Rather than mock their small-time dealings or direct them to chase brighter lights, “Song Sung Blue” treats Mike and Claire’s pursuit of tribute band glory as a sufficient driving force for a meaningful life. This isn’t a story about how you’re never too old to chase your wildest dreams and play in the big leagues; it’s about how there shouldn’t be any shame in realizing that you are.

The film’s quietly disturbing power lies in how Franco packages his U.S.-Mexico border metaphor — with rich philanthropist Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) and her young ballerina lover Fernando (Isaac Hernández, in a striking newcomer performance) standing in for each — into an addictive and destructive love story as sharply wrought as the movie’s grander political concerns.

Before You Know It doesn’t balk at quirkiness, but it never uses it as a crutch or the only way to process the story.

Robertson, a deeply talented musician and songwriter who is still working today, is a fascinating subject, but the really compelling stuff is lingering just out of the frame. Without a more well-rounded selection of voices ... or a more critical-minded director to give the film perspective, Robertson is free to obscure the bigger questions and deeper meanings, opting for self-mythologizing over self-reflection.

I know that Cameron has committed himself to another two sequels, and now I know why he’s starting to hedge about whether or not he wants to direct them himself; even the most orgiastic moments in “Fire and Ash” left me feeling like he’s ready to come back down to Earth.

Though salvaged in parts by Lindon’s impassioned performance and a few perceptive asides that hint at a better version of the events, At War is mostly a redundant portrait of working-class struggles that does more to belittle the efforts of its subjects than position them in galvanizing terms.

Triple Frontier lands a handful of thrilling sequences in a sea of familiar riffs on greed, masculinity, and the lingering traumas of war.

Liberated from the bumper lanes that are built into the sitcom format — from the oppressiveness of canned laughter, throwaway B-plots, and the steady drumbeat of commercial breaks — Romano’s latest semi-autobiographical charmer is free to tell a more nuanced story within his favorite milieu, and it often does so with enough grace and sensitivity to suggest that Romano might be even better-suited to the big screen than he was to network broadcasts.

The result is an impressionistic film that flirts with slow cinema on its way towards something more incantatory; a film that doesn’t want to lull you to sleep so much as it wants to lure you into a place so dark and dreamy that you can no longer be certain that you’re still awake.

Moves like a bat out of hell from frame one, though if you’re looking for any kind of emotion you might be barking up the wrong tree.

Lingua Franca illustrates the woefully untapped potential of marginalized storytellers.

This nutty blend of hyper-violence and one-liners is a dark comedic delicacy.

It’s an efficient, effects-driven ride with snippets of real ideas, but never quite willing to take them out of this world.

It reminds us the movies have been dying for more than 100 years, and then — through its heart-bursting, endearingly galaxy-brained prayer of a finale — interprets that as uplifting proof they’ll actually live forever. It just doesn’t have any idea how the movies will do it, or where the hell they might go from here.

How we look from the outside versus how we are on the inside doesn’t always lineup, and that disparity can shake the visions we have of ourselves. The metaphor extends to “Skincare” itself as a film that looks bright on its face but ends up dull despite its best efforts and self-care.

It’s a movie that seems all too aware that life is hard, but desperately wants to simplify it. In doing that, it does a disservice to its own ideas.

In Oculus, the horror is at once deceptively simple and rooted in a deep, primal uneasiness. Its scariest aspects are universally familiar.

While much of the information shared in “The American Dream” is stunning, tenuous threads and too-zippy pacing keep it from landing with much impact.

While Peter Pan & Wendy is clipped and uneven in a way that prevents it from reaching the same heights as the director’s previous Disney project, this spirited fairy tale is still able to take flight for one simple reason: It maintains the courage of its own convictions.

In the process of merging formulas, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things recycles the same material it seems inclined to rejuvenate, one step at a time. There may be endless ways to make “Groundhog Day” feel fresh, but this one’s little more than another harmless retread.

The result, vibrantly narrated by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is a slightly bouncier, more buoyant feature than some of its cinematic brethren, but one that accomplishes the necessary: it brings viewers inside the world of its awe-inspiring title stars.

Corsini keeps up the anxiety, jumping from scene to scene and person to person with a giddy, nervous energy that at least promises the film, as annoying as it might be, is never boring.

In "Adventureland" and this summer's "The Way Way Back," disillusioned teens have worked through their issues in the weeks leading up to college by taking on quirky summer jobs. However, Carey's wacky sensibilities retain a notably fresh quality by using the same framing device as an excuse to bat around one funny idea after another. The story transcends the derivative scenario through a noticeable lack of verbal censorship.

One of the more original horror creations of the last few decades.

Modest in its ambition but profound in its specificity, Batra gets to the core of the slipperiness of memory and the allure of the past. It’s not through grand pronouncements and cosmic love stories; instead, a handful of unshakable moments do the trick.

At heart, this is a film that just wants some good pats, and it’s willing to do whatever it takes to get them.

Two Women has nothing innovative to say about women’s desire at this moment in time. It feels like it might have been revelatory 10 years ago, but now women deserve more. Sure, sex is good, but it’s not enough.

It’s both way too much and also somehow not enough, but even the most exhausting stretches of this bloated import blockbuster are fearless enough to make you wish that American films would follow suit.