The fact that a woman has Crohn's disease is meant to be hilarious, in a nudge-nudge wink-wink "You know she's not giving her husband any sex" kind of way. It's wretched.

Champs is a documentary that wants to say something sociological about the sweet science of boxing. In this regard, it has an undeniable power.

Throughout the picture, Bernstein interacts with genteel folk who quietly deplore what they see as the American perception of art and art-making.

Gibney crams as much material as possible into a quick two hours (he really knows how to edit and pace a piece like this one as it feels much shorter) and yet, to be fair, there’s still an angle missing just by virtue of the fact that he couldn’t get anyone from the Church of Scientology today on camera.

No, what's most disquieting about It Follows is the way it presents sex as neither abnormal, nor beneficial.

The Cobbler is almost fascinatingly awful enough to recommend. If one subscribes to the theory that you can learn as much from a bad movie as from a good one, this one’s a master class in what not to do.

Most of the rest of the film surrounding it is a conceptually weak and dramatically muddled mess that has acquired a game and good cast and then given them precious little to do.

Run All Night is proof that quality action films don’t really need to reinvent the wheel each time out as long as they make it spin this smoothly.

Still, you can’t fault a family entertainment extravaganza too much if it actually goes out of its way to integrate the ensemble of a fairy tale in an Old World European setting with a diverse array of supporting players. Branagh deserves an extra bravo just for that. And we mean it sincerely.

While it does have a few things of interest going for it, this low-budget effort ends up arriving at its necessarily predictable conclusion in too many unnecessarily predictable ways.

The Champagne experience is a particular one, and even if you don’t imbibe this movie can give you an appreciation for what makes it special.

The filmmakers were able to pay his fee, and so Hopkins shows up for another rubbishy, misbegotten project and shames the whole enterprise with his open and volatile face, his incisive voice, his mere ultra-soulful presence.

Faults is a richly-textured movie that concerns the weird space between thinking you know what you're doing, and actually knowing what you're doing.

As exceptional as the acting in the picture is, and it is wonderful — Whitaker and Keitel are as inventive and surprising as they’ve been in years, and the supporting roles played by the likes of Ellen Burstyn and Stan Carp are well-sketched — it can’t entirely lift the movie from the rut it has all but plowed into by the end credits.

This is a huge, unwieldy topic. The filmmakers do an admirable job of condensing their information and making it comprehensible. They don't really succeed in unifying it, though, or in making the whole enterprise seem like more than a collection of talking points for people who are mad about climate change deniers, people paid to sow doubt about the damage caused by smoking, and their ilk.

The rare documentary that gets more and more interesting as it goes along, even ending with an update on this still-unfolding story that just took place.

The best parts of this tepid thriller, which seems designed to actually lower audience’s heart rates, arrive before the plot kicks in.

Under Potrykus’ clever direction and with a striking performance from Joshua Burge, Marty goes from quirky to desperate to dangerous gradually and effectively. He’s not a character to be taken lightly, or quickly forgotten.

The characters are not people, but rough drafts of simplistic character-traits, and the actors (game as they all are) cannot create something out of nothing.

An exhausting slog through overly familiar cliches that is nowhere near as profound or touching as it clearly thinks it is and is utterly lacking in the kind of intelligence and artistry that it so often pays lip service to in the dialogue.

That Guy Dick Miller is the perfect title for Elijah Drenner’s wildly entertaining documentary chronicling the 50-plus years of Miller’s career.

The result feels strained and slapped together, crammed as it is with silly mistaken identities and misunderstandings, adolescent jealousies and slapstick jokes. It’s a sitcom in a sari.

The Widowmaker, narrated by Gillian Anderson, is a disheartening portrait of blatant greed, as well as a fascinating examination of the trial and error process used in the scientific method.

Ultimately, Futuro Beach is a film about displacement and identity, love and its costs. Its considerable satisfactions, though, come mainly from the way the story is told, which spells nothing out, and in fact is so reticent that the viewer is constantly drawn into the creation of meaning.

Out of the Dark never leaves much of an impression despite character actor Stephen Rea's endearingly cocky performance, and an exotic—though largely under-utilized—South American setting.

I walked away from My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn having enjoyed the time spent with Refn, his family, and Ryan Gosling, but without any further insight into the production of “Only God Forgives,” filmmaking in general or this particular talent.

The consequences of seemingly innocuous careless moments, the inexorability of fate, and the possibility of grace or just mere reconciliation in the face of disheartening catastrophe: these are the themes of Bluebird.

Nothing like a trashy, all-hell-breaks-loose onslaught of blood, bullets and babes that borrows inspiration from a recycling bin stuffed with leftovers from ‘60s grindhouse films, Japanese horror, “Kill Bill,” “Saw” and splatter-fest videogames to cleanse one’s visual palate of those highbrow Oscar contenders.