Once again, [Pugh] brings a determined energy to her performance that almost compensates for the often unpersuasive, sometimes stilted, film built around her.

It feels unbalanced, a collection of often-compelling sequences stitched together in a way that is unpersuasive or sometimes simply puzzling.

She Said is about cracking the code of silence, and the flood that follows when it breaks.

Some jokes are a little on the cringeworthy side, but overall, they work. It’s a film that essentially hijacks the cuteness of The Little Mermaid and manages to successfully transfer it to a shy, math-loving awkward teenager who just happens to be able to transform herself into a 50-foot-tall sea-beast.

Palestine ‘36 is at its most moving in the scenes of archival footage, and most provocative as an illustration of how England’s imperial tactics of pitting national groups against each other and terrorizing civilians (characters refer to similar approaches India and Ireland) became the template for Israeli’s ongoing military domination of the Palestinian territories. The argument is unlikely to change fixed hearts and minds, but it is difficult to ignore how familiar it seems.

There is joy in seeing this gifted ensemble have fun with their broadly scripted characters with Los Angeles in all its trashy splendour backdropping it all. But this angel comedy doesn’t quite reach for the heavens.

The somewhat awkwardly titled documentary, The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile, turns out to be an accurate summary of a film that celebrates two women.

It’s a bit of a shaggy dog story. It’s fun to look at. The cast is good. It’s instantly forgettable.

A big dumb acid-trip of a super-hero movie, Aquaman is relentless, noisy, entertaining nonsense – particularly in 3D IMAX - as overlong as any of them, but not boring, and as I say, at times trippy.

The Spanish comedy/satire Official Competition plays on those clichés, and yet doesn’t really say anything new. But thanks to its A-list cast, led by Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, it’s quite enjoyable.

Canadians already made the definitive young-woman-turned-werewolf movie, with 2000’s Ginger Snaps, which is a bar to clear if Bloodthirsty is to make an impression on veteran horror fans. But the pop music angle, an LGBT angle, and a studio Svengali who lives in a mansion in the woods, gives Bloodthirsty some points for fresh twists.

For a movie that lazily spins its wheels, Fantasy Life is oddly amiable. The only wholly dislikable character is David, and he’s so great at being dislikable, you almost like him for it.

Canadian writer-director Tim Brown captures a heady mix of action, bloodshed and comedy here, hitting all the high notes of a crime thriller even as he appears to be spoofing the genre — and who better to do that with than Cage, the meta master himself?

Starry actioner The Protégé is a filmic version of empty calories: irresistible if short on sustenance and of an ilk that’s best rationed carefully.

Eleanor the Great is a small-scale film with depth and relatable themes: grief, loss, identity, family among them. The film has some flaws that lessen its emotional impact but there is admirable work here all around.

It’s a fact of life that a novel about the right to die can’t be represented in depth in 105 minutes. But a compelling essence remains in this story about two sisters from a Manitoba Mennonite community - one with a mess of a life who nonetheless wants to live, the other, blessed with a seemingly perfect life, who wants the opposite.

The most compelling performance here belongs to the Indonesian actor and martial artist Iko Uwais, who became famous in The Raid movies. Here, he plays the “asset” who must be taken out of the country. Uwais’ hand-and-foot battles are genuinely explosive and when he’s not fighting, he doesn’t say much, which is a welcome relief from all the rest of the babble.

Director John Rosman’s debut film New Life is a simple but effective film that sits on the border between thriller and horror. Rosman straddles the line, keeping one foot in both genres and adding an element of apocalyptic drama. The result is a decent film despite the feeling that we’ve seen this before.

There is no pretension in what The Lost City is or what it’s trying to do, other than entertain an audience for slightly under two hours. It has one job, and it does it well.

A solid, if not revelatory portrait of contemporary Russia through the story of exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Bottoms is absurd, ridiculous, often wildly inappropriate in the way of teen comedies and occasionally as exaggerated as a Looney Tunes cartoon. But everyone in the movie is giving it their all, taking the craziness seriously and clearly having fun. There are a lot of terrific performances.

What we have is a solidly crafted reworking of some familiar Western tropes by director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), a Texas native who shows care for the period details, with handsome cinematography on the original Lone Star State locations.

Eileen is a slender drama distinguished by strong performances.

Beauty and loss hold hands in Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, an intimate and impressionistic documentary about New York’s storied Chelsea Hotel from Belgian filmmakers, Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier.

This is perhaps a kinder, gentler Amy Winehouse story? Maybe so, but there’s no opportunity for emotional investment, despite Marisa Abela’s wonderful performance. It’s all a bit like seeing a good cover band.

It’s jittery in its pacing, the characters thinly drawn, and the youth crime drama elements formulaic...At the same time, the film feels emotionally original in its discordantly tender moments.

Christian Bale leads a fantastic cast in The Pale Blue Eye, a twisty atmospheric detective yarn with supernatural overtones and, for those who enjoy such things, an actual historical touchstone.

It may not sound like a big deal, but it’s actually very satisfying to see game-changing historical women having their stories told on a major platform and having them told well, with emotional intelligence.