Looking at the picture’s mostly sun-drenched and drolly cheerful surface layer, one marvels at Rohmer’s unerring sense of what drama kings and queens young people can be.

This layered melodrama strains for emotional impact with only occasional success while eventually blurring into an overlong and contrived parlor trick.

Too bad it isn't a wickeder, subtler, more imaginative movie.

All these folks are pretty bland, really; then again, even gorgeous, charismatic actors like these can get steamrolled when Hart is around.

The singing talent is there, but Eastwood and writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise opt for a more realistic depiction of events. They transform Jersey Boys from jukebox musical to movie biopic, exchanging one much-maligned genre for another.

Obviously, this tale engages many hot-button issues in present-day Israel. But does it say anything particularly incisive or meaningful about their complexity? On the contrary, its ultimate message seems to rest on a kind of glib and simplistic equivalency.

It’s the circle of life. Someone should write a song about it. And wouldn’t you know? Jonathan does just that in one of the many endings Lullaby has to offer.

The fault is in Towne’s direction. People sometimes complain that flashy, ostentatious visual stylization takes them out of the movie; what took me out of this movie was its flat, lifeless, unimaginative and conventional visual style.

What is truly delightful about the film is its loopy, gently slapstick sense of humor, its use of continuous running gags that pay off cumulatively (no small feat), and the dreamy sense that Schilling's somnambulism is pierced through only by the insane incomprehensible behavior of others.

Witching and Bitching is accordingly overlong, and conceptually thin. But like most of de la Iglesia's films, it's also freakishly energetic, and often hysterical.

There’s enough interesting, raw material in Ivory Tower to consider but one wishes it was shaped into something more cohesive and pointed in its attack and approach.

Easily the most daring and politically provocative film yet to emerge from Iran.

A well-observed and patiently told story, with one good scene after another, featuring amazing performances across the board, but particularly from newcomer Josh Wiggins.

The Signal continues to get weirder, and creepier, and to bring up unusual questions for the viewer.

In the end, all that can be relied upon are objects and gestures. The littlest things that tie us to each other. The film often slows to a standstill to show children playing, cars passing, people talking and streets emptied of traffic.

A bleak, brutal film; at times, its monotony can be draining.

It's a self-aware movie that makes fun of the macho clichés it indulges.

If anyone is concerned about the way women are presented on the big screen these days, just look at how an evolved male like Hiccup respectfully treats his girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera) and the portrayal of Blanchett’s Valka.

The Case Against 8 beautifully reminds us of the human beings who opened up their lives to the world and became representatives for one of the most important movements for equal rights this country has ever seen.

It's uneven, and more than a little mystifying, but Rigor Mortis is also a bittersweet coda to a deliriously silly series of films.

While the cast may not include any names that are familiar in these parts, they are all effortlessly charming and engaging throughout.

What is scarier than an unexplainable, unidentifiable sound in the pitch-black woods, miles from civilization? Willow Creek makes the case that the answer is nothing.

What makes it a crummy picture is that it really doesn’t turn into something harder.

The film's relentlessly quirky style of comedy is consequently very self-conscious. Every joke in Ping Pong Summer is a variation on a theme: 1985 was the most awkward time to be alive.

It's as messy as a teen’s bedroom and packed with all manner of distracting clutter that needlessly burdens a plot.

Borgman can sometimes frustrate but it is an accomplished piece of work, driven by a uniquely malevolent tonal balance and two fantastic central performances. It sometimes simmers when I wish it would boil over but damn if it isn’t fascinating to watch the water bubble.

West is such a technically accomplished filmmaker, and his cast of semi-regulars so committed to the narrative, that the resultant movie gives enough unsettling atmosphere and upsetting gut-level shock that this viewer didn’t mind too much all the stuff he wasn’t getting, such as intellectual coherence, not to mention any kind of profound insight into the cult hive mind.

The movie is like sitting at a restaurant with a guy who’s got some of the best stories you’ve heard in your life — provided, that is, that you’re into stories about showbiz.