Instead of ratcheting up tension, Squire seems content to sustain a minor-stakes atmosphere that, well, abandons his leading lady in a film that doesn’t do anything interesting with her predicament.

Poser might have been more satisfying if its gauzy night-club aesthetic and bold, underlined dialogue didn’t smother viewers with trite observations about hipster artistes.

Incoherently directed, thematically muddled, and poorly acted, writer/director/producer/star Livia De Paolis’ drama The Lost Girls should have stayed on the page.

Garcia and Estefan and all of our feelings about weddings bring so much warmth and good humor to the movie that it calls for a "yes" on the RSVP.

There are certain varieties of whimsy that either click with you or don’t. I point this out because what didn’t click for me in “Brian and Charles,” a new comedy directed by Jim Archer, might do something for you.

Instead of leaving viewers with a better or more informed idea of what makes her tick as a person and as an artist, "Halftime" feels more like a ruthlessly efficient election ad for a political campaign that was decided a long time ago.

Imagine, if you will, a dystopian nightmare set in a post-industrialized world that’s forever teetering on its last legs, but never quite falls over. This description does not, admittedly, tell you much, but the movie’s less of a narrative-driven parable than a dazzling and corrosively cynical vision of a hyper-compartmentalized society that’s struggling to both die and reset.

Xavier Giannoli's film adaptation of Balzac's book leans heavily on voiceover, so much so that some sequences are practically an audiobook with images attached. This could be seen as a negative, but in practice the voiceover-heavy sections are some of the film's most successful.

The Score is an ambitious effort, a movie that is both a tense crime drama and a musical. Skillful attention has been paid to both elements by writer/director Malachi Smyth and a strong cast. But these elements are never integrated enough to become organic, and never come together to create a satisfying whole.

Meandering around complex spiritual inklings more than it makes a coherent statement out of them, "The Righteous" manages to impress with its curious demeanor even when its overwrought ideas don’t add up to an articulate whole in the aftermath.

Not since Morgan Freeman’s Joe Clark in “Lean on Me” has a real-life person’s ass been kissed more by a movie. At least that movie had superior lips.

Ninety minutes of footage like this, minus any characters or plot at all, probably would've resulted in an artistically better use of a couple hundred million dollars than "Jurassic World: Dominion," which will doubtless be a smash on the order of all the other entries in the franchise, even though it doesn't do much more than the bare minimum you'd expect for one of these films, and not all that well.

By the time the film eases into its final stretch, it becomes a sub-genre of drama that I call "accidental radio," meaning that even though there are pictures, you might not see them all because you're covering your eyes a lot of the time.

As far as spin-offs go, “Lightyear” is a lot of fun. The voice talent is topnotch, especially Palmer and Evans.

The documentary from directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes briskly tells the story of The Jane Collective, which helped thousands of women obtain abortions when they were still illegal in the late 1960s and early ‘70s...the story of their daring remains frighteningly relevant nearly 50 years later as it appears that Roe is increasingly in jeopardy, providing an undercurrent of tension throughout.

If Hustle passes around a lot of sports movie cliches, it does so with a light touch. And its sense of atmosphere, and depiction of Stanley’s milieu, is sensitive and knowing, But be warned: this movie is VERY basketball-oriented. If you’re not a fan, you might feel a little lost.

Benediction bears the distinctive stamp of its writer/director, Terence Davies, a man whose films feel more like poetic meditations on moods, emotions, and events than straightforward narratives. It’s as if we are floating above the material, touching down in different places at the filmmaker’s discretion.

This is a stylized affair, and the care taken with every choice—the apartment interior, the furnishings, the color of the curtains, Julia's red sweater and red tights, etc.—is meticulous. The film crackles with icy dread.

Dashcam succeeds as a barrage of icky stimuli that may go great with a rowdy audience.

It’s a collective dream coated in a blue lacquer dancing on the edge of something unrecognizable, something wholly transcendent. And it arrives with an exceptional display of bravura.

Director Andrew Ahn proficiently handles the numerous plot lines, character conflicts, and the tonal shifts between raunch and sweetness.

It is such an old-fashioned action film that it practically plays like a discarded Chuck Norris script, just with some modern gender politics and social issues in play (although someone like Cynthia Rothrock could have easily headlined almost exactly the same film in the ‘80s).

Part of the film's specialness lies in the fact that there seems to be little rhyme or reason to the choices it makes, or when it decides to make them.

With its amusing training montages, colorful supporting characters, and uplifting message of perseverance, The Phantom of the Open does exactly what you expect it will in the most familiar, comforting manner imaginable. It earns the politest of golf claps.

From its opening, there’s a distinct sense of unease shrouded over Miracle, the third feature written and directed by Romanian filmmaker Bogdan George Apetri.

You might think that a movie about the construction of one of the most iconic structures in the world would be carefully put together. But that is not the case with the sumptuous, often frustrating Eiffel, the story of a man whose name is as joined to the Tower emblematic of Paris as the 133-year-old beams that are still sturdily riveted (not bolted) together.

Misshapen parts and all, “Fortune Favors” fulfills its purpose as a joyfully eccentric tribute to personal authenticity.

After Blue advertises itself as a sci-fi/fantasy epic, and although it’s a long and complicated story with many elaborate settings, it ends up feeling small and inconsequential by the end.