As Hunt’s life unravels, so does the movie, though the story maintains a certain baseline of interest just by virtue of being sordid.

The end result is flawed, but also funny, heartfelt and inclusive movie making.

Spike Lee is relevant again. He's necessary again.

Clearly, this is not a film for everyone, but even though the routine gets highly repetitious, some of the heavy metal numbers are stirring.

Wondering what’s real and what’s just a carefully crafted crock doesn’t make Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood a better experience. It makes it a little pointless and frustrating.

Fortunately, some of the people around Cameron turn out to be more interesting. The best in show is John Gallagher Jr., who brings out both the creepy and comforting sides of “ex-gay” instructor Rick — a seemingly nice guy who’s oblivious to the harm that he’s inflicting on his charges.

Happiness might remain elusive in Nico’s last years, but after years of loneliness and fading fame, at least she can catch a glimpse from time to time.

It’s a tired, inert sci-fi thriller featuring a succession of escalating action sequences that all, somehow, fail to ignite. The cliches mount.

Dogs are notorious scene-stealers in the movies, but in the sappy yet mildly entertaining Dog Days, the humans mug just as shamelessly as their impossibly cute canine counterparts.

In any case, Puzzle ends strangely, in a way that’s not clear what the filmmakers intended or how we’re supposed to feel about it. It’s entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional.

There is much to think about in Far From the Tree, a worthy and at times tender film.

A consistently absorbing, often gripping, sometimes muddled whydidhedoit (because we already know whodunit), The Third Murder moves along Kore-eda’s customary careful, incisive pace, yet manages to be, for the most part, a riveting legal thriller.

It is never remotely serious, and yet for the most part it isn’t funny, either.

The movie is 105 minutes long but seems about 45 minutes longer, with uneventful stretches and at least three sections where the action stops for musical interludes featuring goopy pop music.

It’s charming and filled with wonderful performances, and has a nuanced story that will have adults walking out of the theater thinking about their own inner Pooh, and questioning why the hell they’re working so hard.

The film has its flaws, but after watching its catalog of shifty hedge fund types, Kardashians, plastic surgery addicts, bling-laden rappers and children of Hollywood royalty, you can’t help but agree.

This is a fascinating portrait of an artist.

Not only a portrait of a great artist, but a sensitive and engrossing depiction of the act of creation and its process.

Teen Titans never reaches that sweet spot where adult and kid humor align in a single gag.

Cruise and McQuarrie have made the best film in the franchise’s history and the most enjoyable and exciting action movie in several years.

It’s never easy to translate visually the inner turmoil of a struggling artist, and “Gauguin” is a prime example of that.

What starts out as a bottom-feeder noir a la “Breaking Bad” or “Hell or High Water” transitions into scattershot ambitions of being a mythic tragedy.

At the end of the day, it's all just a nihilistic trifle, yet before the final sign-off, we can't help but think twice about what else is lurking on the internet.

Even now, I can’t decide if it was horrible or if I liked it and must conclude that both things must be true. It really was horrible, and I liked it, anyway.

One of the year’s great films, and somehow you can tell from the opening moments.

Something about Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot keeps it from adding up to a satisfying movie experience. It has the feeling, rather, of a story you might hear about a friend of friend.

Too bad. The trappings of The Equalizer 2 are first-rate — the star, the director, the central character, the concept — and they make for a movie that’s watchable and intermittently pleasing. But not enough time was spent getting the substance right.

Graizer takes his time and never feels the need to spell everything out, and The Cakemaker is a testament to what filmmakers can achieve when they trust the audience.

One of the more thoughtful and valiant feature film directorial debuts in recent memory.

In watching Ava, a visually inviting and sharp portrait of teenage life in Iran, one must admire how writer-director Sadaf Foroughi was able to play her own tune in life.

Shock and Awe is no “All the President’s Men,” but it does present a nice balance to the earlier film’s ultimately rosy picture.

It may surprise you to hear that in the end there is a sliver of hope offered in Under the Tree, so thin that it’s almost not there. A less interesting movie might simply have served up a headlong plunge into the abyss — but Sigurdsson gives us a tiny flicker of light.

A film that defies lowered expectations — if not the tired adolescent mind-set and poor joke-writing — and emerges as the best in the series.

It’s slow getting off the ground, and never completely achieves flight, at least not in the sense of transport. It remains a series of sequences, some terrific and some less so, but at least the movie keeps finding new ways for people to fall off a building while on fire. So there’s that.

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind captures that special quality that Williams had, the extra quality that went beyond the laughs, that communicated his whole being.

As fresh as today’s newspaper — or a blog post — or a tweet from a minute ago. It’s a response to what is going on right now, and it feels like it, not only in content, but in form.

That Summer leaves me with Beale fatigue. It would seem to appeal to “Grey Gardens” completists only.

Three Identical Strangers tells a remarkable story. In fact, it tells several. It’s already extraordinary 20 minutes in, and then it goes to unexpected and yet more amazing places, like a narrative feature by a master storyteller.

If you liked Whitney Houston before, you’ll like her even more after seeing this. You’ll also admire her and feel pity for her and feel frustrated by her.

First Purge further lessens the drama by offering a hero and villains too mercenary to care about.

Unlike the sometimes cornpone depictions of backwoods life in “Winter’s Bone,” the folksier moments here seem organic.

A thinking person’s action movie - as long as you don’t think too much. Even if it has its share of preposterous moments, it crackles with nonstop tension, combat scenes and double-crosses.

The best-case scenario for a movie based on a soft-drink advertisement. It is a disjointed and inconsistent comedy, shoddily filmed at times, while occasionally abandoning storytelling effort altogether.

Damsel is a misguided exercise, a 113-minute mistake and a waste of time, but it does have a good opening.

Word of warning: Don’t go to the theater with a full stomach. Some of the images of animal abuse are graphic and hard to watch, although this is rather tame compared with other documentaries on the same subject.

Boundaries is a slog, a succession of weak and uninteresting incidents, leading to a conclusion that seems foreordained.

Escape means a roller-coaster finish, and with this delightful sequence achieved without the aid of computer effects, this “Ant-Man” entry stakes its own corner of the Marvel Universe sandbox as a throwback to ’80s-style childlike adventure.

Howard and Pratt don’t get to do much besides run like hell, but a movie like this in a way emphasizes rather than obscures the importance of star quality. They’re just so good-looking that it’s a pleasure to watch them -- idealized surrogates for humanity.

McKay doesn’t take sides in the immigration debate, although he is clearly sympathetic of these hard-working young men who experience great indignities to work jobs most of us would not want. His approach is more cinema verite than high-stakes drama. It is almost a gentle, sweet film.

Director Ben Lewin has crafted a biopic spy thriller, kind of, but the script has neither the character shadings to be a biopic nor the pacing and twist and turns to be a spy thriller.

This is a film that would never work without brilliant casting of the child actors, and it’s a marvel to watch the interplay between the young girls, who don’t deliver a false note.

Tag isn’t interesting at all, but its failure is. It’s the kind of movie that makes the viewer ask questions, such as, why isn’t this working? Why is this bombing? Why is this dying the death? Why am I shifting in my seat just to stay conscious? The movie seems like it should be funny, but it’s not, so why?

One of the nicest things about Hearts Beat Loud, and there are several nice things, is the way that Offerman and Clemons seem like father and daughter. This is the work of the actors, but also of the director.

Incredibles 2 was 14 years in the making, and it feels almost that long watching it.

The film is an excellent reminder of how important soccer is globally. It’s more than a sport.

It lacks a moral center, and at times seems oblivious to the laughable things that are happening on screen. It’s also about 20 minutes too long. And yet SuperFly is entertaining, period. The dialogue is fast and fun, and the sense of fashion is so pervasive that it occasionally distracts from the movie.

As a first-time director, Pearce manages something difficult. He creates a tone that acknowledges absurdity, but also consequences. He finds an edge that’s extreme, that’s weird, that’s satirical and that goes right to the edge of farce, and yet the movie is at all points as involving as an intense drama.

As an antidote to the frenetic nature of a lot of children’s TV of the day, Rogers preferred a measured pace on his show, and even made judicious use of silence. These are just two of the numerous gifts given by this extraordinary man to the children lucky enough to have watched “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

From a narrative feature, we want drama and illumination, the truths that go beyond the plain facts. That’s where Mary Shelley comes up a bit short. It’s never less than competent and intelligent, and here and there it’s better than that.

A category of films that reward viewers who view the cinemas as an escape, rather than an arena of deep thought. If you’re coming off a super bad week, or have had a few drinks, or just happen to find a crowded theater where laughs are contagious, you’ll have a much better time. If you rent the movie and view it alone, you’ll probably laugh three times, and never watch it again.

Hypnotic and intense throughout, the brilliantly executed Hereditary taps into the ghosts within all of us — the insidious roots of family dysfunction — and turn them upside down and all around. It’s an audacious supernatural thriller where the psychological fallout is just as disturbing as the apparitions that come chillingly to life.

Woodley has been first-rate in everything she’s been in, particularly the “Divergent” series. But there’s something about her performance here that feels like the sincere and dutiful dispersal of medicine.

Upgrade is a movie by Leigh Whannell, who wrote “Saw,” “Insidious” and other memorable horror movies. But other than the occasional moment of stunningly gratuitous gore, it’s nothing like those films.

The overall tone is awed and laudatory, which may rub some viewers the wrong way. Willem Dafoe delivers narration taken from Robert Macfarlane’s “Mountains of the Mind,” which occasionally strays in the direction of the trite or overwrought.

It could be a deeply provocative tale, but the director seems reluctant to probe behind his artful facade.

Lek gives Love & Bananas humanity, but Bell’s personality and enthusiasm is contagious, inviting us into the film. We root right along with her.

Turns it into a 90-minute infomercial, with nary a revelation in sight.

As entertainment, On Chesil Beach isn’t remotely satisfying, but it does deserve credit for being weird.

Part of what’s missing in The House of Tomorrow is the acerbic punk spirit that inspires its two heroes, which could have been remedied by a sharper script.

First Reformed has a confidence about it, the presence of filmmaking consciousness that can’t do wrong, because this time he knows exactly what he wants to say, not only in a general sense, but second by second and shot by shot.

Show Dogs is really bad, even for a talking-dog movie.

Suffice to say that McNeil plays it way too safe. Trying to have it both ways, he satisfies no one.

There is a built-in pleasure in seeing Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda and Mary Steenburgen in the same movie. We’re used to them. We like them. We like being around them — but not so much that we can’t notice that Book Club is a pretty strained affair, not especially funny and weirdly off key.

Regardless of how one might feel about its inherently icky subject matter, Dark Crimes needs more narrative momentum. The cast is game, the production design is impressive and a few surprises await — but even as things heat up, the film somehow remains cold.

Even if it has B-movie trappings and the tension wanes in the second half, it’s a stylish psychodrama.

The director is clearly an admirer of Francis (both the saint and the pope), and was able to conduct extensive and exclusive interviews with the pontiff.

The performances are extraordinary, as they often are in Beauvois’ films, with Baye a study in quiet suffering and Bry wonderfully enigmatic — seemingly simple, but hinting at a soul capable of expansion and adaptation.

The Seagull has all the big things going for it and yet so many little things going against it that it’s just not the movie it might have been.

Driver keeps their tales engaging with great music and vintage clips of CBGB, Club 57, the Mudd Club and the crumbling Lower East Side.

The last half hour and the lively opening make us almost forget the movie’s so-so middle. It brings all the elements together, points to the future and keeps the action to a human-scale minimum. If you want to see Solo: A Star Wars Story, I wouldn’t talk you out of it.

After shooting lots of people and cutting lots of throats, Deadpool tries blowing himself up, something he probably should have done first. And with that, the movie shifts. Deadpool 2 becomes less violent and a lot funnier. It becomes a much better movie than the original “Deadpool,” not an action bloodbath with laughs, but a knowing spoof of the superhero genre.

Measure of a Man is intended as a touching coming-of-age film about one crucial summer in a young man’s life. But it’s a movie of gestures and feints, in which we’re constantly being told of events and relationships rather than seeing or feeling them.

It’s colorful and imaginative, but other than Lu, the characters don’t have much depth. Emotional, that is, not oceanographic.

If there’s a weakness to the movie, it’s that, despite its gut-level appeal, it doesn’t dazzle us with anything brilliant or unexpected. However, there are some nifty turns here and there, so it’s not entirely mediocre.

Life of the Party presents a situation more than a story, and in that it’s more like a sitcom than a conventional movie.

Two good characters and two good performances go into the old poubelle — or, as we say in English, the garbage bin.

Tully doesn’t expand as it goes along. It feels insulated and hermetically sealed, and it seems to get smaller.

The new version is a weak facsimile of an already mediocre film.

The women are remarkable, unforgettable. But don’t overlook Nivola, an enigmatic figure as the rabbi and husband.

Sometimes the movie is a little too slick. Some of the characters, such as Sean’s girlfriend (Jacqueline Byers) and the FBI agents who begin to believe Sean’s story, are underdeveloped. But Tennant, excellent as a creep, and Sheehan, who is appealing in his helplessness, provide the necessary depth.

Ginsburg herself is determined to last. Several scenes show her working out with a trainer. Her goal is to live long enough for a Democratic president to appoint her successor.

It’s a deep and moving investigation into one woman’s inner struggle as she goes about looking for true love.

A formidable exercise in storytelling. Even at the end, when the inevitable goodbye toast occurs, there is a twist awaiting us.

In 2009, Kholoud Al-Faqih became the first female judge in the Palestinian Shariah (or religious) court system. As Erika Cohn’s fascinating documentary The Judge shows, al-Faqih has fought for justice for Palestinian women ever since.

A film with no context, it is a sporadically interesting, overlong look at the legend as she nears 70, still performing before her legions of fans.

In color, style and humor — even in its graphics and editing — it’s very much like a Godard film from the mid-1960s. Thus, the experience is like watching an actual Godard film — the first great Godard film since “Masculin Féminin” in 1966.

All this makes Zama interesting and unique and something to be respected. But none of this translates into anything resembling a satisfying narrative or even entertainment as we know it. Still, as bleak experiments go, Zama is the real thing.

This is a filmmaker who cares less about horror cinema as a theme park ride, and more about mood.