40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie transcends the trippy nostalgia to deliver a moving message about the healing power of reconciliation.

The action sequences are almost an afterthought. “Cut Throat City” is a more thoughtful and personal film, concerned with how systemic racism — and zoning ordinances — can kill more people than a gun.

Despite conflicted circumstances, the cast is capable, but there's a feeling of loose ends, an overall lack of cohesiveness to this good-looking film. The Trigger Effect is on-target when it comes to the ills of modern society but is charged with ambivalence as to what makes a hero.

Even when it’s considering a great man’s flaws, it does so with understanding, taking its cues from Q’s own philosophy: “You only live 26,000 days. I’m going to wear them all out.”

It's a risky movie, and an uneven one. But the impulses behind it are darker and stronger than in most of his previous comedies. Good or bad--and Life Stinks definitely has a weak, undeveloped side--I liked it.

Like many of the classic works for children, it is finally about the rough passage to adulthood, and Hal Scardino's ability to convey that change is another reason why even in a year of wonders for children this quiet film still manages to impress.

There are no spies who “dump” or “shag” anyone here, much less jump out of airplanes or buildings, but The Spy Gone North, based on the exploits of a true-life double agent code-named Black Venus, remains a taut, slowly engrossing, effectively old-fashioned Cold War thriller.

There are more arguments than action sequences in What Still Remains, and though it gets more tense in its second half, the movie overall is a bit too sedate. Still, a great cast (including vets Mimi Rogers, Dohn Norwood and Jeff Kober) brings Mendoza’s ideas to life.

Not every directorial choice or camera movement works, but this indie drama shines in the silences. The moments between lines of dialogue are the strongest as Cass and Frida sit side by side and look at each other, with expressions and reactions saved only for us.

Although the story can feel chilly and oblique, it gets under your skin.

Marked by stunning locations and Jakub Bejnarowicz’s fleet, evocative cinematography, Iceman is almost like something unearthed itself: a recognizable B western sharpened as much by its glints of psychology as by its kinetic savagery.

While the outlook often seems bleak, the message is to take the future into our own hands — to change our behavior and change the world.

The result is surprisingly companionable and enjoyable, an unhurried look at a location that is in no kind of rush, a place that is concerned most of all with preserving the way it’s always been.

With its probing camera and spare piano score, the film effectively creates a clinically sterile environment that’s as spiritually devoid as the soul of its protagonist, and while the inevitable twist ending doesn’t land with the unsettling thud it might have, getting there is quite the page-turner.

The Dawn Wall transcends initial conventional sports documentary trappings, emerging as an affecting portrait of conquering personal limitations.

A bit slick, especially in its last half hour, Restoring Tomorrow nevertheless hits its emotional marks in reporting the renaissance of an important community institution, and Wolf’s personal connection to the subject elevates what may have simply been a well-made promotional film.

You’ve probably figured out by now that “The Mountain” isn’t for everybody, but for the art-house faithful who like their critiques of American soullessness made with a humming austerity, this one’s a painstakingly designed (courtesy Jacqueline Abrahams) and visually transfixing beaut, even when it succumbs to its own zombified vibe toward the end.

Whatever else it may be — a wrecked, towering monument to its own incompletion, a howl of rage at the industry that Welles helped build and forever define — The Other Side of the Wind increasingly comes to resemble a shattered cinematic hall of mirrors.

Granting Esther the same psychological weight he grants Juan would have helped, surely. That Reygadas refuses to do so might be interpreted as a boorish lack of curiosity — or, more charitably, as an honest self-indictment, a refusal to speak for a character he doesn’t know or understand.

[A] crisp, engaging documentary.

Dragged Across Concrete has been made with enough skill and moody, meticulous craftsmanship — another Zahler signature — to earn its own measure of tolerance, or at least some closer scrutiny.

It is when Paounov reveals Christo’s leonine qualities that Walking on Water achieves a rare authenticity.

Though this film analysis has its interest, the most involving parts of “American Dharma” are not Bannon expounding on his political philosophy but his postmortem on the nuts and bolts of the successful campaign he helped run against Hillary Clinton.

The Last Suit is a bumpy ride tonally, but its stubborn heart is in the right place.

The Great Buster briskly takes us through the stations of Keaton’s eventful life and career, mostly going the expected chronological route with one key exception.

Leyser’s film is an important document capturing the influence of queercore, an underground movement that enjoys life on the fringes, where identifying as an anti-establishment “arty weirdo” is just as important as sexuality.

A well-crafted and idiosyncratic supernatural thriller, the film plays like a mix of “Frankenstein,” “The Witch,” and some of the Coen brothers’ more explicitly Jewish movies.

The takeaway of Reversing Roe is that Stern and Sundberg are issuing a warning, one backed by a grim timeline, forcefully presented, that makes it all too clear what’s at stake if a landmark ruling on women’s rights is overturned.

The combination of technique and message is ultimately winning. It’s tempting to think of Biggest Little Farm as the real-life equivalent of an epic pastoral storybook tale, but with the kind of happy ending that suggests a blueprint for saving the earth.

Anchored by a quartet of fierce performances, “Donnybrook” is an intense, visceral tone poem, a rumination on money and drugs and bloodshed as a means of making ends meet in the heartland of modern America.

Morley sustains a vibe of low-key Lynchian weirdness throughout, enough to keep your mind from wandering even as the investigation meanders this way and that.

Fortunately, both the film’s gorgeous look and its meticulously choreographed action sequences keep us more than occupied until the plot pieces fall into place.

This character-driven thriller gives specificity to small scenes, engaging the audience in each moment.

Wein and Bang deftly balance the comedy and the commentary, resulting in a fast-moving, funny film that’s as alive as the city of Los Angeles itself.

The mournful film, which includes equally sturdy performances from old reliables Stephen Rea and Jim Broadbent, admittedly puts a hefty premium on tone at the expense of more intricate plotting and character development.

Birds of Prey, directed by Cathy Yan from a screenplay by Christina Hodson, is an impudent blast of comic energy. Light on psychology and devoid of prestige, it’s a slab of R-rated hard candy that refuses to take anything, least of all itself, too seriously.

Like most sequels, Happy Death Day 2U can’t quite replicate the feelings of joy and discovery of the original, but Landon deserves credit for varying the tune, while still playing the hits that will please the fans of its predecessor.

Writer L. M. Kit Carson and director Hooper have made Chainsaw 2 a grisly hoot: a wild satire on modern Texas and horror movies themselves. [31 Aug 1986, p.15]

Starting as a dirge and ending as an ode to joy, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki provides a privileged glimpse into the creative processes of one of the greatest animators who ever lived.

The "Blue Velvet" of high school horror pictures...Certainly, it's not on the deeply personal, highly idiosyncratic artistic level of the David Lynch film, but it is a splendid example of what imagination can do with formula genre material.

Playing like a Nordic “This is Spinal Tap,” the Finnish import Heavy Trip, a satire about an aspiring heavy metal band’s efforts to land its first legitimate gig, proves as affably goofy as its characters.

“Above and Beyond” is a slick, engrossing sizzle reel of the agency’s triumphs at turning curiosity about the universe into data about our place in it.

This isn’t an idealized version of romance or L.A. millennials; Kotlyarenko and Nekrasova shine a glaring iPhone flashlight on their characters’ — and their generation’s — flaws.

Stone doesn’t explicitly ask the straightforward, big-picture questions you’ll find in a film like “Arrival.” But his attention to detail and character, and his ability to render those people in recognizable settings, is engrossing.

This follow-up is faster and campier than its mostly somber predecessor, but the basic grim tenets of British horror author Clive Barker's supernatural worldview are still intact: a universe with a senseless hell but no heaven, without a god but with plenty of demons, without real good but oozing evil to spare.

Among all the loquacious chaos, Nat steals the film with the quieter performance as the pained, soulful and deeply feeling Jack.

Although this movie’s unusual mix of first-person interviews, archival footage, voiceover narration and dramatic reenactments is a bit awkward, it still makes for a gripping, involving and affecting experience.

Russell, he of the shaggy mane and those twinkly, crinkly eyes, digs into the classic role with a sleighful of energy, humor and gusto, deftly making the character his own with guidance from Matt Lieberman’s inventive, myth-bending script. His performance is a gas.

Though this look back is formidably researched and should appeal to both obsessives and the uninformed, it’s the insistent echo to our present upheaval, and the refreshing reminder that a polarized nation only got more unified in its desire for the truth, that gives “Watergate” its peculiarly of-the-moment power.

The Great Mouse Detective reflects the energy and enthusiasm of a talented group of young artists stretching their wings for the first time. That group has gone on to produce some truly extraordinary work, win awards and earn sums no one believed could be made from an animated film. And, as has often been the case at Disney, it all began with a mouse.

The film covers a great deal of honest, funny and timely ground, though be prepared to revisit some of Bush and Trump’s “greatest hits” via a rehashing of archival news clips.

What Salmerón is after, however, is a simple portrait of hilarious exuberance, hard-won togetherness and strange wisdom. That search yields results.

A straight-ahead but affecting documentary that acknowledges the stubborn obstacles inherent in their efforts to make a difference.

Song of the South is essentially a nostalgic valentine to a past that never existed, and within those limits, it offers a pleasant, family diversion for holiday afternoons when the children get restless.

A bright, upbeat comedy that should appeal to audiences of all ages. [18 Nov 1988, p.1]

Causey deserves real credit for reckoning not only with America’s legacy of slavery and prejudice, but also examining her own ancestors’ specific roles in the racist treatment of African Americans.

The Dark clicks (which is often), it’s a moving and poetic tale about how neglect and abuse can turn people into freaky beasts, and how love can bring them back.

Of the many premium 2018 documentaries on tap, Brewmaster may not pack one of the bigger buzzes, but it certainly goes down easy.

Although Vaya is plenty watchable as a commercial melodrama energized by its performers (especially the magnetic, star-in-the-making Nyoka), Omotoso’s fleet pacing and Kabelo Thathe’s marvelously textured cinematography, it also shrewdly avoids convenient, well-trod moralizing about small towns versus urban centers.

The movie engagingly outlines blockchain’s role as the underlying technology behind such digital currencies as bitcoin (which gets its own dissection), plus its growing part in accounting practices, music industry payments and renewable energy markets.

Eldar and Abbas share candid, heartfelt observations about what they consider an internal culture war within Israeli society and its troubling effects.

As for Polsky’s own directorial style, it’s breathlessly, haphazardly eccentric, a little too prone to the clichés sports docs use to pump up our adrenaline. But his subjects — kings of the puck, the pigskin and the pitch — are engagingly self-analytical and honest.

A chatty and enjoyable but decidedly nondefinitive look at one of the cinema’s most acclaimed, influential auteurs.

The Panama Papers serves as a reminder of the important work reporters do in fighting abuses of power and the way that work is evolving in an increasingly fractured global landscape.

There’s some truly nasty stuff here — both violence-wise and in its outlook on evil — but it still somehow manages to be fun amid all the carnage.

Directed by Deon Taylor with a cheeky sense of fun and deep knowledge of the genre, The Intruder is the kind of schlocky yet satisfying genre filmmaking that makes you jump and laugh at the same time.

When the trouble does hit in this film, it hits hard, at which point all the investment in character pays off.

The nuances in Derki’s portraits are what deepen the elements that could easily have been a distancing turnoff.

Mostly, it’s impressive how Bowler reimagines his own Oscar-nominated 2011 short film. He takes his original idea of using time-travel as a kind of metaphysical Photoshop and seriously thinks through how it would work — and whether it’s possible to have a “happy ending” when revision is always an option.

Where Maine ultimately goes is a little off the map, but the mysterious emotional journey is nevertheless fascinating.

Other than showing moments of in-fighting, Meow Wolf: Origin Story is an almost entirely positive exploration of the collective and their art — but it’s an effective one.

Dealing with a personality this strong could not have been easy, and director Garver, whose background is in short films, does a balanced job, giving space to Kael’s partisans while finding time for the other side.

Nichols gives the piece a funny, fragile somber mood that works almost completely.

Say Her Name doesn’t have answers, but it does re-emphasize how unnecessarily tragic Bland’s death was, and why her name should be a boldfaced one in the nationwide call for police reform.

Audacious, bracing, uncommonly timely, Bob Roberts would seem almost impossible to pull off. So it is very much to Robbins' credit as a filmmaker that he manages to do so while rarely getting preachy and never neglecting the importance of movement and excitement in keeping an audience involved. [04 Sep 1992, p.F1]

They Fight, produced by Common and energized by an inspirational hip-hop soundtrack, serves as a vital reminder that often the battle can be more important than the inevitable outcome.

Saucy, scary and pleasantly unsettling.

Roll with Me avoids the tropes that narratives about people with disabilities often offer, instead giving a fully developed picture of a man who wants his family to be proud of him and his accomplishments.

Jungle Book provides both rowdy thrills and old-fashioned family entertainment.

There is a guileless quality to the enterprise as Young interviews stars such as Chita Rivera, Florence Henderson and Martin Short who worked in industrials, as well as the lesser known performers and songwriters who became his heroes.

Default successfully turns a global financial crisis into a movie that’s at once engaging and educational.

The lack of a strong narrative through-line makes for a film that is informative but dry. Nevertheless, it is an urgent plea for us all to make conscious choices in our consumption.

Robert Townsend’s reflective Making the Five Heartbeats serves as an illuminating documentary detailing the considerable passion and perseverance that went into bringing his dream project to the big screen.

It leaves one with the sense that Khaled wishes to reclaim a headline-tainted religious status from the acts of violent men and bestow that mournful grace to people in an everyday struggle with sensitivity and hopelessness.

The script has a certain memoiristic quality that would edge into self-indulgence if McGhee and Stonebraker weren’t such warm and disarming presences on screen.

Mullan brings edginess and gravitas to the kind of role he’s played dozens of times. Butler, though, is a pleasant surprise, departing from his usual one-dimensional action heroes to play a dramatic part — and so well that one wonders why he doesn’t do it more often.

The movie could use a little more energy — this is Paul Mazursky territory, after all, not Andrei Tarkovsky — but in its sick-but-sweet attempt to reclaim grief from the trappings of tradition, To Dust is its own well-measured godsend.

Perhaps the biggest bit of fakery involved is that for all its twistiness, The Good Liar’s plot, which can be more than a little frustrating, is as much of a liability as a benefit in a production where the characters turn out to be more involving than their story.

Filmmaker Anahí Berneri, through her tough single-mother protagonist, mesmerizingly realized by Sofía Gala Castiglione, offers a no-apologies look at a member of a risk-taking underclass dinged on all sides.

A detailed and affable exploration of this world, This One’s for the Ladies is so unabashedly sex-positive you just might want to find the closest all-male revue.

Troop Zero is bursting with personality and stylistic flourishes; it might be too twee for some, but it’s better to let yourself be won over by its sincerity and sweetness, tempered by just enough sadness and quirk.

It’s a grim vision, sure. But it’s a compelling one too, using the flash of a space opera to remind viewers that — whether on the ground or in the stars — we’re stuck with each other.

In a divisive era, Okko’s Inn carries a welcome message of acceptance and inclusion.

The film is light and follows a distinct formula, but Walsh is incredibly charming, and shares a potent chemistry with Godrèche.

Not every stylistic choice works, with some moments distracting from the film’s message and occasional shots that don’t feel organic. But Brown’s journey remains compelling and absolutely necessary for the audience to see, as do the stories of his fellow veterans.

While director Penny Lane (not a pseudonym) energetically goes about shattering our preconceived notions at every intriguing turn, the film is at its most potent tracing society’s history of “satanic panic,” from the Salem Witch Trials to the rise of the evangelical lobby on the shoulders of the Red Scare to the 1980s when Dungeons & Dragons was viewed as a demonic gateway game.

The Butler-Harts built their story around the place, and don’t squander any of the spectacular scenery. This island looks like something from a dark fairy tale — so that’s exactly what the filmmakers have made.