With basically a single set and a limited cast, the producers get the most of their limited budget, particular with a couple of spectacular death scenes.

If you’re in the market for a handsome acting biopic, Mr. Burton is a fantastic selection. The travails of a lower-class Welsh kid aspiring to become a classical actor is great and heady drama. This is the sort of thing the British excel at.

A touching and almost ridiculously inspirational story for all of us.

The mafia murder images are stomach turning, viewers take note. Letizia talks about her life at great length and some of it is redundant, but she is always charming and inspirational, living as a strong, independent woman in a crushing patriarchy.

The Pod Generation is a science-fiction film with something to say and forces us to confront our future by asking questions. Just because we can screw around with biology, should we? Sophie Barthes’ futuristic tale is worth watching just for the conversation that’s bound to happen afterward.

Birds of Prey: and the Emancipation of one Harley Quinn is a fast-paced action movie with fantastic stunts and set pieces. We’re just not given any good reason to care about Harley Quinn, or her female compatriots needed to be emotionally invested in their ultimate victory or demise.

While there are flaws in some of the segments, it is overall a fantastic production that manages to be creepy as hell. For fans of anthologies, these directors, and horror in general, this is a great ride.

Despite struggling with a thematic focus, the film presents a woman who is well worth getting to know.

Perhaps Simmons is the man Apatow fears he will become. If so, with Sandler's help the filmmaker's fashioned a solid work of self reflection. There's plenty to love and laugh along with here.

The festival's audience is as integral a part of the proceedings as the music, and we get a rich portrait of the wide variety of pranksters, iconoclasts, and freaks that descend upon the West Country of England in the hundreds of thousands every year. Glastonbury offers an exhaustive look at what remains the largest event of its kind.

The film’s rapid speed and its surplus of memorable supporting players helped to make sense of the absurd story. And if Benny was not ideally suited for the Bob Hope-level of bumbling misadventures or the Harold Lloyd-worthy climax involving a drop from a hotel rooftop, he gamely pushed ahead to keep the comedy at its patently ridiculous level.

The Becomers may not have the largest budget, but it has the largest heart.

While the first act is slow but promising, the second and third acts don’t move any faster.

This film barely gets a recommendation only because it finally gets interesting at the end.

The problem is, the main conspiracy of the show is so vast, you have to walk around it a couple of times before you can see what it is.

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is just plain HOT in this film and other than that...we got ourselves a stinker.

Spins in its own orbit and dares the audience to come into its weirdly one-of-a-kind environment. This is a delightful work of humor which is worthy of Spielberg-level praise.

With a clumsy hip-hop score permeating every free inch of the soundtrack and ugly 16mm cinematography that would never be allowed out of Film School 101, the audio-visual experience is a wreck. The quality of Quality of Life is non-existent.

This little drama serves as the perfect alternative to the big studio dreck, plus no subtitles! Simple and sweet!

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a wild rollercoaster ride and reminds me of the days when I actively collected comic books.

House of Cardin is a solid, encyclopedic documentary of one of the greatest designers of our time. He deserves to be celebrated, no question there. But this doc wants to inform rather than reveal, to celebrate rather than investigate. C’est la vie.

Freakier Friday is perfect for the mother/daughter set and offers a lot that we haven’t seen from Disney in a while: solid cast, strange plot, and a heartfelt message about family.

A stripped-down, small town "COPS" without the flashy editing and hip-hop soundtrack.

The story is lively, and the mixing of music, skateboarding, interviews, and footage of the past is amazing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a “hip hop head,” a skater, or a stockbroker. You’ll be engaged from beginning to end.

The nine characters aren’t machines, exactly, but they aren’t people or animals either. They’re little cloth pouches that can move, communicate, and make facial expressions that range from ornery to cute. At some point during the movie I began mentally referring to them as the Owlish Beanbags.

Filmmakers Rossi and Novak have done a wonderful job of making all of this entertaining, not just for those interested in the business, but to us ordinary joes as well.

Garofalo is amazing, as always, and the film is almost about her as much as the leads. The recreation of the casts' high school years is wickedly funny and dead on.

Its complicated story, hero, and visual style are a great reminder of the beautiful thrillers birthed during the Golden Age of Hollywood, albeit with the help of modern technology to pull it off with a modest indie budget.