While the gangster genre over the past 50 years has been the specialty of Italian-American auteurs (Coppola, Scorsese, DePalma and The Sopranos’ David Chase), Mafia Inc., directed by Quebec director Daniel Grou (a.k.a. Podz), stands up surprisingly well.

Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Elizabeth offer rich, committed performances and highly passable accents. There’s also a certain thrill in being transported to another very real-feeling world: inside elaborate stone mansions lit only by candles and furnished with stiff but fancy furniture. The costumes, jewelry and makeup, too, are fabulous. But a hard-to-pinpoint pall hangs over Mary Queen of Scots.

But what lands with Land is underwhelming; not quite a disappointment but considerably less than what was hoped for given Wright’s professional toolkit and the endless possibilities a subject as complex as profound grief offers.

There are remarkable and rewarding moments in the film despite its lack of bite.

Something of an intriguing curio (the first feature film about a subject treated in song, poem, television and theatre), Lizzie has some memorable pluses and significant minuses.

The subtle trick of Paris, 13th District, is that it plays like a romantic dramedy, but it really is more like a series of character studies of these young people whose lives just so happen to intersect.

The film loses momentum as it settles into movie-of-the-week familiarity, detailing the activities of the Jane collective, some of which seem hardly credible, though historically accurate.

Roth, in restricting himself to the polite requirements of a kid-friendly movie, keeps his darker instincts in check, making this more a movie about set design than emotions.

Within the frame of an old-fashioned stab-and-splatter exploitation flick, The Hunt is consistently smartish.

In the Earth is engrossing even in moments that might challenge both patience and logic. And despite the slight nudge towards something more commercial, Ben Wheatley’s art-house reputation remains solid.

The narrative arc of Islands, so minimalist it’s really more of a slow bump, is about the gradual breaking down of Joshua’s small shell of comfort, his family and cultural conventions.

It hits a lot of the right notes, but, overall the film suffers from a predictable plot. But Pugh and Garfield’s nuanced performances give the film empathy and depth that pulls us through.

While you can admire the “House of Mirrors” structure of The Whistlers and its ironic mix of glum and glamorous, there is little emotional purchase here. This is a flatter, more arch experience than Porumboiu’s devastatingly absurd earlier films, and the entire exercise feels more about ingenuity than art.

Back in the 1950s the cars were little more than cockpits on wheels, without so much as a seatbelt. There might be a few hay bales by the side of the track. And then as now, there was a morbid fascination in the notion of a crash taking a driver and car out of a race. But be careful what you wish for.

The lack of clear identification of interview subjects and amorphous shape of the film can be frustrating. A segment on the history of book-burning, for example, feels gratuitous but, for the record, everyone in the film is against it.

The Color Purple is an intense and complicated story about race, gender and history and wrestling that tale into a two-hours-plus musical is a daunting task. This version, while plot-heavy and occasionally confusing, has its own epic sweep. It’s moving, but given current events, the final celebratory spirit rings false.

There’s an entertaining commitment to the story and its references in Saint-Narcisse (a real place that may be impossible to photograph badly, such is the natural beauty that surrounds this demented tale). And La Bruce knows a striking leading man when he casts one.

Havoc is a frenetic action movie with tons of in-your-face violence and it’s kind of fun to watch — the carnage is so exaggerated that it becomes cartoonish.

As standard a documentary as it is in presentation, Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes is cleverly assembled and edited, making the most of available archival material to flesh out the stories of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Blakey, Horace Silver et al, and of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, the two German-Jewish immigrants who escaped the war and redefined America’s music culture.

To some extent, the performances elevate the script.

Nope is an eccentric vehicle for some of Peele’s favourite themes – the movie business, Black social history, and character-over-plot.

Fast, funny and entirely forgettable, The Instigators is an entertaining if shopworn heist story.

Complications of history aside, The Woman King is Black Panther minus the vibranium and with more women warriors, an empowerment tale fueled by kickassery, with battle scenes, ear-splitting ululated war cries and sword fights.

Looking past its nostalgia and unhappy ending, More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story is kind of a time capsule of an era of North American showbiz, and the compromises and struggles that faced people because of their faces.

She Paradise, which runs a brief 71 minutes, is raw in more than one sense. The characters are thinly developed, and the dance sequences, as robust as they are, could be more dynamically shot. On the plus side, Nestor — with her watchful quiet manner — is persuasive as a young woman awkwardly finding her way, and the other women are forceful presence.

After proceeding through the childhood epiphanies and observed details, Branagh’s memory journey stumbles in the last act as he attempts to elevate the material into scenes of climactic magical realism.

Over the Moon is a delightful tale sure to appeal to a younger audience without too much fear of chasing away the rest of the family.

While Reyes’ Blue Beetle isn’t as endearing as Ted Kord’s, the movie still finds its audience. The music and cheap jokes that are substituted for where meaningful dialogue could have been more successful still manage to carry the film. In short, the cheap laughs worked.