Lee’s film can genuinely rip when the prosthetics and wirework take center stage. And that makes Don’t Look at the Demon a not-terrible choice for audiences searching for a new release to complement their annual rewatches.

Ultimately, Look & See seems to have many objectives, yet accomplishes none of them satisfactorily.

Neither a revelation nor a total wash, EDtv is instead solid comic filmmaking. I just can't help but think it could have been so much more.

Ruffalo makes a dent as a dogged narcotics detective, and the Spanish superstar Javier Bardem appears as a crime boss. Overall, however, Mann seems content to play games with his fast cars, cool streets, and loud rock, leaving Collateral squarely within the action genre.

Despite his character's fondness for mugging and mouthing like Michael Corleone, Spacey (and by extension, his director and writer Norman Snider) can't quite catch the operatic wallop of Corleone's arc, possibly because the film is played top-to-bottom like a caprice.

The emotional crux of the movie is the relationship between the inept father and his hapless children. It’s a one-note relationship but the tone it strikes is good, due in large measure to mullet-headed McConaughey’s typical absorption into his role.

It results in very little fresh insight that might allow us to feel that Linda Bishop didn’t die in vain.

Made in Dagenham does a good job of capturing the period. But too often it's simply put in service to the obvious, as heard in those uplifting choruses of "You Can Get It If You Really Want."

The Contractor seems torn between two types of films: the direct-to-video staple of a reluctant soldier bearing arms to protect his family, and a bleaker condemnation of private contracting (and the systems of power that necessitate its survival). It is the second film that blinks first, leaving Pine and Foster to carry the remaining scenes to their generic conclusion.

Despite The Danish Girl’s lack of specificity regarding what motivates Einar’s transformation into Lili Elbe, the film is still quite lovely. Its compositions are lovely to look at, and the performances engaging.

Blitz, however, brings no visual snap to Table 19’s proceedings, and maintains a distant relationship with its characters.

Pleasant. If you had to reduce this biographical documentary of the great violinist Itzhak Perlman to one word, it would be pleasant.

Colorful, kid-friendly, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. ’Nuff said.

Goldstein, better known for his comic work and coming off a wincing dramatic arc on Shrinking, has limited range but nestles into his sweet spot here, a combination of smirking and sincere, and the underrated Poots is magnetic. The script – witty, anemic – only gestures at her character’s chronic depression, but no matter. Poots bodily fills in the blanks, transforming an underwritten part into a complex, rounded person. She’s an original.

The performances are likable and there's nothing really wrong with the story -- other than the fact that Nutley hardly has any story to tell.

It’s an inevitable problem with the screenlife format, to find a way to keep this deluge of pop-ups and cutaways all interesting without the audience’s POV ever leaving a desktop screen.

Landis has a lot to work with here and he misses few opportunities for sly commentary, but he blows it on a much grander scale. Innocent Blood is way too long. It loses steam and coherence about midway through, leaving us rooting for it but doomed to disappointment. Combining comedy, horror, romance and chase scenes, Innocent Blood finally begins to collapse in on itself but not before we've had more than a few good laughs and a frightened yelp or two.

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

Maybe he was a sucker, but it was his belief in the fundamental decency of American institutions that made his struggle for redemption so winning, much more so than the movie that was made to honor it.

The animation itself is superb, and the filmmakers long ago mastered the dreamy, stream-of-consciousness narrative tropes that work so well with stop-motion, but even with all that going for it, A Town Called Panic feels more like some exotic animated curiosity than a film to return to again and again.

Like its images, The Promise billows through the imagination as it unfolds but it leaves little lasting impression once its last feather has fluttered.

Scaffolding his story on an illogical foundation, Braff (Garden State, Wish I Was Here) continues to be an aggravatingly unsubtle filmmaker, over-relying on totems of profundity (a train set, a tattoo) and showboating with the camera in ways that distract rather than enhance the drama.

If Roger Ebert was right and cinema is a machine that generates empathy, then for all its uneven steps, No Man’s Land may worm its way into the hearts of Americans who see Mexico as a supporting character (or worse) in our grand narrative. For the rest of us, it’s a film whose reach exceeds its grasp.

If only someone had taken away that disastrous third act we'd have one of the better mainstream films dealing with the impossible societal demands put upon gay parenting yet made. No such luck, though.

Although To the Wonder never transported me, personally, to the ecstatic heights the title promises, there is still much here worth one’s engagement.

Terrio's technically proficient film is mature, modern, and minus the all-important passion and risk.

This is an absurdly familiar story and there’s little it does to stand out.

Even though the film is a jumble that oftentimes leaves its top-notch cast unmoored and renders its science-fiction elements somewhat anemic in light of our current expectations from special effects, Megalopolis is truly one from the heart, an outpouring from one cinephile to his tribe.