With its cast of extremely likable performers, the perfect summer-in-the-city backdrop—in this case, New York — and a soundtrack stuffed with catchy, well-produced hits, Begin Again makes for easy-breezy entertainment.

This is not a film for everyone by a long shot. Still, those willing to take a chance and embrace it on its own very distinct and occasionally deranged terms are likely to find themselves agreeing with the ultimate assessment of Mirren, who once described it as “an irresistible mix of art and genitals.”

Narratively disjointed but drumming with earnest yearning, directors Jonathan Vinel’s and Caroline Poggi’s queer romantic thriller “Eat the Night” understands the lived-in comforts of a virtual space when compared to the horrors of the outside world.

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

Suffused with plenty of gross-out, phantasmagoric body horror but short on actual spine-tingling scares, the handsomely-produced Amulet asserts Garai more as a gifted genre stylist than a savvy storyteller.

Somehow what comes close to dissolving into heartbreaking tragedy instead offers the merest whiff of hope for the future. As Neill’s seen-it-all Walter says when all hell begins to break loose, “Everyone’s got a story like this … it’s as old as the hills.” If only said tale were told with a bit more consistency.

The film resonates with deeper messages: the damage done by gentrification, the abyss between the haves and the have-nots, the poor treatment of workers by elites. You don't expect a romcom to explore these issues. But The Valet does. It works.

This is funny to a point, but the problem with “Stress Positions” is that said point arrives about halfway through. The runtime that remains gets overloaded with too many plot threads, characters, and repeated punchlines, Hammel essentially turning the proceedings into a failed exercise in Blake Edwards-style farce.

A near-future dystopia that navigates a fractured society hours away from collapse, Michel Franco’s New Order is a relentless and blood-soaked study of social injustice, gripping to watch despite its graphic and escalating brutality. Sadly, it’s also one that only vaguely engages with the need for prosperity for all.

And the source of inspiration here is an affable role model, brought to life by “Stranger Things” actor Noah Schnapp with plenty of zest and believable innocence.

It's satisfying, for the most part—a solid romantic comedy with sharp dialogue, amusing characters, a soundtrack of well-worn feel-good hits, and a few surprises up its sleeve. Its only major flaw is an inability to imagine the bosses as richly as the leads.

For the most part, Stay Awake stays low-key and believable, particularly when the actors are moving through real-world locations while living their lives.

When a movie loves its characters and story as much as this one, and dedicates every aspect of filmmaking and performance to doing them justice, and consistently puts virtuosity in service of meaning, the result conjures a feeling that's close to what you experience when someone you adore has a great and richly deserved success, and you're privileged to be able to witness it and cheer them on.

Control Freak is a film so raw, messy, and sincere that it seems to have been torn from the bodies of the people who made it.

Putting on display the day-to-day reckonings of Palestinian life under violent Israeli occupation, Nabulsi’s film touches the heart but loses grip on the mind as it journeys to juggle more subplots than its hands can handle.

It’s almost too pretty in a self-consciously artful way, and that overriding aesthetic suffocates the underlying truth of the lead actors’ performances.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a return to form for director Tim Burton only in the sense that, like Burton early in his career, it’s not interested in form except at the immediate level of the image and the scene. It’s an overstuffed toy bag of a movie: every minute or two, the director digs into the bag and produces a new toy.

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.

Goodrich is the type of rewatchable adult-minded comedy that feels like a welcome sight.

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.

Director Matthew López makes an impressive feature debut with Red, White & Royal Blue, a love story that skillfully blends the familiar beats of a classic movie romance with the distinctive details of two of the world’s most public young men trying to keep their relationship private.

The gloomy turns in her film accumulate to such an extreme outcome in the end that you inevitably start raising your eyebrows to the contrived narrative. In that, Sadie shares its protagonist’s most defining attribute — a frustratingly manipulative nature.

The major problem with That Summer is the inescapable fact that it only barely qualifies as a movie.

The Children Act is perhaps a bit stilted in the overt way it sometimes attempts to spell out its arguments. But director Richard Eyre’s film still poses sophisticated questions around family, religion, marriage, law and the delicate boundaries that can or cannot be crossed in each institution.

The monsters are brilliantly designed and skillfully animated (except for a few shots where Kong looks a tad cartoony), and the army of visual and sound effects artists convince you that that these CGI titans live and breathe and weigh hundreds of tons.

I can't imagine anyone who liked the show not enjoying this film, even though the first half is stronger than the second, which spirals into a frenzy of double- and triple-crossing that's less engaging than watching the characters reconnect, awkwardly but with feeling.

A tidy and nasty and often effective thriller that doesn’t quite blossom into full horror.

As far as coming-of-age musicals go, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie sends a charming, feel-good message of self-acceptance.