The only reason it’s not unbearably saccharine is that Paul Rudd, again, grounds a film in something that feels genuine. He’s never an actor that comes across forced, and he does his best to find the truth in Burnett’s overwritten script.

There’s a lot more nonsense here, all of which starts out intriguingly before overstaying its welcome.

The movie is pedantic, humorless, dry — all of the things that, as it happens, “The Searchers” is not.

The result is another vacuous melodrama/thriller that doesn’t lay a glove on the era’s historical complexities.

A welcome surprise for sports cinema, The Phenom handles itself like Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" when exploring the psychology of a Lebron James or Johnny Manziel-like sports sensation.

If all I saw was the first half, I would have given it a shrug and left in a semi-foul mood. But the whole is greater for being two parts in this case, making me glad that I have finally lost my Hong Sang-soo virginity.

Best of all: you don't have to wait until a concluding set piece for To to prove his prowess as a storyteller.

As inherently astonishing and powerful as this little-known episode is, it has not been well-served by Ross’ lumpy, ill-conceived script, which ends up wasting Matthew McConaughey’s terrific lead performance and other strong acting contributions.

With all its humor (and there is a ton), Wiener-Dog, following the journey of a dachshund as it is shuffled from owner to owner, is one of Solondz's sharpest visions of futility.

Waititi’s film defies its convention through grounded characters, witty dialogue, compassionate filmmaking and inventive storytelling. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is consistently clever and even moving. It’s proof that we’ll keep listening to the familiar stories if they’re this well-told.

The Daniels have made a film that's at once a labor of love and a work of sheer arrogant nerve, one that is as likely to be described as a classic, an ambitious misfire, and one of the worst films ever made by any three people who see it together. How many movies can you say that about?

The most striking part of Nuts! is its extensive use of animation.

The Neon Demon only works when Refn finds the right middle ground between obliquely hinting at and explicitly spelling out what his movie's about.

Lively is superb here, giving one of those hyper-focused, action-lead performances that's as much an athletic feat as an aesthetic one.

Parched is a filmmaker’s attempt to understand how and why these women continue to live.

The episodic narrative of Seoul Searching can be too long and unfocused, but its stubbornness comes from filmmaking that is overflowing with self-pride.

While Clown is far from the disastrous misfire that typically stains VOD horror movies (most range from awful to “I never want to see a movie again”), it comes apart about halfway through, losing a very difficult tonal balance. Having said that, there’s more to like here than the studio burial would have you believe.

Feels like it probably began life as a one-act play, set almost entirely in Lucy’s living room and with a small cast of characters. It has that feeling of a piece that needed a bit more workshopping to discern its purpose and, like a lot of independent cinema that feels like it has theatrical origins, never becomes convincingly cinematic.

The film rarely comes to life because Rollins, the only compelling actor in the otherwise amateurish cast, is underutilized, and virtually everything else underdeveloped.

Raiders! is a love poem to film geeks everywhere, giving them heroes whose own geekdom is a pinnacle of aspiration.

With her debut feature, Bang Gang, Eva Husson captures the restless rhythms of adolescence—the push-pull of angst and boredom, of self-consciousness and the yearning to lose oneself completely.

A film of uncommon restraint and considerable compassion. It presents a seemingly helpless situation and focuses on the tiny, fleeting moments of regret, resentment, reconciliation, hope, loyalty and love within and between these characters.

The moviemakers craft a satisfying narrative while leaving the viewer with some questions; this is a movie that manages to be disquieting and entertaining simultaneously.

Reality has never been this fun, even if it's frequently this random and hopeless. Better to take the oblong fantasy.

The best thing about this movie is that you believe in the relationship. Hart and Johnson are a classic comedy duo in the tradition of Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope & Bing Crosby and Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor.

It's charming. It's funny. The case they investigate has a legitimate twist to it, there's a lot of French intrigue, there's much that is totally implausible, but the film lives or dies on the dynamic of the two main guys. It lives.

The result might be less fulfilling this time, but “Dory” is ultimately worth the voyage.

Elizabeth Allen’s generically titled thriller, Careful What You Wish For, plays like a painfully stilted high school production of “Fatal Attraction.”