This slow-moving Swedish film offers not even a hint of joy, preferring to focus on the humiliation of Martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants at his own birthday party.

A touching love story that gets sidelined by a tiresome intra-family African political dispute, A United Kingdom has a big heart that beats far too slowly.

The movie is well-acted, but it's as talky as if it were written for the stage, with fatally slow pacing. Strictly for hard-core Sayles fans and maybe for lovers of American roots music.

Sure, violence in movies isn't violence in real life. And when you combine it with intelligent dialogue and pointed social commentary (a la "Django Unchained"), it can be cathartic. But The Last Stand, absent either of these things, just seems to want to gin up a lot of high-fiving for a lot of shooting, and right now is the least palatable time I can think of for that.

Begins exceptionally well. Indeed, for at least its first half it's an unusually thoughtful, admirably underplayed piece of work of disorienting, rather harsh realism that builds its mysteries in pleasurably oblique and unpredictable ways.

Writer/director Andrew Levitas needlessly pads this captivating theme with over-used tropes.

Pretty dry stuff that verges on an infomercial, despite cameo appearances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Mizrahi himself.

Occasionally works and has a handful of great moments.

Sucker-punches you. It appears to be an engagingly sweet romance, but it's really just about other movies.

Filmmakers Sam Green and Bill Siegel tend to shy from tough questions, allowing their subjects to wax nostalgic about bomb-throwing as yet another youthful folly of the '70s. That's tougher to swallow than some boomers' claims they didn't inhale.

An overdone sex comedy.

Squanders its big ideas in record time.

Young Goethe looks great, and the cast is appealing. But the story is riddled with clichés and fabrications.

You can't quarrel with the lensing and acting, but the overabundance of coincidences keeps Vivere from reaching its full potential.

Overrun with malicious goblins, a vengeance-minded pig, a fast-moving troll and a giant horned ogre, but the true source of terror is scarier than all of these combined: New York real estate prices.

This well-intentioned drama — writer/director Paul Dalio has spoken publicly about his own struggles — veers into a common pitfall of films that portray mental illness: Romanticizing it.

A cheerfully dopey snobs vs. slobs teen comedy.

Roth goes to town with this juicy part, and seems to enjoy herself immensely in this merry farce, which runs out of gas toward the end due to an over-complicated plot.

Son of a Gun, from first-time feature director Julius Avery, begins with an enticingly dark first act in jail, but descends steadily downward into a mass of clichés.

The direction is never more than conventional, with a tear-inducing finale better suited to a TV soap opera.

Dangerously low on laughs and sex, not to mention believability.

Borderline clichéd, and it makes getting a US visa seem way too easy. But I can think of much worse ways to spend an hour and a half than watching this absurdist comedy.

Andy Goddard’s feature debut is shot stylishly in black and white, but deals in themes that feel equally retro.

For one thing, it goes on too long. But it looks good, the cast is perky.

No surprises here, though the stars make it surprisingly watchable.

Starts promisingly, but Jonas Pate directs his fine cast straight into a swamp of schmaltz as every loose thread of plot gets patly resolved.

Deserves high marks for political courage but barely gets by on its artistic merits.

What’s the difference between “21 Jump Street” and 22 Jump Street? Same as the difference between getting a 21 and a 22 at blackjack.