Combining elements of slapstick, horror, and psychodrama (not to mention Darwinism, bestiality, and harelips), Men & Chicken is a film – nay, a world – into which you just dive, and unlike most of the stuff out there, from one moment to the next, you have no idea what is going to happen. It is a black comedy that nimbly switches tones so often it can feel like whiplash.

As a comedian, Davidson's run on SNL has arguably seen him stagnate. At least here, derivative as it is, there's a sense that he's self-critically stretching himself, analyzing how he's getting by on his aging dude-bro charm.

A refresher course in the perils of celebrity and activism, but its syllabus and insights are purely remedial.

Sirens, is unable to rise above its intrinsic prurience.

For a franchise in the throes of a post-Endgame wheel-spinning slump, and with a less-than-compelling upcoming slate of films, Guardians Vol. 3 is a refreshing, if overstuffed, respite. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel bittersweet to be seeing them off for the last time.

Just One of Those Things checks off all the stream-age doc boxes: unheard audio, unseen home movies, color from family, collaborator-peers, and celebs.

Ultimately, Lemmy is a lesson in artistic stoicism and the possibility of growing old gracefully within the confines of an art form that almost always rewards youth and punishes (or, worse, forgets) anyone over 30.

Strong central performances make this harrowing chronicle a gripping tale.

The best moments are when Keery and Campbell get to be blue collar schlubs facing down these messy menaces. Maybe if there was more of their back-and-forth and less of Neeson and Torchia’s distant double act, or vice versa, then Cold Storage might balance between its gruesome and goofy aspects.

Until something better comes along, we're just gonna have to keep the fires burning on this Ron Mann Joint.

Like its title implies, Chocolat tastes good in the moment but leaves behind little nutritional substance.

Blades of Glory, although mildly amusing, has the dank odor of having gone to the well once too often: Ooh, let's dress up Ferrell like an elf – or an anchorman or a NASCAR driver – and see what happens.

A light but emotionally heady confection from France.

The sad truth is that Us Kids feels a bit too much like the thing the students hoped to avoid: a celebration of a moment in time, not the start of a revolution.

The Fall lives and dies on the strength of Pace and Untaru's remarkable performances. It's there that the pulsing heart of this magical-real film beats most true.

While there is undoubted visual spectacle to All You Need Is Kill, Kido’s rewriting of Rita and Kaiji as just ordinary people stuck in extraordinary circumstances is grounded in their mundanity.

It neither embarrasses the original, nor is superior to it in any way.

Like something by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski, but -- of course -- on a much smaller, less ambitious scale, it is a work that weighs on your mind long after you leave it.

The fact that Emily aspires to be an astrobiologist, fascinated by the study of extremophile life forms, is foreshadowing that could seem clumsy in a less crushingly doom-laden and exquisitely eerie story.

A film that is at once elegant and sublimely silly.

If you scratch the surface too deeply, a few things might not ring true, but there’s no greater pleasure to be had than the film’s opening and closing sequences during which Murray, alone on the screen, dances, then sings along to the music coming through his headphones.

Hell of a nice try, but I've seen it all before.

Tunisia’s first Oscar-nominated film, The Man Who Sold His Skin, is an emulsion of ideas, each as ambitiously thought-provoking as the next.

Commands respect as mainstream filmmaking with more of an agenda than just pimping cinematic junk food to the brain-dead masses.

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.

While Fried Green Tomatoes often veers between being too pat and too vague, too obvious and too unclear, too much of the “I laughed, I cried” school of storytelling -- it still has a charm that stems from its vivid and unique characterizations.

Sometimes a little too pat, a little too cute.

This is a movie you feel deeply in the pit of your stomach. Sometimes, it literally hurts to watch it.

Yes, the 84-year-old Maggie Smith is back as the Crawley materfamilias, and as ever she’s the MVP.

While the film never quite reaches the emotional peaks it so obviously seeks to scale, Zwick's film is still potent enough to save you three months salary.

A stiff drink or maybe some pharmaceutical assistance might have made me overlook the film's sour tone, or the unremarkableness of its direction.

The movie itself offers few real answers to the problems teachers face.

The film's greatest strength lies in its ability to view itself as a modern moral fable of sorts.

The film stumbles a bit in its third act, when war kills the good times for good.

Both interesting and insufferable.

Opens strongly and front-loads its best gags into the first third of the film. After that, the jokes begin to repeat themselves, and the plot becomes mired in unintelligible details of the white-collar crime.

Its affection for this prince among putzes is infectious: Within the first five minutes, you’ll find yourself liking this man despite hardly knowing him.

You’ll be the richer for spending time in Crimmins’ company, but the material seems better suited to the small screen.

For many films, all of this would be represented as little more than an onscreen epilogue. In the hands of Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio, here adapting the story of the real Buscetta, it’s the jumping-off point for a story of betrayal, modernity, and one man’s struggles with a lifetime of trauma.

If the hilarious soundtrack isn't ample motivation for those intimidated by the freakish sex and violence, the side-splitting sight of shrimpy Villechaize coupling with the 225-pound, 6-foot Queen (Tyrrell) is reason enough to slog through the insanity.

While it’s great fun to watch regular people learn to express themselves after meeting their heroes, it’s disheartening to notice how much fame sits at the center of it all. The “fantasy” Rock Camp returns to isn’t just making music — it’s wealth and name recognition.

There’s none of the visceral artfulness that Scott managed in the original. Quite simply, if you can’t make man-on-baboon hand-to-hand combat interesting, why do you think you can make a sword fight fun?

Manages the neat feat of feeling sweetly inevitable rather than boilerplate predictable.

Just like the best of the 1980s actioneers, Nobody has just the right mix of brains, brawn, and gut-busting laughs.

The most interesting aspect of Patriot Games, however, is the casting of Ford as Ryan, given that Alec Baldwin originated the character in the preceding film. In contrast to Baldwin's rather colorless CIA analyst ill-suited for work as an agent, Ford informs his character with believable world-weariness which subsequently transforms into rage at the prospect of harm to his family. In many ways, Ford grounds Patriot Games in a degree of emotion that distinguishes it from most run-of-the-mill action thrillers.

A staggering document of the lengths parents will go to for the sake of their child.

I just wish Tcheng didn’t feel the need for unnecessary flourishes. There is a wonderful scene of archival footage where Halston takes a single sheet of fabric and uses scissors and one seam, and creates a simple but beautifully elegant dress. The filmmaker should have taken a note from that minimalist and flawless execution of a master designer.

Greenland might be a B-movie at heart, but in keeping at least one toe on the ground at all times, the filmmakers craft something that punches well above its weight class. Here’s to one of the more consistently surprising director/actor relationships of our era.

Summarizing is futile. The Mountain has productive veins of ore for those willing to mine it. But be aware that finding gems will require sweat equity.

There’s an insufferable longwindedness to Kinds of Kindness, each installment dragging on beyond the point of patience. Watching becomes a chore, made heavier by Robbie Ryan’s often flat cinematography and the pacing created by Lanthimos’ longtime editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis.

And yet, for all those weaknesses, this is a Steven Spielberg film, of the kind only Steven Spielberg can make. Big, raucous, heartfelt, referential, and unabashed in celebrating the culture he has always loved.

Sure, Rosie Perez's greedy Muriel is a cartoon and her voice, always at full drill-bit whine, is wearing, but the warmth and graciousness apparent in every frame keep this movie touching and sweet. Give yourself over to this giving film and see what happens.

It’s a titillating story of social suicide worthy of Capote’s imagination, had he only dared to inscribe it with his own words.

Loses something in its translation to celluloid.

A muddled, gimpy mess, filled with the worst sort of Trek clichés and ill-timed humorous outbursts.

The opening and closing courtroom scenes, in which brother Sumner is granted legal guardianship, show a family in need of healing, mentally and spiritually.

Cinque, the rebel leader, is played by former model Hounsou, a mountainous figure who speaks in a gutteral roar and seems to embody the rage and confusion of an entire exploited continent.

Supremely goofy in tone, the film pits Wayne (in his last Ford film) and Marvin as drunken pals who careen from one friendly brawl to the next. A Pacific island paradise becomes their silly playpen.

Ultimately, though, Jack Goes Boating is too much of a banal thing. Jack's a good guy, and you root for him all the way to the end, but, wistfully, that doesn't make him an any more interesting everyday Joe than he is.

Suffice to say, this departure from West’s usual run of seriously freaky spook shows is a brilliant piece of work, cordite-scented sorrow, and last-laugh gags stabbed through with a discernible lust for life.

I was unfamiliar with X Japan (as they’re known outside of their home country) but after watching this thrilling documentary I’m a rock solid fan, scouring eBay for old concert T-shirts. As Gene Simmons notes, “If X had been born in America, they might have been the biggest band in the world.”

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.

Come for the sophisticated charm and intoxicating wit suggested by the term “café society.” Stay for the rote charms and recycled bons mots offered up by Woody Allen’s umpteenth movie, a decidedly lesser entry in the director’s vast catalog but, as with all Allen movies, a cut above most everything else that passes for comedy these days.

If you can get past the ick factor inherent in these suddenly adulterized relationships –- and there’s really no way this film should have received a kid-friendly PG rating –- and latch on to the film’s wealth of metaphor, you’ll surely have something to discuss over coffee post-screening.

The filmmaker brings neither condescension nor moral outrage here. A father confessor to his benighted characters, von Trier may revel in the muck, but Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 is anything but a dirty movie.

Niccol's futuristic fable is a gorgeous construct, from its cast on down to the brilliant, clinical nature of the set design that reflects a future in which even a particle of saliva can be one's undoing.

The movie can be funny in fits, but too often the scripters go for the obvious and uninspired.

For a film with such volatile subject matter, the performances are subdued and naturalistic. Fire burns with a rare flame.

Most importantly, Sherman and Abbasi deflate the myth that has dominated the last decade, that somehow Trump is some kind of aberration from the historical Republican Party, perverting it to his will.

Trekkies is a hilarious work, mining the psychology of the average and not-so-average Trek fan, and coming up with the answers to all your burning questions about the show and its devoted following.

Fraser, Martin, and the rest of the flesh-and-blood characters look like they’re having a ball, which translates instantly to the audience as well.

There's a deep, bone-weary melancholy to the proceedings, offset by the mad parties and vicious displays of machismo.

Certainly merits attention, although it shouldn't be mistaken for one of Eastwood's greatest works.

Arguably better than the last five Eddie Murphy films taken together, The Nutty Professor still seems to be playing down to its audience much of the time, though you'd never know it to hear the gales of laughter erupting at the screening I attended.

Holdridge is clever enough to keep his characters from slipping into outright narcissism, or when they do, he's familiar enough with the art of mainstream moviemaking to balance the exhausted with the ecstatic.

Lymelife arrives with an impressive pedigree but, unfortunately, little originality.

Besson's visuals are, as always, vibrant and decidedly European. He fills the frames with odd-angled shots and alarming riots of color that catch you off-balance.

The quest for sexual happiness is a radical notion in these repressive times, as well as a legitimate basis for storytelling, but Shortbus doesn't quite delve as deeply as it ought into its characters' emotions.

The film is an intelligent study of the will to live. It's so strong that even a suicidal man rises to the occasion.

When it comes to buddy comedies, The Long Dumb Road isn’t exactly forging new territory. It’s a bit like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" refitted for the 21st century, yet it’s grounded in a nostalgic sense of kismet that predates using an app to order rides from strangers.

As a character-driven narrative, it's a hollow beast, too often pedantic, that smacks of good-guy agitprop, shrill when it should be subtle and shrieking when a whisper would be far more unnerving.

I’m not sure The Bad Guys is something kids on the younger side will enjoy, as the action and humor seem aimed at a slightly older, 10-and-up crowd. Still, there are some good lessons to be learned here about staying true to your friends and not judging someone on the way they look – a lesson we all, not just the kiddos, need to learn.

Due in large part to its cultural relevance, this is also one of the few sequels that nearly succeeds in topping the original.

Wisely, writer/producer/director John Scheinfeld mostly keeps to the sound capture of his subject and a little soundtracking on Alpert’s storied imprint with Jerry Moss.

The gags are quick and barbed, but the wire seems blunted by the essentially one-note gag storyline.

This is not some whacked-out drug trip movie, or scolding afterschool anti-drug special. This is anti-psychedelia, grounded in the strangeness of true life.

The overall vibe is JV-squad swashbuckling, evoking "The Goonies" and the "Indiana Jones" films for a tweens-and-under demographic, and all without the exhausting quippiness of the "Lego" franchise.

Falling somewhere between the horrors of Three … Extremes and the beauties of Eros, this triptych of short films set in and underscored by the titular megalopolis is a gorgeous, sprawling mess.

The movie's light, easily forgotten and very good for a few laughs. I sure hope that eating thing comes true.

Let's just say if you liked the last one, you'll like this one, too. Otherwise, you'll discover that it's time for Drebin, Nordberg, Capt. Hocken, and the rest to finally retire their badges.

The signature refrain of "Hollywood Ending," with its high-kicking energy and table-punching emotion, is just irresistible. It's the sweet that balances out the bitter of a film that makes it clear that this won't all end well. Anna and the Apocalypse is like biting into a candy cane and getting jabbed by those sharp, sugary shards.

Two-and-a-half hour slice of unmitigated depression.

Though the third act ends surprisingly, if not anticlimactically – truth is indeed stranger than fiction – the film can’t resist one final finger wag, this time from the esteemed barrister (a likable Fiennes) who brilliantly mounts Gun’s legal defense by barely raising that finger.

It's still just cops and robbers, but with Donner at the helm, it feels like so much more.

The obvious thing is to say that Keep the River on Your Right has unfortunately bitten off more than it can chew -- but not more than we can digest.

A formulaic family melodrama whose craftsmanship and sensitivity to its characters raises it to the level of sublime group portrait.

It's all infuriatingly simplistic, and the performances help matters little. Quinn and McTeer are wholly uncompelling.

Lyne's excesses are usually the kind of thing I love to hate, but Unfaithful found me pretty much following along in step with his rhythms and dramatic choices.