Approached with a casual regard for logic, period thriller The Secrets We Keep is entertaining enough to recommend though it never feels quite as original or shocking as the filmmakers — working with a plainly Hitchcockian roadmap — likely hoped for.

Though most of the content here is too familiar for the film to qualify as an exposé, Totally Under Control adds background context and highlights some of the voices who raised early alarms about the dangers of the disease and the impending social disruption.

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.

So, when all is said and done, this is definitely not Larry Charles’ Borat. It put me to mind more of the later seasons of All in the Family, when Archie Bunker’s bigotry inevitably softened.

The film employs a punk-inspired cut-and-paste collages, smashing together footage of police and protestor clashes, rock concerts, television shows and political marches, all annotated with animated handwritten letters, posters, newspaper clippings, and excerpts from RAR’s fanzine, Temporary Hoarding.

Given The Trial of the Chicago 7’s snapshot of an era of an almost hopelessly divided America, and Kafka-esque and monstrous misuse of power by a bullying President, the timing for its release couldn’t be better.

In theory, it should be possible to have a comedy about a competition between an elderly man and a child to injure and humiliate each other, but it would need to be substantially sharper than The War with Grandpa to make the case.

There are some strong elements here.

If the film takes the “landscape as character” conceit to excess, there are also some strong performances, especially from its two leads.

There may be a lot of questions unanswered in Possessor, but there’s feverish imagination at work.

A little distance — and considerable trimming — would have served the story better.

Jenkins’ performance is the reason to see The Last Shift. But, not even a stellar performance from Jenkins can rescue The Last Shift entirely from its underdeveloped premise and an earnest need to be appreciated.

On the Rocks is a delight.

There’s some reward in watching good performers working to bring veracity to these awkward and artificial scenarios.

The film can be over-wrought, manipulative, and by some standards, unfairly stages death as a backdrop for parading a rogue-gallery of family archetypes. And though I recognize the film’s flaws, I choose to let my cynicism slide.

Porter and Souza together, in this film, are using his images as a reminder that a true leader can bring more than just relief from a chaotic time, and that the best leaders have always had a deep and measured well of compassion.

Static… low energy… no spark to speak of. A weak biopic of Nicola Tesla, the man who defined our electric lives, practically begs for shameful puns. For that, I apologize.

Jay Sebring… Cutting to the Truth works on a level beyond simply the director giving props to his all-but-forgotten uncle. Its more visceral message is that, “the dead have no rights.”

A movie with a sincere social message and an exploitation movie sensibility, Antebellum is a clumsy cousin of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, an allegory of racism in a horror film about entrapment that goes wide of the mark.

While the performances are heart-warming, the characterization of Reddy feels reductive, overlooking the real-life contradictions, flinty humour, and eccentricities that might have made the performance less generic.

Although the comic scenes are well-crafted, I Propose stumbles in the over-plotting.

Though much of it is glum and muddled, it does find an anchor in Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix) as a gravely wise, ailing crime boss named Duke.

Mulan is distinct enough from its predecessor that it hardly seems like a remake at all.

What’s miraculous is that, through it all, Kaufman stays on course in a movie that is as intriguing as it is wonderfully odd.

While all of this is too niche for wide interest, the film touches the troublesome heart of adolescent girls’ gymnastics, which is both a triumph of art and athletics and a sport riddled with a legacy of abuse. That abuse is the secondary but most interesting theme in The Golden Girl.

Even I found the film’s 90-minute running time draining, its story needlessly, maddeningly convoluted. I also lamented missed opportunities for in-jokes, sly sub-references, even guerilla fourth-wall demolition hijinks.

If this were a pilot for a TV series, home audiences might be willing to baby it along until it grows stronger. As a stand-alone movie, this particular mutation looks like a badly-adapted dead-end.

The film certainly does not ignore O’Connor’s attitudes and fictional treatment of race. It just doesn’t make it particularly central to her reputation.