Unfortunately, Bryan's case quickly turns into a dense, confusing slog through a bewildering array of newspaper headlines, TV news clips, splashy graphics and talking heads.

The film’s disparate elements add up to less than the sum of its parts, and this would-be fiery take on the failures of the American higher-education system never really ignites.

Never Look Away, a cohesively integrated collage of many genres (history, war, crime, medical drama with romance and spectacle), is also a feast of fine acting and magnificent visuals. But with so much going on, viewers, as if confronting impressionistic paintings or pixel-based photorealistic portraitures, need to step away to get a better picture.

There is magic in this film's ode to growing old and being with the people who knew us young.

Schwentke’s delectable drama is ultimately a keen indictment of the stereotypical German affinity for efficiency and the sense of community born of bonding together in the hurting of others.

No one-dimensional, stone-cold badass here—this version of Laurie Strode is among the most nuanced horror heroines presented onscreen over the last handful of years.

The Little Stranger invites debate and analysis long after viewing. Heady horror films with psychological tics and twists are few and far between, and this is the best one since The Innocents, Jack Clayton’s stylishly sinister 1961 edition of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.

There is nothing grand about Anchor and Hope. It is only that which is extraordinarily difficult to make: a simply well-executed film.

Endearing and funny but with a melancholy edge, Juliet, Naked is more than just a rom-com—it’s a movie for and about adults, in all their messy complexity.

The true star of the movie is its structure. By cleaving the action in two, both the development of Elliott and Mia’s relationship and what happens after its peak are given their just due. It’s certainly something to make someone who is sure she already knows where the story is going think: Who cares? I’m with these characters, anyway.

It’s a raunchy, rollicking story of movie legends off the set and between the sheets.

Despite committed performances across the board, I left the film craving a deeper, more conventionally attentive character study.

Kendrick’s interplay with Lively’s big, alluringly langurous temptress is deliciously diverting, but the script could have used some judicious editing; a surfeit of credibility-straining, overly antic plot developments crowd the last third of the film, which until then had an intriguingly languid pace.

Writer-director Colin Minihan’s thriller is tightly plotted and delivers a couple of terrific shocks, shocks that are firmly rooted in character

Jordan really commits, and his scenes with Thompson have genuine warmth and intimacy.

It’s a movie made with an insider’s knowledge (directors Ben and Orson Cummings are both proud graduates of the school) and affection (Shaquille O’Neal is one of the producers, as is art-world titan Larry Gagosian). And yet, while it has heartwarming moments, it’s not a predictable, eager-to-please entertainment.

Better than mid90s’ treatment of adults is its evocation of the euphoria that comes from discovering one’s place in the world, and confidence—highlighted by Stevie’s nerve-wracked first sexual experience—as well as the way skating provides a liberating release, and a surrogate family, for these unruly teens.

although it’s far too fannish—this is not a movie that wants to dig deep into anything uncomfortable—it does give the rocker her props, while reminding fans of some modern rock history.

As fascinating and well-crafted as it is, The Public Image Is Rotten is ultimately a vanity project, authorized by Lydon and his manager and meant less as an unvarnished journalistic documentary but as a burnishing of, well, his public image.

Puzzle proudly wears its unfussy metaphors on its sleeve, while sidestepping trite clichés of stories about self-discovery. Its premise might sound dull, but this charming crowd-pleaser is thankfully anything but—so much that Puzzle might even restore your faith in remakes.

The contrast between young and old, life ending, life continuing, is leaned on too heavily.

Director-producers Quinn Costello, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, along with narrator Wendell Pierce (of TV’s “Treme”) keep the tone light, but the underlying message is both timely and worth remembering: You can mess with Mother Nature, but she will mess back.

This is a simple, macho morality tale—of the oppressors and the oppressed, of good and evil, and of the one man who sets out to settle the scales of justice. And the level on which it works is primal—and frighteningly effective.

It’s a smart reimagining, but not a particularly compelling one, which is the problem overall.

Devoid of any corniness, sentimentality or condescension, Pick of the Litter is a must for dog lovers, but it will also serve all those needing reminders of how kind, decent and giving humans can be and the role dogs play in our lives.

While this culinary-themed doc offers a little kitchen sizzle and artistically plated tastings (a delicious shrimp dish sautéed, a daring soy sorbet, etc.), the film has more of a scattershot, look-at-me Facebook feel.

Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is a truly engrossing film, one that balances the big picture and the small one.

Path of Blood is more an immediate experience, and as such succeeds in unexpected ways. The human normality of what it shows is nearly more sickening than the carnage itself.