twist of fate.

You have the makings of a half-baked thriller that looks pretty good (that second-unit stuff in Mexico City is tight) and performances that aren’t half-bad, but at the end of the day it’s some neo-noir nonsense that makes those post-Tarantino movies from the mid-Nineties look like "Chinatown." No mames.

The story is littered with simplistic character arcs, obvious metaphors (the title comes from a swimming class), and big decisions involving the importance of work over family.

Unfriended provides a modicum of chills and more gore than you’d expect.

Hey, hey, it’s the monkeys that rule this particular spot on the Earth, and watching them monkey around is a G-rated trip and a half. And with Tina Fey’s enthusiastic narration, you might even learn something, too.

What’s most dispiriting about this garbage burger is its nonsensical characterization of Blart himself.

Set mostly during the waning years of Stalin’s totalitarian grip on the USSR, Child 44 does a superb job of capturing the grim living conditions and pervasive paranoia that marked the bleak era. Sadly, that’s about all this movie does well.

Something this bad can’t help but be good.

The problem with True Story is that you wish there were more of it. The philosophical questions it encourages are like the tail that wags the dog. The truth becomes something of an obfuscation, and unlike films such as "Capote" and "Infamous," there’s not enough drama about the compulsive relationship between the writer and his felonious subject.

The film is certifiably schizophrenic in tone.

A rattling and ruminative piece of speculative fiction, Ex Machina is good enough to wish it were even better.

It’s a spooky, moody doozy of a debut, lensed by Director of Photography Lyle Vincent in a radiant monochrome that somehow makes even the darkness sparkle.

Blending political allegory with the tropes of teen coming-of-age films, White God begins as a tale about a girl separated from her dog, and ends up being the Battleship Potemkin of canine mutiny.

While We’re Young struggles to reconcile its protagonists’ rival impulses to either welcome an unexpected source of youthful vitality with open arms or embrace such an individual so as to better displace them from one’s lawn.

Regardless of one’s personal beliefs, it’s tough to respect a movie that ultimately invites viewers to question every case of propaganda except its own.

Lost River is a film whose reputation precedes it. Viewers have decried it as a mess or lauded it as an artistic achievement ever since it premiered at Cannes 11 months ago. Ultimately, the film is really neither. Yes, Gosling’s ambition exceeds his accomplishment, but what he’s delivered is hardly a disaster.

Titled Girlhood for its American release in an obvious ploy to be viewed as a counterpart to last year’s widely hailed Boyhood, this film is better described by its original French title Bande de Filles, which translates as Girl Gang.

Cinematographer Jeremy Prusso catches some stunning imagery, Robert Allen Elliott’s score is genuinely stirring, and the cast, most of whom are from Monrovia, is uniformly excellent.

There’s little here to convince the audience of boy and girl’s special chemistry, and nothing to attach the audience to them, either.

Gustav Klimt’s spectacular painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I far outshines this pedestrian movie about the legal battle waged by Maria Altmann (Mirren), the niece of the portrait’s subject, to regain possession of the work which was seized from her family by the Nazis during their takeover of Austria.

This is an emotionally devastating piece of advocacy journalism, as it should be. It should also be mandatory viewing for both college-age teens and their parents.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

When the action shifts to Bill’s childhood home – an islet along the Thames, downriver from the legendary Shepperton Studios – some of the magic of that place rubs off on Boorman’s picture: It becomes lighter on its feet, moves with the breath of life and not just the strength of memory.

Furious 7 is, to put it succinctly, a rush and a half.

Pacino delivers his best work in a long time, but it’s contained within an utterly predictable redemption movie that only comes alive when Pacino plays one-on-one scenes with the other members of the cast.

The subject itself – the musicians, the music – and the spirit of the thing – one son’s obvious devotion – transcend the film’s technical shortcomings.

Snap! That’s the crack of people teetering on the verge in each of the six segments in the perversely entertaining Argentinian film Wild Tales, a more-than-deserving recent Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film.

So many follow-up questions are left unasked. The film is at its liveliest when the filmmaker and his subject discuss the twofold presence of human monstrosity and artistic gifts or the human propensity to value talent over craft.

It is filled with unsettling imagery and a paranoiac atmosphere, and has a wicked slant on the horror genre’s obsession with burgeoning sexuality. You’re not likely to shake it anytime soon.

If overly familiar and uninspired, Home is nevertheless agreeable, especially for young viewers who haven’t been down this road countless times.

Beyond a leper’s handful of jokes that actually connect, this might as well be Ferrell’s most abysmal piece of work since the disastrous "Land of the Lost."

It’s an enchanting work, heartbreaking yet wryly amusing.

Insurgent exists primarily to either validate or defy the imagined depiction of events in the heads of countless teen fans.

Sometimes the most thrilling thing a film can do is shake the shackles of its own preordained genre as you're watching it. The result might turn out to be a deal-breaking tonal trainwreck, but when such a hybrid works – and Spring, the second feature from directing team Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, does work – it can make for an improbably lovely experience.

The U.S. won the Olympic gold, but as seen here, the Russians’ story is by far the more genuinely Olympian, making this a handy victory over all previously told accounts of that so-called miracle.

Remarkably, the film is composed entirely of point-of-view shots. Although she’s in the room, Viviane is not even part of the image during the early minutes of the film.

With the documentary Ballet 422, Lipes’ first return to dance after notable narrative cinematography work (on TV’s Girls and the upcoming Trainwreck, among other projects), he’s somewhat boxed himself into a corner with the cinema verité directive to capture the moment and keep out of the way.

When Bardem is onscreen, the emotional stakes are high, engaging you in a way the principal storyline fails to do. It’s a masterful turn by a masterful actor, one that’s blissfully on-target in The Gunman.

The result is a well-cooked serving of meat-and-potatoes action filmmaking, but its main failing is an ultimate inability to distinguish itself by more than minor flourishes.

Take the politics out and you’d still have a powerhouse action film. But please, don’t take the politics out.

Deli Man needs more meat on its rye.

Mention must be made of James’ guileless turn as Cinderella. Like the beautiful crystalline-blue ballgown worn in the film’s centerpiece section (you can’t take your eyes off it; it literally dazzles), she looks as if she’s lit from within.

The result is about as memorable as an evening spent shitfaced at your local Applebee’s.

Now, with Chappie, the director/co-writer returns home for an uneven showcase of impeccable visual effects and lackluster emotional affect.

The film is a magnificent document of secular humanism.

The appearance of Richard Gere as a new guest whom everybody assumes is a plant from the multinational hotel chain that Muriel and Sonny have been wooing is straight out of the “Hotel Inspectors” episode of Fawlty Towers. Where’s John Cleese when you really need him?

As the down-on-his-luck Roth, Orser gives the darkly comic performance of a man barely able to keep his head above water.

A Frankensteinian combination of "Flatliners," "Carrie," and just about any possession flick that comes to mind.

This con artist caper from the writer/director duo behind "Bad Santa" and "I Love You Philip Morris" bears some superficial resemblance to the 2005 romantic comedy "Hitch."

Vladimir Putin’s Russia – brutal, carnivorous, delusional, but monstrously well-evolved for crushing both spirits and lives large and small – is taken to task in this excoriating portrait of the state’s omnivorous hunger for control in a far-flung northern fishing community on the Barents Sea.

A la Mala coasts on its style and charm, and that may be enough for this kind of romp. Mala’s roommates Kika (Aurora) and Pablo (Arrieta) provide enjoyable interludes as something of a Greek chorus to Mala’s dilemma. Nevertheless, a bit more originality in the script by Issa López and Ari Rosen would be a welcome diversion.

A gently parodic tone prevails throughout what is ultimately a pretty sweet take on bloodsuckers, even as Deacon and Nick flap their way through a “bat fight” (exactly what it sounds like) and the vamps face off against a pack of similarly esteem-challenged werewolves led by Conchords manager Rhys Darby.

Screenwriter Bruce Wagner (who's been skillfully dissecting Hollywood misfits high and low since his 1991 novel, "Force Majeure") has crafted a darkly humorous moral fable that Cronenberg embraces with unabashed glee.

Oh, for a time machine that would give me back the hour and a half I spent watching this movie.

In a genre dominated by computer-generated compositions and design, its old-school simplicity is sweetly anachronistic, while its hand-drawn elegance is often something to behold.

The film loses its focus a bit in the third act, but until then Good Day, Ramón is a heartwarming tale punctuated by moments of true concern for the likable but imperiled young hero.

Set in 1987, this inspirational Disney sports film (that’s a niche, but a growing one) hits all the schmaltzy, sappy notes you’d expect, but never falls to its knees under the burden.

The story is really rather prosaic and character details are fairly nonexistent. Yet LaGravenese should be commended for his vision and tenacity, which has helped to create a piece that should be catnip to fans of the modern musical theatre – and in these post-Glee days, who isn’t?

An adaptation of Kody Keplinger’s YA novel, The DUFF is exponentially dumb.

It's a bondage movie without much perversion, a love story without much passion, and ultimately, a film burdened with expectations it could never fulfill. It never quite hits as hard as you want it to.

Moore’s much-lauded performance of a person disappearing before our eyes is a heartbreaking thing to behold; it’s unfortunate that the film around her can't rise above the level of uninspired melodrama.

Yet for all Vaughn’s attention to stylized details, I noticed a number of obvious continuity errors throughout to which Vaughn seems blind.

It’s high-brow, low-brow, and just about every brow in between, replete with meta winkiness and manic energy.

This rambunctious swords ’n’ sorcerers fantasy flick has grubby, pseudo-medieval CGI style to burn, but precious little in the way of anything new to add to this sort of genre storytelling.

The resulting film is an exceptionally crafted drama, anchored by the brothers’ mastery of their skills and Cotillard’s breathtaking performance.

Mommy bursts with so much frenzied, turbulent energy that it really only makes sense when looked at as the fifth feature film by a 25-year-old moviemaker. Québécois Xavier Dolan is one of those enfants terribles of the cinema, making and sometimes acting in films that court attention.

Goodbye to Language is the kind of cinematic essay that Godard has come to specialize in; it’s really a montage of thoughts, aphorisms, and images, and not a story, although there are some consistent characters (often naked – and how better to hold our interest in their philosophical queries?) and one dog.

The Duke of Burgundy doubles down on the genre conventions and ends up being all the better for it. That’s thanks in large part to the score by the UK group Cat’s Eye, the two flawless lead performances, and cinematographer Nicholas D. Knowland’s keen eye for creating a more-than-acceptable simulacrum of Franco and Rolin’s hallucinatory, dreamlike vibes.

While the totality of Jupiter Ascending is just too much for its own massive narrative heft to support, kudos to the Wachowskis for beating back against mainstream Hollywood by casting actors of all races and genders in key roles, something they’ve been doing since their 1996 debut "Bound."

Despite the film’s largely hectic point-of-view, first-time helmer Dean Israelite credibly establishes a science-positive environment that ultimately results in less-than-intelligent displays of teenage impulsiveness, and the kids have a believably determined camaraderie as they only ever use the device together to get revenge on bullies, win the lottery, and snag backstage passes at Lollapalooza.

There isn’t even a moment amid the running and gunning as insipidly inspired as the last film’s idea of using grenade-tossing triangulation to save the day.

For the most part, The Loft struggles to engage even on the level of tawdry potboiler, joining the forgettable ranks of 2005’s "Derailed" and 2008’s "Deception" as yet another underwhelming one-night stand.

There is little in the way of narrative eventfulness in the film, but Leigh luxuriates in the moments, and provides glimpses of what it takes to be an artist amid the fray.

Black Sea is cluttered and claustrophobic in all the right ways, and it doubles as a watery jeremiad against global corporate malfeasance. Still, you walk away from the film with the niggling sense that the story never quite holds your attention the way it should.

Black or White is a film all about matters of race that hardly matters at all.

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.

It’s like watching a cartoon version of American Idol on an endless karaoke loop.

Most Americans will be unfamiliar with the late British writer Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Mortdecai novels, on which this Johnny Depp comedy is based; still, no reference point is required to come to the conclusion this is a rotten movie all around.

A Most Violent Year is its own thing, hypnotic and exacting and as subtly savage as mellow-voiced Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler),” which opens the film and sets the tone. I was fully in thrall to it all.

While Lopez carries off the overdone damsel-in-distress schtick somewhat credibly, Guzman fails to step up to the trickier role of her seducer and stalker.

At the end of the day, Cake at least stands better as a showcase for the potential dramatic chops of the once and future Rachel Green than it does as the latest life-affirming indie. Hopefully, the next time Aniston goes fishing for awards, she uses a more convincing breed of bait to do so.

Heady stuff, indeed, but perfect midnight-date movie fare if you’re, uh, in the mood.

The film is so flat and tired it really doesn’t deserve the vehemence of this review. It’s like chastising a completely airless tire for not rolling.

Call it humanism, call it advocacy, call it old-fashioned entertainment – there’s little difference in the end. Whatever you call it, Spare Parts stands and delivers on its own intriguing merits.

To its credit, the film shows no interest in creating blind heroics but instead uphold the nickname Kyle earned in Iraq: the Legend.

There are so many terrific things going on in the film – rapid-fire wordplay, split-second visual gags, and some veddy, veddy British punning – that, frankly, Paddington deserves more than one viewing. Huzzah Paddington, and marmalade forever!

Blackhat plays a surprisingly flat and ever-flatter cinema texture against the careful roll-out of an elaborate plot. Not only is the pacing deliberate, but Mann often supplies only about 80% of the information needed to understand what is going on in a scene.

Although Selma is dramatically uneven overall, the film is a commendable historical drama that sidesteps the pitfalls of adulatory biopics and great-man approaches to encapsulating bygone events.

My advice? Relinquish yourself to this hazy tapestry, and let the film take over. Squares need not apply.

What’s missing from The Woman in Black 2, and what it needs most and has least of all, is suspense.

Every once in a while, a movie is more than a movie, but it’s surprising when that becomes the case with a punk-ass comedy, one that’s more puerile than pointed yet not without some good laughs.