Cera once again does his "Michael Cera thing." Personally, I love his "thing" but know it’s not for everyone, and I agree that it doesn’t always work contextually. But trust me, here it really works.

It’s artistic without being pretentious, thoughtful, and elegiac without treading into monotony, beautifully acted without drawing too much attention to its stars.

May look like an ironic, jet black comedy -- and it succeeds brilliantly on that level -- but in it's sad and wistful heart, it's a completely sincere call for saving the Earth.

This is everything you could ever want from a yoga horror movie. It also expands the boundaries of what the genre can achieve.

No amount of words that can convey the sense of the film, because it is such a gut-punch of emotion.

This is where Payne shines. Schmidt’s Winnebago journey through America’s heartland is more like a personal voyage into his Heart of Darkness.

Maybe if PETA tried being funny instead of comparing eating meat to the Holocaust, they’d have a bigger following.

The cast is great, especially Vegha and Sligh, who craft realistic, believable characters. The editing is precise, though it interrupts the plot if the audience isn’t properly prepared for it on first viewing. Overall, the director proves he has what it takes to scare cinephiles, and he got a cast just as creepy as his plot.

Each personality comes across with honesty and humility as they encounter age, death, and performance without compromise and on their terms or stage of choice.

It is visually stimulating and exhaustively covers much of the record industry with keen interest. In regarding each piece as a story, it takes the macro to a personal level. That is quite a feat.

Moretti's actual direction is always simple, perhaps plain, but this no-frills approach allows him to gently craft a story full of poignant episodes, building toward a melancholy but genuinely uplifting conclusion.

Parasites is a brilliant film and for a thriller, it’s absolutely unpredictable (except in one big way).

As a comedy, Ninja Badass serves up one hilarious joke after the next.

It’s beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure.

The Lighthouse becomes something that few movies can claim to be: memorable. Detractors might shrug it off as self-indulgent, artsy slop, but it’s too damn fun and aesthetics-minded for that accusation to hold much weight.

Lost Angelas is neo-noir romance filled with engaging characters, intense action, a thrilling mystery, and a lovely romance to top it all off. The directing, acting, and especially the cinematography synch up perfectly for a pulse-pounding film, that works wondrously.

Hardly any of The Painted Bird is what you would call pleasant. It is often a difficult watch at times but is a consistently engaging one.

Even though McAvoy is the brightly shining star, it takes a large, cohesive team to make it all come together, and when it works like Speak No Evil does, pure nail-biting magic happens.

While not breaking any molds or revealing a side to addiction that many films haven’t before, Stay Awake tastefully captures how devastating it can be for family members.

You have to remind yourself constantly, this is real. There are no special effects.

It’s so much more than a story about mobsters. It’s a story of hope, success, and failure. It’s a sprawling behemoth of a film that surprisingly, considering its length, I already want to watch again.

It's a feel-good movie, but not in a bad way. It makes you feel good the way that “Forrest Gump” made you feel good, as if the filmmakers were seriously trying to make a fun, wholesome, entertaining movie without taking on the industry with a moral agenda.

The double-edged sword with Smile and its popularity means there may be a sell-by date after which many of the harrowing sequences become subsumed into popular culture and will no longer feel fresh upon initial viewing. This isn’t the film’s fault, but such is often the case when the public gets a hold of a work of art. See it with a crowd, and see it soon.

Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero is a highly enjoyable and very well made animated feature. It has something for the whole family, is visually impressive with excellent animation, and a fantastic voice cast.

It’s thoroughly engrossing, entertaining, and a lot of fun from beginning to end.

Newnham and LeBrecht weave a narrative from multiple archival sources that capture the innocence, the subtle awakening, and ultimate determination of a small group of disenfranchised who suddenly realized that there was something to fight for.

Monument is an engaging and dramatic look at an unknown true story. The cast is wonderful, led by an outstanding Mazzello, whose turn here shows why he’s been steadily working since he was a child. His co-stars are equally splendid.

With Larroy, Texas, Atkinson proves himself a confident filmmaker and screenwriter with an ear for dialogue and skill in designing intriguing characters and situations.