Aside from providing an object lesson in how Chinese film financing forces some rather remarkable storyline convolutions into generic international action pictures, Outcast provides nothing of interest.

Nowhere in the film is its subject, Cenk Uygur, the founder and main mouthpiece of a YouTube show titled The Young Turks (TYT), called a journalist, but he does function as such, even if his game is commenting on the news rather than doing reportorial spadework.

I’ve always liked Reynolds for the most part, but he does his best work yet here in Satrapi’s odd, pitch-black comedy about a man who talks to his dog and cat. And they talk back.

The irony of Peck’s position is, while he’s on the rise as a choreographer, as a dancer he’s in a rather more plebian position, which provides the movie with a punchline that Lipes neither overstates nor shrugs off.

Zany and zippy as you’d expect, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water remains true to the surrealism of its animated television roots.

Surprise! One doesn’t want to damn the movie with faint praise by saying “it’s not that bad,” but that’s kind of the most objectively accurate description of it, in all honesty.

It's blandly, often listlessly bad, check-the-blockbuster-boxes bad, just-out-of-film-school-and-shopping-a-tentpole-screenplay bad.

It's often painful, and not in a good way; it's painful because of the roads it doesn't explore, the shortcuts it takes, and the special pleading it can't stop itself from indulging in.

An earnest and considerate examination of two people falling in love, but the movie lacks certainty when handling these characters separately.

It's an anti-romantic biography about a great artist, one whose central themes are basic, but whose energy and execution is irresistible.

It’s enough to make H.G. Wells roll his eyes as he rolls in his grave.

I really enjoyed listening to Statham talk. His fight scenes have their predictable, violent payoffs, but his rambling monologues are unexpectedly, gloriously entertaining. This film’s tagline should be “Come for the stabbing, stay for the gabbing!”

A fantastical examination of man’s inhumanity to man, and as replete as it is with persistent visceral disgust, it also pulses with intelligence, a mordant compassion, and yes, incredible wit.

A powerful and entertaining film about a gang of girls, and what friendship means, the protection it provides.

This long-delayed would-be erotic thriller is a shabby bore that promises viewers any number of kinky thrills and then proceeds to deflate those expectations.

A thoroughly remarkable and disquieting film from Mali’s Abderrahamane Sissako, Timbuktu is also a work of almost breathtaking visual beauty, but it manages to ravish the heart while dazzling the eye simultaneously, neither at the expense of the other. It’s a work of art that seems realized in an entirely organic way.

R100 is, consequently, a comedy that tries to alienate you by suggesting that escapism is futile, all things inevitably devolve, and nothing inherently means anything.

Pacino dials down the manic, wide-eyed “Hoo-ah!” that has defined his screen presence over the past couple decades, and often rendered the Method master a parody of himself.

Emotionally charged, viscerally exciting and consistently enlightening, Gabe Polsky’s Red Army is a sports documentary like no other.

Willfully over determined and perversely stylized.

The one humanizing slice of Cake that is tolerable is Claire’s relationship with her Mexican housekeeper, Silvana (the terrific Adrianna Barraza, who was Oscar-nominated for 2006’s “Babel”).

Strange Magic is essentially a jukebox musical so song-laden as to practically be an operetta, and the songs are so eclectic that they never quite fit into the movie’s flying-insect world, which is divided into dark and light forests.

There are a couple of hallucinatory sequences that don't quite work, and the score by Paul Mills comes swooping in, insistent upon being inspirational in a way that feels like unnecessary underlining.

The Boy Next Door has its share of so-bad-they’re-good moments – and details, and chunks of dialogue – but not nearly enough. Mostly, they’re just bad. And it had such potential too, starting with the casting.

Despite having a life story seemingly tailor-made for the big screen, it transforms his potentially fascinating tale into a narrow and borderline fawning hagiography that will no doubt find great favor among his fan base, while inspiring shrugs of indifference from those less invested in his tale.

Strickland’s film is a daring, atmosphere-soaked piece of kink hypnotherapy that pays explicit homage to the films of Franco, down to the casting of former Franco regular, formidable femme Monica Swinn, in a sinister role.

Often, Song One feels like the timid B-side of last summer’s more satisfying music-biz saga, the much less woe-is-me and a lot more let’s-have-some-fun “Begin Again.”

One of those rare birds that is so off-putting in so many ways that all I could do for the most part was wonder how so many presumably intelligent people could be persuaded to sign on to produce and appear in something that could not have possibly seemed like anything other than a total mess from its earliest stages.

Black Sea looks so gorgeous and moves with such muscular grace that you might forget, or never imagine, that it's a relatively small action movie.

Some will dismiss it by saying it’s so ineffective as to never really aggravate critical faculties, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a complete waste of time and talent as well.

Any movie with a cast that includes such live wires as Marisa Tomei, Sam Rockwell and Natasha Lyonne is bound to have something going for it. But the actual stars of this film, directed by playwright/novelist Adam Rapp, turn out to be two veteran second-tier players making their feature screenwriting debut.

A consistent—almost catalog-like, you might say—array of pictorial wonders, Medeas, the debut feature from the Italian-born director Andrea Pallaoro is also a work of considerable daring. This plain, almost minimalist narrative presents itself from a position that neither talks down to nor attempts to cozy up to its audience.

Though the film’s lachrymose gist is conveyed with subtlety and insight into the rigors of loneliness and mortality, it is lachrymose nonetheless. Fans of “Eleanor Rigby,” in any case, should not miss it.

Little Accidents is quietly earnest, handsomely produced, and too dramatically inert and dogged by the commonplace to make much of an impact beyond conveying the dreariness (as opposed to the dread) of life in a coal-mining town.

The French farce aspect of the film is its true heartbeat. These characters are not really serious people, and it is difficult to take any of them seriously. That’s fine, it gives Three Night Stand its special lunatic edge.

The issue of so-called “illegals” could not be more timely and, if Spare Parts does anything, it attempts to humanize the situation of those children who cope with this limbo-land existence without having had much choice in the matter.

Appropriate Behavior, even with its reliance on familiar types and tropes, feels like a unique vision of life seen through unique eyes.

It’s charmingly funny and shamelessly punny.

Vaguely more tolerable than you might expect – enjoyable, even, in sporadic bursts.

Match has enough meaty and engaging character material to effectively sidestep the very theatrical contrivance of its plot premise, which does have a great deal of potential for reversal and counter reversal and indeed takes full advantage of that potential.

This ensemble drama about troubled upper-middle class strivers is slick, confident, and rather empty, and structurally more self-defeating than clever.

Slick and sometimes goofy as it is, Blackhat is an odd, fascinating movie: a high-tech action thriller about the human condition. I can think of no better current illustration of the notion that, to quote this site's founder, it's not what a movie is about, it's how it's about it.

It is an unmistakably “small” film, but as the story builds up and the characters come into focus, you know you are witnessing something rare and precious: an American independent film that’s understated and intelligent, as well as utterly free of showiness and calculation.

There are few surprises here after the narrative’s turn to survival horror as the film plods to its inevitable conclusion, and even that final shot feels unearned.

As the heart of the story, however, Sarah Snook delivers a knockout performance that calls on her to perform the kind of tricky scenes that could have resulted in bad laughs throughout if handled incorrectly. Not only does she pull off her performance brilliantly throughout—there is not one moment in which she is anything less that utterly convincing and believable.

The movie never entirely rises to the height of its ambitions, though: there are moments when you can practically hear it straining to impart significance to what is, in the end, a fairly standard sensitive-young-criminal-in-over-his-head story.

This is a film we’ve never seen before: Syeed explores the heart of a rarely visited landscape, and the souls of the resilient Kashmiri people. This is an amazing film.

It's just a frantic, flash-cutting frenzy. Even the slower, more intimate family scenes feature so many swooping-up-from-below shots and so many sudden inserts that moments (emotional or physical) are never given a chance to land.

A very nearly epic romance, one that approaches the idea of a ménage-a-trois as emblematic of a particular idealism on the part of its participants rather than a hotsy-totsy taboo-busting arrangement.

It's quite good, for what it is. But it's that "for what it is" part that proves slightly exasperating.

How badly do you want to see rabid computer-generated zombie-monkeys die violently? Because there's not much else worth recommending in [Rec] 4: Apocalypse.

The thing you'll remember about P'tit Quinquin, over even the most perfectly timed joke or the adorably misshapen head of Quinquin, is the face of Bernard Pruvost, as the detective protecting his flock from the murderer.

The Woman in Black 2 might have served as an effective tribute to movies like "Curse of the Cat People." That is, if it hadn't completely squandered all this goodwill in its last third.

This lavish period piece contains enough thrills, spills and moments of cinematic grace that not only manage to push it through the rough spots but allow it to put most American action films of recent vintage to shame.

Ultimately Leviathan may divide viewers between those who find its possible meanings too numerous and inchoate and others who welcome the challenges of helping create its meaning.

Entertaining in spots, obvious and irritating in others, with a one-note schticky performance from Christopher Waltz as Walter, Big Eyes is a strangely conventional entry in Tim Burton's filmography.

The Gambler should have been called “Three Supporting Characters in Search of a Lead.” A gaunt Mark Wahlberg stares out from the poster, his name is above the title, and he’s in almost every frame of this remake, but his character may as well be non-existent.

I didn’t laugh once, but there were several lines that, in context, got a wide fool-grin out of me.

One of the more tough-minded and effective war pictures of post-American-Century American cinema.

Cotillard can be an exquisitely subtle actress, with expressive eyes and a face that are made for quiet suffering. Even when Two Days, One Night drags a bit, Cotillard’s performance remains compelling.

The singing is often splendid. The bits of humor are deftly handled. The pace is relatively swift. And it never feels like a static rendition of a theatrical event dumbed down for a younger demographic.

Known for her superb indie dramas “I Will Follow” and “Middle of Nowhere”, DuVernay has proven herself a master of small, intimate moments. Selma never loses focus on the interpersonal dynamics between King and his followers, his detractors and his family.

It’s one of those inspirational Hollywood dramas about which there isn’t anything "overtly wrong" with it. It’s well-cast, it looks great, it has that intense centerpiece in the raft, and it certainly conveys a true story worth telling. And yet I keep coming back to that beautiful sunrise that opens the film. It’s just too damn pretty.

Filmmaker Mike Leigh's biography of the landscape painter J.M.W. Turner is what critics call "austere" — which means it's slow and grim and deliberately hard to love — yet it's fascinating, and the performances and photography are outstanding.

If there are any heroic figures in this sad tale, it’s the women of Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, a grassroots activists organization that took notice of the killings back in the ‘80s and spent decades trying to bring official and media attention to them.

Visually splendid, but generically flat-footed, Song of the Sea is an animated fantasy that comes close to greatness, but is rarely as clever as it is comforting.

Annie is light on its feet, frothy, and always insistently, at times provocatively kind, determined to melt grumpy hearts like marshmallows.

This movie struck me as both Ceylan’s plainest, and perhaps his finest.

The adult viewer, reflecting on the idea that this is “just” a kid’s movie, might conclude that kids deserve a little better.

There’s a lot of good awkward fun to be had as the viewer simultaneously laughs at Otto’s expense and hopefully commiserates a bit with him.

Much of the film's appeal lies in watching the two lead actors enact subtle, honest moments of observed behavior.

There are some wonderful sequences in Battle of the Five Armies, and the attention to detail is breathtaking (each different space rendered with thrilling complexity), but the film feels more like a long drawn-out closing paragraph rather than (like "The Desolation of Smaug") a vibrant stand-alone piece of the story.

A numbing and soulless spectacle of 3-D, computer-generated imagery run amok, Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings presents an enduring tale by pummeling us over the head with it.

The Color of Time has considerable ambition, but no inner life.

The Captive may appear to bite off a little more than it can chew but it's one of the most satisfyingly baroque thrillers of the year, and thanks to a perfectly judged performance by Ryan Reynolds, it's quietly heartbreaking, too.

There’s a rather disturbing sense of privilege in After the Fall. It can’t help but justify Ben’s actions by stacking the deck against the victims.

Whatever its shortcomings, “Magician” accomplishes quite a bit as a corrective, and it also gives one an hour and a half in the company of Orson Welles. That in and of itself is worth at least a three-star rating.

Most filmmakers barely know how to capitalize on Dawson’s talents other than to fill up the screen with her goddess-like beauty. But Rock treats her single mom who boasts a checkered romantic past along with strong opinions as an equal sparring partner.

Inherent Vice is a film about a stoner which itself seems stoned. This is just one small part of what makes it distinctive.

The film commendably gives us vivid and memorable people whose personal stories strikingly illuminate their peoples’ struggles.

In news that will probably not startle too many of you, The Pyramid is pretty much junk from start to finish.

On both levels of the film, the archival and the textual, there’s much that’s fascinating and worthwhile. What’s regrettable is the refusal to contextualize and explore the ongoing ramifications of what we see and hear.

While much of it is quite funny, the film ends up feeling like a good comedy sketch stretched out unnecessarily to a feature-length.

Even if you can accept that there's nothing inherently wrong with being a little misanthropic in the right context, you'll probably find that Murder of a Cat's mean streak isn't wide enough.

The moments of believability in the surprisingly entertaining Life Partners have greater resonance.

What exerts an odd fascination here is that each character heartily embodies a different variety of solipsistic creep; you start feeling sorry for the creators of the movie for having to live among such awful people. Then it dawns on you that the film’s creators don’t find these people awful at all — they find them normal. Terrifying, really.

Remember this name: Aksel Hennie. If Pioneer, a mixed bag of a conspiracy thriller, works at all, it largely does so because of him. Hennie, now into his second decade as an actor in Norwegian film (he’s also written and directed a feature) gives a spectacular performance as Petter.

Miss Julie is a rather strange experience, with its consistently static medium shots of the three actors, as they roar their lines at one another. But it has an undeniable power.

If only Dying of the Light had broken Schrader's recent close-but-no-cigar streak.

It features career-best work by Long and Rossum, both eagerly devouring Esmail’s witty script. Yes, some of it is overwritten and a bit too clever for its own good, but more often it’s an engaging character piece.

Remote Area Medical is a rare contemporary documentary that is determined to tell by showing.

With a combination of power and grace, Julianne Moore elevates Still Alice above its made-for-cable-television trappings, and delivers one of the more memorable performances of her career.

Like classic military comedies from “Catch-22” to “M*A*S*H,” Talya Lavie’s Zero Motivation offers its own appealing blend of irreverence and absurdism.

Witherspoon tries, even doing her first-ever nude scenes, to convince us she has hit the skids. Yet no matter how greasy her hair or how dead her eyes, I just can’t buy her as a self-destructive junkie.

If you’re not enraptured with the work of Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and the rest of the artists at Ghibli, it may not be precisely what you’re looking for, but Sanada captures something poetic about art and creativity that could speak to anyone, animation fan or otherwise.

It is nonetheless a very well-mounted film, with outstanding contributions in Alvarado’s cinematography and Eric Andrew Kuhn’s subtly expressive score.

The finest and most genuinely provocative horror movie to emerge in this still very-new century.

The Imitation Game is most on its game when it primarily sticks to being a John le Carre-lite espionage version of “Revenge of the Nerds.”