Anyone considering a movie called American Sausage Standoff (a.k.a. Gutterbee) should expect an odd comedy, though they might not expect one quite as eccentric as this Western by Danish actor-turned-director Ulrich Thomsen.

For the power of the performances and what they capture about guilt and family manipulation, Flag Day has a cathartic accuracy in many of its scenes.

Koefoed’s stylishly made film takes its time, gives everyone their due, and leaves us with some profoundly interesting questions.

Reminiscence doesn’t leave us much to remember it by, apart from those mournful CGI vistas of water-logged Miami.

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.

Taken either as a metaphor for mourning or as a straight-up fictional narrative with a paranormal bent, The Night House’s ending is as disturbing — and intriguing — as it gets.

Animation director Jane Samborski’s richly eclectic miscellany of visual styles depict a bestiary of mythic creatures and outré scenes of sex and violence that are matched to director/writer Dash Shaw’s allegorical narrative.

Though the subject of immigrants from persecuted minorities fleeing their homelands is topical, what elevates I Carry You With Me above most social dramas is its finespun, artisanal quality.

An occasional brilliantly funny but exasperatingly chaotic, vignette-style examination of relationships, male rage, and female insecurities.

The movie attempts to strike a nerve and, in its efforts, occasionally demonstrates promise. A memorable death scene is accomplished with a blend of comedy, horror, and style. But it is a rare moment.

Respect, the new movie starring Jennifer Hudson as the late soul singer Aretha Franklin, proves once again that musical biopics have become the tribute mediocrity pays to talent.

Intermittently witty, technically impressive, Free Guy sheds points in its second half, with pandering (Star Wars and Captain American references) and a series of numbing narrative loops, celebrating originality while practicing the opposite. And all of this with the usual alibi that none of this is meant to be serious.

While Gutnik has assembled a talented cast, the constraints of a 105-minute runtime means the stories feel underdone in places, including anything about that furiously entitled man in the subway.

Krymalowski brings a vivacious energy to a movie that would otherwise be one long trudge to safe haven.

Welsh director Euros Lyn’s reality-based steeple-chasing feature Dream Horse never deviates far from the expected course. But its off-kilter humour and an ace cast, led by the ever-credible Toni Collette, brings some fresh colours to this unabashed crowd pleaser.

The film is a confusing, rather than complex, series of threats and reveals and confessions that never successfully gel into a suitable resolve.

If you want to see what it means to a film when an excellent actor fully commits to a role, look to Adam Driver’s performance in Leos Carax’s award winning musical Annette. He breathes life into what is an otherwise dry and emotionally disconnected film.

The Suicide Squad, Gunn’s sequel to David Ayer’s poorly reviewed first try at the tale of a group of super-villains forced to be good guys, is a nihilistic orgy of brightly coloured gore and violence apparently envisioned while on mushrooms. If you’re sitting near the front of an IMAX theatre, it plays like being in the “splash-zone” of a GWAR concert.

Sometimes researching the background of a movie proves more revealing than the film itself.

If the Miranda musical touches are getting familiar, they’re still a lot fresher than the script here, yet another story of a pet animal on a mission and its special bond with a lonely child.

Here Today is the movie Crystal directs, a genial, monotone of good-heartedness that isn’t as funny as it wants to be or needs to be, but hits some truths about the subject of age and dementia, while maintaining its mild smile.

For the first two acts at least, Jungle Cruise is reasonably good fodder for a family outing, very much a theme park ride of the cinematic kind.

Nemesis is a low-grade gangster saga with a home-invasion twist and a cast that sounds like bigger stars from other movies.

Are audiences, who are used to having their heroic stories delivered to them in fantastically exciting packages, ready for this reined-in version of the wounded hero? In spite of its flaws, Lowery’s The Green Knight makes a case for a different sort of hero whose time may have come.

The trouble is not that the movie is exploitative but that it’s out of its depth. This tone-jumping jigsaw of a narrative (written by McCarthy and Marchus Hinchey along French screenwriters Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré) amounts to several movies in one.

Lorelei is a lovely story told with heart and without judgment.

There’s no doubt that spotlighting Close’s reputation in our recent cultural history is worthwhile. But the documentary is unjust in ignoring such seminal figures as acting coach and academic Violin Spolin, who developed and wrote the bible on the subject (Improvisation for the Theatre).

I have not read the graphic novel Sandcastle upon which Old is based so I can’t vouch for its faithfulness to the source material. But it’s hard to believe anyone would call this a winner.