Overall, the action here isn’t as taut as it was in “The Reef,” and the shark effects aren’t as impressive. Still, for the most part the movie delivers what it promises.

How to Please a Woman is overlong; and it runs out of plot well before it gets to its climax (so to speak). But while its premise is at times iffy, the movie as a whole has a refreshing randiness about it.

The character designs and backdrops are amazingly imaginative; and though the movements and rendering are often glitchy, that only adds to the charm of the residents’ casual conversations.

Not Okay hits its marks more often than not, and at its best it illustrates, step by inexorable step, how a carefully sculpted social media persona can encourage people to fake their way into a real crisis.

The film itself feels as if it has emerged fully formed from the mind of its author, for better and for worse. It is a study of women’s sexuality, desire and autonomy that succeeds just as much as it stumbles, a method of feminist storytelling that privileges the pursuit of desire over an evenness of narrative. It cares not for the customary, but instead for the messiness of real life, which here is inextricable from its own means.

A Love Song has the narrative economy and the sneaky emotional power of a well-crafted short story, plus a feel for isolation and rootlessness that harks back to some of the great drifter portraits of American independent cinema. It’s a testament to the lyricism that Walker-Silverman conjures here that I sometimes wished he would slow his narrative roll even further, immersing us even more deeply in the story’s quotidian rhythms.

Thirteen Lives may be a vivid rescue procedural first and foremost, but it’s also a testament to the guardian spirit possible in any of us.

In Vengeance, Novak sets his sights on lampooning the big-city media types who go chasing stories in middle America and return with observations from the “flyover states” that are usually condescending, preachy, or inauthentic, and in doing so, he finds the humor, and something honest too.

While the plot following Krypto finding his pack and saving the day is exceedingly formulaic and slightly tiresome with its predictable turns, Stern and Whittington fill the space around the structure with a plethora of absurdist humor and sharply written jokes, as well as the teasing self-awareness.

In exploiting this anecdote about an impostor hiding in plain sight for its entertainment potential, My Old School feels dismissive toward Lee’s real motivations and gets caught up in the simplistic moral judgment on his questionable actions.

While it may not be formally groundbreaking, this doc is still a treat for die-hard baseball fans, who should enjoy seeing footage from games ranging from the ’60s to the ’90s.

For all its formulaic faults, The Wheel is unusually astute about the ways some couples avoid the hard truths about each other because they’re afraid of ripping their whole lives apart.

Somehow, the more McLean explains the song, the more wondrous it seems.

This is an oddly inspiring film regardless, celebrating how a crafty DIY aesthetic and a twisted vision can nearly always find a receptive audience.

Eiselt and Lee cover how these families — and in particular the fathers left behind by their partners’ passing — are still coping with unexpected loss. The film also provides some history lessons on how Black women have been either exploited or ignored by the medical establishment.

Kelsa and Khal are a winning duo with dynamite chemistry. They move around each other with a palpable physical freedom that softly kindles romance. The twinkle in their eyes, flashing above their knowing smiles, is the kind of awkward, teenage swooning made for comfort viewing.

It’s an absorbing, affecting, well-performed look at several years in the life of Sara Góralnik.

Calamy delivers a beautifully open performance at the center of an utterly winning comedy about the most important journey a person can take: toward finding themselves.

If the story is a welter of subplots, tangents and ideas — to the point of being overly taken at times with its own conceptual daring — Peele’s visual craft shows an admirable finesse and discretion.

For the most part, The Silent Party is a quietly intense drama, focusing closely on its heroine and the unbearable pressures of a life spent surrounded by hyper-controlling chauvinists.

Glasshouse holds back a few provocative secrets for its final third; and throughout, Egan borrows from the likes of “The Beguiled” and leans into the sensuality of her premise, in which a handful of lonely ladies are suddenly delivered a handsome stranger.

While its issues with pacing can be overlooked in favor of its welcome sincerity and full heart, everything that Marks’ film offers us is well-trod territory.

Even if mildly convoluted, The Deer King, a welcomed mature animated feature, nurtures enough admirable ideas and visual panache to command our attention.

Unlike some filmmakers tackling hot-button political issues, the Hallivis brothers don’t treat their heroes as rhetorical pawns, deployed strategically to win an argument. They ground the movie’s amped-up sense of outrage in likable characters with eclectic personalities and backstories.

The movie doesn’t shy away from magic spells and arcane African blood rituals, but the real dark mojo that Bass is bringing so starkly to the big screen involves the cycles and privilege and exclusion that seems to persist through every attempt at exorcism.

It’s sort of a supernatural thriller; but it’s more of a wry and strikingly poetic vision of feminist retribution.

Up until the final scenes, when every tension flares unambiguously into the open, Kusijanović assuredly avoids the obvious, instead telling her story with deft, implicative strokes: meaningful glances, offhand dialogue and insinuating body language.

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down never fully escapes its branded-content vibes, but as a parallel love story and back-to-battle story, it succeeds.

The story is fantastical, predictable and utterly delightful, allowing the audience to engage in familiar generic pleasures that have been cut and trimmed to fit every curve neatly.

The Gray Man was directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, though it’s such a synthetic, soulless bundle of goods that it barely feels touched by human hands. Full of smirking one-liners, blink-and-you-miss-’em international locations and acts of gratuitously unpleasant (if more implied than seen) violence, it’s basically Netflix Winding Refn; it’s globe-trotting comic nihilism for the whole streaming-loving family.

Like even the lousiest Regency-era frippery, it has its intermittent pleasures, most of them visual. No movie that finds Dakota Johnson modeling high-waisted frocks against the Lyme Regis seawall or the lush Somersetshire countryside could be called a complete waste of time.

Though it is faithful, Where the Crawdads Sing is lacking the essential character and storytelling connective tissue that makes a story like this work — an adaptation such as this cannot survive on plot alone.

What results is an illuminating new way of seeing this old building — not just as an historic landmark where amazing things happened long ago, but as a place where people have actually lived full lives, finding shelter and inspiration in its haunted halls.

Director Mark Meir and screenwriter Yuri Baranovsky take too long to get to the movie’s biggest twist; and in general, The Summoned is too light on action and tension. Still, this mix of Willy Wonka, “Get Out” and “The Most Dangerous Game” has some striking moments.

The film’s icy style pays surprising emotional dividends by the end, with the heroine’s silent meditations on who she is and whether she owes anything to her family culminating in moments of real tenderness.

This movie is about creating the hazy feel of early ‘70s American cinema, filled with kooky and paranoid characters who talk nonstop.

While Girl in the Picture doesn’t skip over any salacious details, it also doesn’t let its villain define what the story is about. Instead, Borgman brings Floyd’s victims back to life, by giving a voice to those who miss them

While the film’s dialogue and characters aren’t exactly unique, its visuals are remarkable and it’s actually about something. It’s a ripping yarn, a gorgeously rendered kaiju adventure on the high seas that uses fantasy to ask pertinent questions about the stories we believe, and who benefits from that belief.

Watching it, you can feel Denis zeroing in on the conventions of the bourgeois French melodrama with something resembling a lover’s playfulness; she wants to rough them up, test their limits and bend them into challenging new configurations.

There might be no better time than now to mainline a story about a repressed woman pushing at restrictions in her culturally conservative world, which Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Clara Sola offers up with a forestful of divine energy, artistry, and mystery.

The fire of Katia and Maurice Krafft’s obsession consumed them, in no small part, because it ultimately restored their kinship with humanity.

As this latest gets under way, Thor has recovered his enviable god-bod but still has little sense of purpose. The problem with “Love and Thunder” is that it seems to reflect this identity crisis while pretending to solve it.

The filmmakers are incredibly resourceful. While they shot “The Passenger” mostly in and around one beat-up old camper in the middle of nowhere, their movie is nevertheless suspenseful and funny, with a few good jolts and gore effects to satisfy fright fans.

Bushan employs different styles throughout the film, revealing a knack for dynamic action that his more low-key first half-hour doesn’t suggest. He delivers the goods for anyone looking for an intense war movie — but he doesn’t let the shooting start until everyone understands the stakes.

The dialogue-heavy scenario robs the film of some tension, but the conversations are often quite exciting.

Accepted is remarkably affecting, thanks to the way Chen works his way back to what his doc is really about.

While Beauty doesn’t really work, it does fail in interesting ways.

While The Forgiven isn’t concerned with making David a better person — rather to get him to fully grasp his guilt — McDonagh’s methods can’t distinguish the film from the long list of stories about white folks learning lessons at the expense of brown people. There may have been higher ideals in mind, but “The Forgiven” fails to gracefully reach them.

The Princess is an unabashedly feminist action-adventure in which the central character rises from her dormancy to slash the patriarchy. It couldn’t be more timely, and it’s a good time too.

These references, and the relentless assault of ‘70s needle drops, are fun, to a point, but the movie itself is 87 minutes of pure chaos, a hallucinatory, cacophonous fever dream of nonsensical subplots and Minion gibberish.

Rise scores as first-rate family filmmaking and a worthy reminder that some dreams can and do come true — big time.

The disappointing western-mystery hybrid Murder at Yellowstone City strands an excellent cast in a slow-paced story with a muted tone, too far removed from its pulpy inspirations.

Between its lovely Hawaii setting, its well-chosen indie-pop soundtrack and its earnest belief in the life-changing power of a great song, Press Play is pretty pleasant. It’s soft and breezy — the cinematic equivalent of yacht rock.

The filmmakers get more tension and even emotion out of this premise than most movies of this type do, mainly by treating the characters as multidimensional people who deserve a shot at redemption, and not like voodoo dolls ripe for the poking.

It presents some thoughtful perspectives, both from the dedicated litigator and a community conditioned to expect disappointment from the criminal justice system — and a last chance at fairness in the civil courts.

A vivid portrait of the human cost for malfeasance and authoritarianism.

Though the movie rockets Judge’s doltish heroes into the future, it feels like a charming artifact from the past.

Thames delivers a searingly authentic performance as the young Finney, and when he’s all alone in the basement with ghosts, “The Black Phone” is at its best: suspenseful, emotional and filled with jump scares.

Director Patrick Hughes’ film should be avoided at all cost.

To complain that “Elvis” is basically a compilation of musical-biopic conventions is a bit like complaining about a greatest-hits album; it also misses one of Luhrmann’s strengths as a filmmaker, which is his ability to suffuse clichés with sincerity, energy and feeling.

Even if one considers Apples part of the so-called Greek Weird Wave, such a subtly thoughtful and soothing approach to probe at existential concerns, rather than being predictably cynical or violent, makes it stand out.

Like those early shorts, then, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is essentially a mockumentary, though one with a far more complex visual scheme and a more ambitious tonal range.

If this is satire, it’s satire so generously attentive toward its targets that mockery and love become virtually indistinguishable.

Official Competition is a coy satire that makes welcome use of biting meta-commentary and self-reflexive critique.

A lollapalooza of a twist ending elevates Isolated, a suspense film that for much of its first 75 minutes is just another well-acted, slickly produced variation on a too-common horror subgenre.

The Wrath of God is often too clever about teasing out its mysteries. But it has a strong and challenging theme, asking whether its characters’ misfortunes are their own fault, or just a case of the Almighty playing capricious games with humanity.

There’s way more plot to this “Father of the Bride” than necessary. But the unique cultural details add fresh flavor; and the big emotional buttons at the movie’s end are as effective as ever. Like a wedding itself, all the stress and irritation pays off in a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

Halftime is no warts-and-all exposé. It’s an unapologetically pro-Lopez project, revealing only what the star wants her fans and skeptics to know about how she’s dealt with her many career disappointments. But Lopez has been such a powerful cultural presence that she’s earned this kind of tribute.

The word “visionary” gets tossed around too much, but there’s really no better way to describe the spectacularly bleak animated science-fiction film Mad God or its creator, Phil Tippett.

An intelligent, sometimes moving, sometimes funny sci-fi examination of emotional autonomy amid futuristic pharmaceuticals, until an awkward shift into thriller territory dilutes its purity.

Hyde stages it all with an unfussy elegance that serves the material, and any lingering creakiness is dispelled by Thompson and McCormack, who always seem to be playing people rather than ideological mouthpieces.

As the movie dances right up to the conventions of this well-worn genre, then deftly slides (To the left! To the right!) to avoid them, you might just find yourself clapping along in spite of it all being terminally uncool. Uncool can be a lot of fun.

Even as the low-key mockumentary Brian and Charles impressively scales down a sci-fi concept to fable size, it neither does much to maintain its oddness nor finds that right mix of comedy and pathos to have much impact.

Jerry & Marge Go Large is a charmer. It’s a low-key, fact-based caper movie that overcomes some broad comedy leanings to settle into the sweet stuff in the soft center. It’s bolstered by a funny script and dependably sharp performances by Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening.

Don’t go into the immersive, observational documentary “Bitterbrush” looking for profound insights or roiling conflict but rather a captivating and meditative look at two intrepid young women surviving — and seasonally thriving — in a traditionally male-dominated field: cattle herding.

It’s a film of modest charms and secondhand pleasures, enough to help pass a summer afternoon, if not to quell the sense that it was made for less-than-creative reasons.

On the whole, this is an entertaining movie with admirable intentions, pushing the audience to rethink their presumptions about pleasure.

Though it doesn’t quite come together, Keeping Company is never pat or predictable.

The film’s exploration of crime-fighting’s gray areas is familiar; but strong performances, some stylistic flair and a matter-of-fact tone give The Policeman’s Lineage the ring of truth.

The dialogue is blunt, and the plot overly centers white heroism; but the period detail is well-observed, and the filmmakers show a real understanding of the ingrained attitudes and anxieties that make moments of social progress so difficult.

Viewers with no interest in theology may find these concerns a little esoteric, and may wish O’Brien had spent more time on the mystery of who Aaron is and why he seems to have supernatural powers. But this movie’s a must for anyone who enjoys seeing terrific actors given the space to explore their characters’ pain — and to spin riveting moments out of rich words and subtle moods.

What really resonates are the memories of women helping women by talking openly about the specific economic and health concerns that the male-dominated establishment typically ignored. JANE’s supportive atmosphere opened eyes, showing a possibility of a world where everyone, regardless of social status, could be seen and heard.

It’s a war cry that’s simultaneously a galvanizing call to action, a message of hope and a reminder that a different world is possible.

It’s astonishing how little tension or even momentary menace Trevorrow is able to mine from individual action sequences, how tame even T. rex now seems in its late-franchise dotage. The mix of practical and computer-generated effects used to bring these behemoths to life has evolved by leaps and bounds, but their ability to stir and scare us — much less provoke even a moment’s thought — is a thing of the ancient past.

Its interest in the injustices and compromises of the sports world run secondary, in the end, to its greater priority, which is to find a place for a star in a game he loves. I’m talking, of course, about Sandler, whose hustle is all the more persuasive here for its low-key restraint. He’s seldom worked harder, or more winningly, for an audience’s pleasure.

Timelessly elegant and charming 1957 musical with a Gershwin score. [20 Nov 1994, p.6]

This is a lyrical ode to the glories of summer and the collaborative joys of filmmaking, suffused with the hope that we will never be deprived of either for long.

Since Dinosaur Jr. was always a band for alt-rock connoisseurs, perhaps it’s fitting that this movie about them is equal parts heartfelt and ungainly.

The filmmakers and Hardy sharply capture a particular type: the performative rebel, laser-focused on pushing other people’s buttons even while fleeing a demon.

Chait and company have a hard time coming up with enough plot to justify “Wolf Hound” stretching past two hours; and the long shootout scenes in the movie’s midsection do get taxing. But the extended aerial combat sequences at the start and end of the film are genuinely impressive for a non-blockbuster, and ought to grab the attention of genre aficionados.

Nothing that happens in Hollywood Stargirl is consequential or surprising. But the cast is likable, the music is good (featuring winning covers of canonical California songs like Brian Wilson’s “Love and Mercy” and Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music”) and, as with “Stargirl,” there’s a bone-deep decency to this sequel that’s pretty disarming.

Benediction, Terence Davies’ achingly beautiful portrait of the English war poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon, is a movie of acute sadness and intense pleasure. The pleasure and the sadness are inextricable, which seems fitting, given how closely aesthetic bliss and moral despair were entwined in Sassoon’s own art.

The heart behind the familiar rom-com choices: the parting of two flames, the last-second pursuit to save a relationship and the happy ending that follows — cannot be doubted. It’s laughter and it’s loving that Ahn’s “Fire Island” gleefully contains.

The biggest disappointment of Williams’ film then is not the ordinariness of its style and narrative mechanisms or even its safe and easy politics in search of a similarly broad audience, but its unwillingness to disrupt, with full and heavy weight, the exact things that it critiques.

You may see Flitcroft as a figure of ridicule or a hoax icon sticking it to gatekeepers or the ultimate aspiring amateur. The movie, however, shrewdly relishes all identities in its mix of the humor inherent in his prankish folly and the sentimentality of a pie-in-the-sky dream.

This beautifully crafted jewel of a throwback thriller signifies Okuno as a talent to watch, but furthermore, it pushes the viewer to question what, and who, we choose to believe and why.

The problem with this priest — one of them, anyway — may not be an excess of spiritual fervor but rather a dearth of it, a lack of reverence for the beauty that Pálmason’s camera exalts in every magisterial frame. Lucas may be a blind wretch, but the creation through which he stumbles is a source of never-ending awe.

I think that the filmmakers’ pessimism is inseparable from their compassion and that their compassion is inseparable from their rage.