Pretenders pretends to be Bertolucci’s The Dreamers in its meshing of a saucy young love triangle with an impassioned ode to cinema of yore. Alas, Mr. Franco’s not quite there yet.

Alexandre O. Philippe is a fine filmmaker and documentarian. Memory – The Origins of Alien, however, is a bit of a class on story structure and theory.

Holbrook is talented. There is no question about that. The guy wrote, directed, produced and cut Beloved Beast together. It’s just a shame that this strange yarn couldn’t be reduced to the essentials and given real power. Had we been offered less movie with more meaning, the impact would have been far greater.

Greener Grass is over-the-top hilarity. It’s grounded. It’s smart. It’s downright disgusting.

It’s tempting to talk about Making Waves as being educational, but it is not dryly academic, though it does introduce the subject in some detail. This is a fun film to watch, with the interviews and graphics illustrating how the sound comes together, the doc is an exciting behind-the-scenes look at the effort and skill required to create movie sound artfully.

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.

The film’s no-nonsense approach is a neat tribute to 1980’s action flicks of yore, where badass heroes said and did badass things.

The film’s messages are spelled out in big, bold letters. The tone and pace are, at times inconsistent, making for a somewhat-meandering flow. Nineteen Summers could have easily been 30 minutes shorter to avoid those dips in momentum. However, newcomer Emonjay Brown shines as DeAndre, by turns affectionate, resolute, angry at the system and himself.

Samantha Buck, Marie Schlingmann bring a light touch and a wonderful comedic tone to a story of one hell of a woman. This is a lighthearted comedy about resourceful females far ahead of their time.

This level was weird fun was thought to be extinct until Joe Begos came around and proved us all wrong. It’s a game-changer for sure, and the fallout should be phenomenal.

If there was ever a film that screamed Best Actress Oscar-bait, it’s Judy. But damn, Renée Zellweger is absolutely fantastic in this role, and absolutely deserves Best Actress honors. Yes, I know the year’s not over yet, but the bar is set high.

The Disappearance of My Mother is rife with grand philosophical questions about beauty, capitalism, love, life, and death, while still maintaining the intimacy of a family connection.

In My Room has a The Last Man on Earth and The Walking Dead feel (don’t expect zombies) and definitely has some surprises. Do all the surprises work? No. But most do and that works.

The real problem with the film is tone and pace.

You’ll chuckle at a few moments.... You’re more than likely to wince at many more, as each remotely-genuine moment is rapidly punctuated with a forced musical cue or cheesy sentiment.

Auggie is at its best when Felix is vulnerable. The same goes for the actor playing Felix. Kind hasn’t been this good since A Serious Man.

I found McColm’s film intriguing to watch and fascinated by her satirical take on her subject. If you open yourself to the movie just a little, you’ll find yourself identifying with them in times of great personal and emotional failure.

Clumsy and meandering, Imprisoned seems unsure of whether it’s a story of personal revenge, an outcry against a corrupt regime, or a study of the Puerto Rican justice system.

Human Capital is a fantastic study of people being pushed to their limits, not just financial, but emotional and social.

Directors Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis deserve credit for taking a gutsy leap with the subject matter and delivering without pulling any punches.

What keeps you rapt is that permeating, subtle feeling of sadness, of bitterness and regret. Whether it was an intentional choice in a “comeback” documentary remains debatable – but that’s what truly works about it, is its driving momentum.

It is that kind of “inside the life of an astronaut” angle that keeps the film reasonably engaging, even if you don’t care too much about the characters.

Even though you can see the strings in the puppet act, the plight of the characters still sometimes manages to get to you.

It’s a strong, confident debut, with something original to say. We all have a hidden darkness, a lurking depravity, which we suppress, push away, ignore. Violence and sexuality lie side-by-side in the recesses of our minds. Seeds masterfully explores what happens when one cannot stop the dam from opening.

The film is truly gorgeous and interesting for fans of literature.

Bell is as hilarious as ever. But she also emotes great empathy. Those smiles and tears are genuine. Fittingly, she’s given all of us going through the same thing what we have been looking for: a step in the right direction.

3 Days with Dad touches upon subjects like familial differences, living up to your parents’ expectations, sibling rivalry, and generational differences. Too bad it’s all been done before, and better. Its flaccid visual approach and meandering, morose plot may make you pull the plug on your TV set.

It will stick with you long after you leave the theater. It is as moving as it is possible for a film to be.