The research is there, certainly, but it is presented as if it were just that, without thought for the ways it could be presented in a more expressive form. There is a sense here that film is at most a communicative tool to simply transmit this information, rather than a way to enliven and reactivate new ways of thinking about this galvanizing figure’s past and the resonance of their work in our present. This is a shame. Murray deserves nothing less than a history in full color.

Prisoners of the Ghostland is less a movie than an environment — not always hospitable but distinctly bizarre.

The simplicity of the story Eastwood is telling would seem to suit his unvarnished, unfussy style, though frankly, a bit more fuss — a few more takes to smooth out a wobbly performance, an extra light bulb or two in the interior shots — wouldn’t have gone awry. But “Cry Macho,” with its attractive but not indulgent landscapes (shot in New Mexico) backed by a spare, twangy Mark Mancina score, takes pains to reject anything that might smack of falsity or pretense.

Copshop is an enjoyable, slow-burn action movie featuring a smart script, sharp direction, strong cast — and the emergence of a possible star.

As a curdled storybook, Bad Tales is highly watchable. The problem is that the brothers aren’t telling stories fueled by powerful characters; they’re staging awkward cruelties as if for a gallery show.

By cycling through humor, joy, sentimentality and surrealism, The Year of the Everlasting Storm reminds viewers of the myriad possibilities of daily life. The film’s poignancy comes from its confirmation that even in tumultuous times, our senses of wonder, love and loyalty remain integral to the human experience.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is big-hearted, with as much desire to put something good in the world as its hero wants to express himself.

This well-constructed film effectively highlights the key points of the Southern-born icon’s singular, often troubled life and proves a vivid, enjoyable portrait of a one-of-a-kind provocateur.

Feel-good yet not cloying, Language Lessons wraps its comforting graciousness around you and says, “No estás solo / You are not alone.”

If you can hang with the slow gestation of the first hour or so of Malignant, the final third may grow on you.

Kate has its charms.

Scene by scene, it pulls us into a world that coheres not just through plotting and dialogue, but through the sharp rhythms of Benjamin Rodriguez Jr.’s editing, the hard shimmer of Alexander Dynan’s images and the humdrum precision of Ashley Fenton’s production design.

It turns out that the screen provides a surprisingly hospitable frame for a musical that is quite purely and unabashedly — at times even downright earnestly — a work of theater.

Where the filmmakers’ approach sets itself apart in these days of image-massaged biographies is in juxtaposing the bookending health catastrophes of Fauci’s career as an especially illuminating lens through which to examine his drive, decisions and personality.

Queenpins does nothing other than waste your time with bad wigs and poop jokes, and that is the biggest crime of all.

Though not all its gyrating parts and magical realist flourishes congeal, this feverish visual parlance rouses.

Most of The Big Scary ‘S’ Word is about the past. But like a lot of calls to action, the film is most effective when it focuses on what’s happening now.

To call this Dune a remarkably lucid work is to praise it with very faint damnation. Perhaps reluctant to alienate the novices in the audience, Villeneuve has ironed out many of the novel’s convolutions, to the likely benefit of comprehension but at the expense of some rich, imaginative excess.

Nebbou and Peyr’s script crackles most with its observations about aging, sex and second chances, and Who You Think I Am spins a tale of love, attention, manipulation and obsession that is recognizably uncomfortable and summarily captivating.

It’s underwritten yet over-stuffed with songs, and the production itself feels chintzy and airless.

What we’re left with is, thankfully, sharp exchanges about loss and conscience, a director’s sincere approach to potentially melodramatic material, and in-the-moment actors like Keaton, who makes the humbling weight of adding up lives into the stuff of compellingly sober contemplation.

You’ll be pleased to discover the entertaining remake has its charms; it actually is all that, for the most part.

No Man of God is impeccably and carefully directed by Sealey, and the craft on display is remarkable.

DaCosta, who made her directorial debut with the remarkable abortion drama “Little Woods,” firmly announces herself as an artist at work with Candyman, a genuinely terrifying and artful horror film that speaks with a bell-clear voice to the current moment, the product of centuries of racist power structures.

Part biopic, part mystery, part exposé, Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed is ultimately a cooled celebration, one eager to acknowledge that gurus are complicated, showbiz is treacherous, and some landscapes hide things.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is most enjoyable when it shakes off the tedious franchise imperatives and forges its own path.

Anna’s interactions with Moody and Rembrandt are ultimately a double-edged sword: They give facets to Anna that show she is not just a means to connect the various (impressive) action scenes. But that makes you want more for Anna and Q than the cliched backstory the movie ultimately delivers

Momoa can believably howl in anguish and throw a devastating punch, but he can’t carry a script this muddled.