What a weird, winning little movie is Robot & Frank, which explores what happens to the essential self as the memory goes. Oh, and it's a heist picture. With robot butlers. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.

Of course, Slither isn't for everyone, but if you've a yen for gallons of grue and a smart, sassy story to boot, you couldn't do better than Gunn's hellishly fun horror show.

An understated movie that, in turns, is funny and heart-breaking and uplifting, Manny & Lo is a work that burrows under your skin and makes you impatient for the next project from first-time feature filmmaker Lisa Krueger.

There’s nothing feel-good about this story – even moments that should be hopeful.

The film's light comedy and dark morality make for an unsettling mix.

Viewers hoping for a foray into "Donnie Darko" territory will be disappointed by this shift in tone. But those who like things sentimental and sweet – and there’s nothing wrong with that – will find comfort in the notion of leaving the past behind to allow the future to go forward.

The Vessel speaks eloquently. It’s a testament to the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.

The young Dillon effortlessly portrays the thuggish Richie, and Kramer is believable as the misunderstood kid turned miscreant. Add a pulsating soundtrack featuring the Ramones, Van Halen, and Cheap Trick, and you have a vibrant depiction of confused teen life.

It’s a narratively audacious, ultra-stylish, and at times queasily violent film that’s likely to polarize audiences even as they find themselves unable to tear their eyes from the screen.

Blanchart’s not reinventing any wheels – if anything, there’s a certain pleasure to be had from his decision not to follow the current trend of trying to simulate a real-time effect.

This is a Disney film, so there's never any real question regarding Bolt and his friends' ultimate success or failure, but the writing team of Dan Fogelman (Cars) and co-director Williams (Mulan) have concocted one of the most witty and often hilarious Disney outings in years.

No one is having any fun here, despite the return of Iggy Pop on the soundtrack; T2 is rife with regret, melancholy, lost youth, and (of course) a new, nihilistically updated “choose life” speech from Renton.

Maybe it has something to do with Jewish writers riffing on the apocalypse, but This Is the End doesn’t really know how to end.

As the falsehoods stack up and fall away, My Old School will increasingly leave you slack-jawed.

To do no disservice to the impressive work of Bridges' co-stars, anytime his ragged writer, in flowing caftans and floppy hats, is on screen, it's impossible to take in anything else, so commanding is his presence.

In the end, the film doesn't add up to much of anything, but its individual parts are sometimes greater than its whole.

As is, it's simply too much information crammed too haphazardly into a running time that at times borders on interminable.

"By practicing his art, he revealed himself to us." Fellini: I’m a Born Liar provides proof positive: The art indeed reveals far more than this pedestrian documentary ever does.

Marvelous not in its evocation of horror but in the way it slowly chips away at the mundanities of day-to-day urban living.

A fanciful spiral of mythology, madness, cynicism and salvation.

This big-screen version of Wilde's stylish match of deceit and honor, loyalty and betrayal, is more parry than thrust.

So great are the charges raised against the Bush administration in the film, and so combustible the current state of geopolitics, that Moore’s film could actually prove to be the first in history to help unseat a sitting American president.

The influence of executive producer Alex Gibney is clear in the photography and editing (making Gibney-esque now officially a term of art), but he has his own adept, incisive skill in linking a truly global economic crisis in the making, threading the narrative all the way from rural China to Flint, Michigan.

With original director John Carpenter's blessing, Green manages something that is both a tribute to and an evolution of the 1978 classic, with moments designed to create resonances that are not just re-enactment but part of his bigger theme of trauma-causing scars (there are also, in a nod to his days as an Austin resident, a couple of subtle visual nods to the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre).

Synecdoche is the kind of movie that rewards repeated viewings. But sometimes, as Van Morrison sings, it's just best to "sail into the mystic."

The film's cast, all unknowns with the exception of comic/Broadway performer DeLaria, acquit themselves well, with the skinny, innocent-eyed Stafford a credible Candide navigating a new world of experience. His grounded performance charters Eric's stumbling progress to a sense of self that befits Edge of Seventeen: without apology.

Perhaps there was some confusion – should we play this as a lark or a lesson in geopolitical unrest? – or maybe there was some studio involvement to defang the politics; whatever the case, the noncommittal Charlie Wilson's War treads a good-natured but yawning in-between.

If you're searching for pure, unadulterated fisticuffs joy, you could do far worse than Ip Man 2.

Martin's inner giddiness makes Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid a classic. This loose film is more than a spoof of the hard-boiled noir of the Forties and Fifties; it is a tribute to the wonderful memories these films created in a generation.

What we witness onscreen is horrifying and deeply disturbing (as it should be), but a little more context might help us to not feel so marooned.

Don’t expect any hokey scare tactics here. Under the steady hand of Oscar-nominated director Abrahamson (Room), the film is a calculated slow burn, one that plays a cunning head game with those viewers willing to be entranced.

Having unfettered access to Armstrong during the 2009 Tour and a face-to-face sit-down with him in Austin hours after his national confession to Oprah, The Armstrong Lie comes across more a good save than a muckraking piece of journalism.

We bear witness, via Brügger's film, to the slow-motion train wreck that high-echelon, African graft becomes.

Part of the brilliance of Cummings’ performance is how he can turn on a dime, baring his soul one second and throwing off a well-timed jab in the same breath. Thankfully, the actors around him are able to keep up with his pace.

For most of the film, Bateman, the director, manages to bring out the two principals’ anguish without resorting to sentimentality, until the unsatisfying last quarter of the film.

The film's triumphantly perverse climax, in fact, is just that: a three-tiered split-screen of three couples shagging that resembles nothing so much as a national flag and is set to a rendition of "My Girl" sung by a black trio dressed as colonial soldiers. When it hits such giddily subversive high notes, Sammy and Rosie ... transcends provocation and bursts into ecstatic revelation.

The Last Duel is a thematic gold mine, one that sits nicely alongside some of Scott’s best work to date.

Dependably fascinating.

Provides a smart and funny respite from most of what passes for romantic comedy these days.

From a soundtrack of First Nations artists – including a score by the award-winning electronic group the Halluci Nation (fka A Tribe Called Red) – and stunning landscape cinematography by Guy Godfree, there are so many dynamic elements in Slash/Back that cause the film to punch way above its weight class.

The film has a lot to say, but it thankfully does it in a manner that is natural, gentle, and if you will, authentic.

Is it a comedy? A documentary? An underground gore-fest? Man Bites Dog, the first feature film from Belgian director Rémy Belvaux, is all of these and much more, a ghastly, shocking and explosive debut with all the genuinely ruthless ability to disturb as an oily blue-barreled revolver jammed in your mouth. And it's funny, too.

It's unclear if Van Sant intends to inspire guilt; here, as elsewhere, he is exasperatingly abstruse. And in this striving to not say too much, he ends up not saying much of anything at all.

To paraphrase Nathan McCall, this film makes you wanna holler.

uUltimately Better Luck Tomorrow feels nearly as hollow and unknowable as its characters’ hearts.

The film is set in post-WWII Scotland, but its tone and its telling are so stark, so Medieval, that it seems anachronistic when one of its characters picks up a telephone or plays a bebop jazz record.

Takes you back to a time in which people – children, in particular – still created whole worlds in their heads, inventing characters and situations as far away as their flights of fancy would take them.

The familiar faces inject instant warmth, but I’m not sure it’s entirely earned. By the time Jay Kelly arrived at its last line – buffed to a bland sheen, as if the whole film was reverse-engineered to land there – I had cooled considerably.

Will good triumph over evil? Who cares, when there's this much chaotic creature fun to be had.

For all its kiss kiss, bang bang, Haywire ends up feeling as hollow as the points on Mallory Kane's 9mm ammo.

Tales of the Rat Fink is an ebullient survey of Roth's life that revs along with the zest a souped-up hot rod.

Contemporary adult themes that resonate as much as those in Perfect Blue (stalking, the cult of celebrity) have become increasingly rare in this animated genre better known for tentacled demons and cute forest sprites; it's refreshing to be reminded that not everything in anime need feature that lovable scamp Pikachu, either.

When I ask myself what it is that these women in the movie want, I come up with bubkes.

In its mix of angsty formalism and sing-along fun, Annette may be the closest that musical cinema has come to when Brecht and Weill put a knife in Macheath's hand for The Threepenny Opera.

Chappaquiddick portrays the “incident” with the delicate meticulousness of an autopsy – which is ironic because the body of Mary Jo Kopechne never got one.

A Late Quartet overplays its bass line and loses sight of the melody, making for a movie that is heavy-handed and sluggish. It remains earthbound when it should soar.

While the compelling Plowright competently flexes her well-trained muscle, the film's melodrama too readily evokes a Lifetime Original Movie rather than subtle sentiment.

Remarkably frank, Korengal espouses no one clear sentiment towards war.

The deepest pleasures of Sanctuary are in how Abbott and Qualley – both identifiably horny and human – suck every drip of pleasure out of Micah Bloomberg's script.

Once again the title pretty much says it all.

There are some wonderful performances and lovely unadorned moments in The Flower of Evil when the movie is not drowning its viewers in its doomed fragrance.

Though visually lovely and ambitious, never soars to the heights achieved by "Unforgiven." Costner’s film lacks the moral complexity that might earn it a solid berth in the canon of the American Western.

There's also real breadth in scenes between Burr and Davidson: The older stand-up doesn't give any ground but still tries to give the screwed-up young man something to cling on to in several firehouse scenes.

As Tears Go By has some interesting ideas and is an adequate first film, but, ultimately, is only slightly more interesting than any number of similar pictures made in the wake of John Woo's seminal 1986 trendsetter A Better Tomorrow.

Ranks as one of the season's most intelligent and polished films.

All of these characters’ supposed “shortcomings” are more often relationship-ending defects. Ironically, this steadfast depiction of noxious people is what makes the movie appealing.

Bogs down during several fuzzily romantic interludes.

It's rebellious within an era of restraint, bathing Tesla in glowing pastel shades in a time of mahogany, leather, and steam.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is inchoate, but it demonstrates that instincts and brio can compensate for a lot.

A kicky, knockout thriller that ingeniously taps into the current climate of paranoia surrounding personal privacy in the Information Age.

The way the individual stories are intercut builds connections between the seemingly discrete tales such that they begin to converge in ways that were not readily apparent. Repeated viewings, I'm sure, would enhance the connections, so smartly are they conceived.

Just when you thought you'd been ecologized to death, here comes another preachy-teachy, green cartoon. But wait, this is no Captain Planet of the big screen. This is no wooden caricature spouting he-man environmentalism. This is funny, pretty, touching, scary, magical stuff.

With such a frenetic, brain-melting load of images to ponder, it's easy to forget that there are also some terrific actors at work here, not the least of whom is the amazing Vinnie Jones.

It's strange thinking of water as a market commodity, and it's hard to comprehend the kind of greed that must go into keeping it from needy mouths, but, fact is, the water business is now the world's third-largest industry, meaning there are a lot of sinister souls out there fiddling with their bank statements while Rome dries up.

Chbosky surrounds his hurting characters with the cinematic equivalent of a hug circle – which is sweet, but rather antithetical to tension-building.

In the Aisles is a triumph of mood, aided by an eclectic soundtrack that skips from Delta blues to electro-pop to Strauss and Donizetti, and a worthy stage for Rogowski to continue introducing himself to an international audience.

That is what this film documents: racism, homophobia, misogyny, and exploitation of the working class. God bless Texas.

Presents itself as a musical essay, but would certainly fall more under the category of a love letter. And ultimately, what would you rather experience anyway?

Exuberant but fairly formulaic.

It's such high sports drama you'd swear this documentary is fiction.

There's even a Simon and Garfunkel tune on the soundtrack, which makes Braff's character seem like the only living boy in New Jersey, which, of course, he may well be. L'chaim!

There is much pain, and any number of deeply philosophical questions posed, if not answered. This is very powerful stuff, but what you ultimately make of it will have a lot to do with the politics you bring to watching it.

A curiously unaffecting amalgam of the archetypal coming-of-age tale, here twinned to "outsider" religious overtones (in this case São Paulo's Orthodox Jewish community) and a small but deadly dose of uneasy political melodrama.

As COVID-19 widens the gap between the rich and the poor in communities across the country, Cut Throat City’s institutional assault feels sadly timely.

The script, and Theron, matter-of-factly illustrate the old adage about Ginger Rogers, that she did everything Astaire did, only backwards and in heels. That the film actually gives her credit for it? That’s the best kind of wish fulfillment fantasy.

Freaky hilariously modernizes the high school bloodbath for laughs.

The Legend of Ochi is a kids’ movie in all the best possible ways, all the most enriching, magical ways that a kids’ movie should be. It’s also educational, but not in a teaching, preachy fashion. Instead, it’s filled with wisdom and heart, a fabulous tale of the fantastical that will leave your children filled with a sense of wonder about the world.

A sweet German movie by a first-time filmmaker, who, I would bet, is more than a little familiar with the early work of Jim Jarmusch or just about any Aki KaurismŠki film.

Associated with the modernist architectural movement centered in Southern California during the mid-20th century, Shulman’s still photographs are essential to any study of the style’s vast popularization and commercialism.

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

It's not all fun and games, and that's where Scotty can feel a little strained.

Bateman's worldbuilding introduces stranger elements that are always counterbalanced by more grounded emotional developments, keeping the audience engaged as hard as the esoteric mythology pushes them away. In that delicate balance it bypasses the logical parts of the brain and speaks purely in quiet emotional truths.

Upgrade is a welcome excuse to put Marshall-Green through some delightfully complex fight choreography.

Beyond surprising thematic depth, The Old Ways is an exercise in putting every cent on the screen, and hiding what you don't need.

It ends up seeming more real and more artistically, morally, and spiritually honest than any dozen bedrock documentary films you'd care to name.

Thomas’ comic flair is undeniable, as is Stern’s comic acting ability; all other arguments aside, Private Parts is a consistently uproarious affair, riddled with brilliant comic set-pieces, including Stern’s many, many run-ins with various program directors and NBC brass.

Patti Cake$ treads familiar territory while also presenting something fresh and original.

A comedy that's refreshing in its courage to embrace tradition and just have fun.