Obsession is what they call it when you're wrong. When you're right, it's called conviction, and that's the story behind The Lost King, the remarkable, charming, and true-ish tale of Philippa Langley (Hawkins), the amateur historian who made one of the most important archeological discoveries of the century.

This is a garish, rocket-fueled slice of popcorn mayhem, and the perfect antidote to this summer's limp action lineup.

Both Farmiga and Akerman emotionally connect in the film, which culminates in an ultimate act of maternal sacrifice more moving than you might imagine. Finally! A slasher movie with both brains and heart, both intact.

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

Jones makes a fine Ginsburg – especially in the mouth, lips pursed expectantly – but something in Hammer’s resigned manner paints a Marty that is more ineffectual than stoic, and the chemistry between them is pretty middle-of-the-road.

Egoyan’s return to form is welcome, nevertheless Adoration adds up to less than we might have hoped for

A film within a film encapsulated by a clever and very accurate anti-materialistic Buddhist morality lesson, Travellers and Magicians feels a bit like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as retold by Siddhartha.

If Brandon absorbed daddy dearest’s predilection for body horror and new flesh, then Caitlin has clearly studied his razor wit and grasp of metaphorical social commentary.

While Manglehorn eschews the traditional third-act redemption you’ve seen ad nauseam in films that neatly wrap things up right before the end credits roll, it’s nevertheless refreshingly optimistic about people’s ability to change. For any of us entering life’s third act, hope springs eternal.

Fascinating, perplexing, amusing, and irascible.

Rodeo is engaging and gritty, but what makes the whole film hold together overall is Ledru. She gives gives Julia a real presence and believability that isn’t always made explicit through the narrative.

Preparations successfully trades narrative authority for a more provisional path, and much like its main character, remains wholly enigmatic.

Coolidge has no axe to grind with Valley Girls. They’re simply teenagers subject to the classic problems of love and peer pressure, albeit spiced with their own distinct valley jargon. Coolidge directs all this with a light hand and the non-stop musical score features music by the Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Clash, Men at Work, Sparks, and many more.

Evil Dead, however, accomplishes what it sets out to do: Scare viewers silly and uphold a tradition.

I could go on and on about Zombie’s style-over-substance direction, but why bother? The Lords of Salem is so clearly a project that Zombie has had stewing in his blood-and-black-lace heart for, I assume, ever, that the fact that it’s not a masterpiece seems almost moot. It’s a head trip, to be sure, but it’s Zombie’s electric, haunted head, so my advice is just sit back and goggle.

Aside from the requisite wide shots of sweeping desert, sea, and cityscapes marking the various stages of the journey, Garrone (the Italian director of Gomorrah and Tale of Tales, among others) keeps the camera close to Seydou, and Sarr’s skill at the subtle transformation of his emotional responses from, say, heartbreak to happiness (and back again) is incredibly compelling to watch.

There’s an old thesis that if your comedy is over 90 minutes, it’s probably not funny. A funny comedy should leave the audience tired from laughing by that point. That Radu Jude’s satire Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World clocks in at an epic 163 minutes should be a cause for concern – as should be the presence of bullying schlock director Uwe Boll, even in a cameo as himself.

In a film like this, timing is everything, and everyone from the stunt coordinators to the crew-at-large seems to have gotten it right the first time.

A gleefully overplotted crime yarn that channels in sanitized form the perverse subtropical-noir sensibilities of Carl Hiassen.

A fine example of advocacy filmmaking.

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

A merry entertainment that never pretends to greatness, Penguins of Madagascar is all about antics, verbal and visual.

You get the impression that Herzog believes wholeheartedly the planet will be better off without us. Nosferatu that we have proven ourselves to be, he may be right.

A glorious, spastic mess. Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin's neo-underground cult comic book Tank Girl comes to life looking, amazingly, exactly like it ought to, positively overflowing with an ever-changing riot of color, gratuitous violence, inter-species shagging, toss-away one-liners, and gobs of little wonky bits that will either knock you upside the funny bone or leave you reeling from out-of-it confusion.

There’s something a little pious about how resistant the film is to portraying Nicky not just as an admirable character but as an interesting one, too.

It’s muddy, bloody, and studded with amputated limbs, yet still rather generic-feeling; it lacks the visceral impact of Joe Wright’s version of Western Front atrocities in "Atonement."

Much more a comedy than a heist film (think Ocean’s 11 rather than Casino or Rififi), Ladrones moves at a pretty entertaining pace and maintains a good sense of humor about itself.

Rookie Season feels like it started off as a standard fluff piece about a sports team with a little bit of money to burn, and it's undoubtedly race fans who'll get the most out of its personal depiction of life behind the wheel. But what it really delivers, hidden under the hood of a very stock story of a season, is much more driven by Lidell's story.