That kind of gallow’s humor defines the surface tone of Arkansas, which often feels like a riff on “Breaking Bad,” only now it’s more about how sad it is to be poor white trash.

A largely tedious cinematic lump of coal that unsuccessfully tries to stretch its one-joke premise out to 101 minutes in a tonally uneven attempt to position itself as a new alternative holiday classic.

The film will only work for you if you expect it not to make sense, and enjoy jokes that go on and on and then suddenly (and repeatedly) jack-knife off a cliff or two.

Al Pacino's "Looking For Richard" grappled with the great challenge of the play itself, and that monster of a lead role. NOW: In the Wings of a World Stage feels self-congratulatory in comparison, a cast sharing its fun photo album of a year-long vacation in "exotic" locations.

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.

There’s a lot of potential in the ideas that King plays with in “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.” If only they had been given to a filmmaker willing to answer the call.

A sort of “It” meets “Scream” energy courses through Eli Craig’s film, one that’s clever and thrilling enough in bloody spurts, even if it never quite reaches its true potential.

At its best is more a mood piece than a narrative, an exploration of the shifting power in relationships with striking images and overtones of duality. But at its weakest, it is more of a workshop than a story — the ultimate resolution, like the story Lana tells that gives the film its name, is less meaningful than it aspires to be.

One of the most spectacular and frustrating mixed bags of the superhero blockbuster era, The Flash is simultaneously thoughtful and clueless, challenging and pandering. It features some of the best digital FX work I've seen and some of the worst.

It’s a film that’s tempting to dismiss because of its bleak, misanthropic viewpoint on the world, but that would be discounting the quality of the filmmaking and the riveting performance at its center.

Foiled by a weak imagination and clear limits to its awareness, Rainbow Time doesn’t become the strong feminist statement it ultimately wants to be.

There’s a “let’s put on a show” energy in the performances of Reynolds, Ferrell, and Spencer that’s easy to like.

Zombieland: Double Tap is more of the same, but also much less. The cast is larger, the carnage is gnarlier and the comedy is even more meta than before. But while individual moments and action sequences might be amusing, the endeavor as a whole feels like a tepid retread.

Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan do their best to elevate Military Wives from a simple tune to a symphony, but the notes just aren’t there on the page.

Trolls is a sugar-shocked “Shrek,” an aggressively auto-tuned animated fun ride for easily distracted times.

A movie that bases part of its drab period fiction on the fantasy of getting Freud’s friendly advice, all for the price of a good cigar. But the script, based on a revered novel from Robert Seethaler, concerns more serious themes than Freud's off-hand advice, though its shallow storytelling gives little to contemplate.

Last Man Standing is a startlingly scattershot piece of filmmaking from a director who normally has a sure, personal hand on his projects.

It’s an acting dream part and Moura’s more than up to the challenge.

Even with the poetic, vicious grin we can see from Brake’s gummy smile, feasting on the dreams of lovable people misguided by materialism, there’s far too little to fear, or think about.

Leading man Johnny Depp is up to the challenge, and he gives a finely tuned performance here that kind of feels like his first "old man" turn, and he’s matched by a charming piece of work from Minami, but Minamata is weighed down by self-important direction that loses the human beings in this story by prioritizing the headlines.

Butcher’s Crossing is unfocused, distant, and flat.

A rather terrible comedy-satire, bears the DNA of at least two strains of terrible films.

A well-produced, visually impressive, character-driven fable about the man who would be king.

Club Zero has a monotonous quality, ultimately, because existing with a Brutalist-architecture ideology is monotonous. Still, the film exerts an unnerving pull.

It’s tightly directed and well-performed, particularly by Columbus Short and a career-redefining turn from Wilmer Valderrama. If anything — and trust me when I tell you this is the opposite of most independently produced noirs from debut directors — there’s an overabundance of ideas in The Girl is in Trouble, sometimes to a distracting degree.

We may find ourselves agreeing with the skeptical podcasters and journalists who see Johnson as a kook or a crafty snake oil salesman who persuades gullible people that they have a problem and he has the answer.

The story of this fight is fascinating, and the repercussions of this case are still being felt today. But the cinematic treatment of the story is confused. The movie often seems to have a hard time making up its mind whether it wants to be “The Insider” or “Mean Girls.”

It has a solid story to tell, and tells it with no winks and few, if any, frills. It’s involving and ultimately exciting.