The Front Room becomes an exercise in psychological torture porn; it’s a movie you endure rather than enjoy.

It’s a pretty good movie that automatically goes up one full notch because of a single great scene, which is one more than most movies have.

Even without containing a modern frame of film, “Apollo 13: Survival” seems current, even without the coincidence of Americans stranded in space.

It lacks the more sublimely simple fun of another recent three-decades-plus comedy-horror sequel, “Hocus Pocus 2.” It’s just so much busier. But Burton does recapture a bit of his youthful verve. So do Keaton and Ryder, both experiencing recent career renaissances.

Whatever one might think of these flourishes, Peterson’s movie accomplishes an important objective: getting the question of Lincoln’s complicated male relationships more out into the open. It’s a commentary in and of itself that it took so many years for this fascinating topic to get to the screen.

It’s tougher than it looks to sidestep revenge movie shortcuts and formulaic payoffs while keeping matters engaging. But Saulnier does it. Off-kilter and fresh, Rebel Ridge may frustrate crude expectations, but its satisfactions are many.

War Game is one of the more timely and disturbing movies of recent months.

It’s a somber, serious experience that won’t appeal to everybody, but it’s quite smart and will keep you guessing until its last seconds.

Daniels has the talent to make a genuinely complex horror film. What was “Precious,” if not a horror movie made all the more chilling by its lack of supernatural elements? But for “The Deliverance,” Daniels simply dusts off the same crab-walking, veins-a-popping demon moves we have seen a million times.

What we’re left with is a movie that has good moments for all the actors, but which, through a series of tonal imprecisions, ends up seeming sour and pointless.

All in all, in a time when so many movies evaporate from memory as soon as the credits roll, “Strange Darling” — love it or loathe it — is the kind of film that engenders conversation.

As it speeds toward conclusion, “Supremes” also stops subverting its more maudlin aspects, allowing a descent into soap operatic moments.

They can’t make “The Union” better than a genre movie, but they can make it better than a decent genre movie. Also, considering the fact that Berry is one of the most misused and underused major stars of the last two decades, any role that shows her screen personality to good advantage is probably worth a look.

My Penguin Friend is what you’d expect from an animal picture, except that it’s better — lifted by a smart script, sensitive direction and a truly beautiful performance by Jean Reno.

The genius of “Skincare” is how it uses Los Angeles and its image- and celebrity-driven culture as a metaphor for empty lives.

Co-directed by Emily Kassie, “Sugarcane” – which won a directing prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January and won the Golden Gate documentary award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April – contains stunning natural beauty and painful revelations.

The foundational mistake came when someone said, “Hey, let’s make another ‘Alien’ movie.” Newsflash: The alien concept is dead. Leave it alone, and leave poor Ian Holm out of it.

Jackpot! involves a fight to the finish between the abundant charisma and likability of leads Awkwafina and John Cena and the impossible material they were given. The actors lose, because nobody could survive so many jokes based on groin kicks and bathroom humor or a movie premise as lacking in context as it is sky-high in concept.

There are stretches when this true story can be a clunky inspirational piece about a young man who overcomes class and racial barriers to excel at science, business and helping his community. At regular intervals, though, it shifts to darker crime drama with dire themes of injustice and manipulation. The two moods don’t always transition smoothly, but each complements the other as they unfold.

Though “It Ends With Us” ultimately lands in the zone of social commentary, the experience is mainly one of witnessing life as experienced by one woman over the course of years. And it’s worth the journey because of Lively and her simultaneous and contradictory mix of pleasantness and cold discernment.

It’s a line that all horror movies must walk. The characters must be stupid enough to get themselves into trouble, but not so stupid that we don’t start thinking of them in Darwinian terms. Somehow, “Cuckoo” stays on the right side of that line, but barely.

Sadly, fun is a rare element on Pandora, as “Borderlands” trudges through its treasure hunt scenario and endless ripoffs of better franchises from “Lethal Weapon” to “Star Wars.” It makes you want to go home and blow up your Playstation.

The new movie splits the difference between the horrible and the hilarious, with predictably lukewarm results. Still, the story is delicious enough to survive an earnest treatment.

While the end result, now directed by Soi Cheang (“Mad Fate,” “Limbo”), may not be quite as deliriously over the top as that version might have been, it’s nevertheless a solid entry in the ledger of Hong Kong crime sagas and was a huge hit when released in China earlier this year.

The Instigators is unremarkable but consistently amusing, and makes you feel like everyone showed up at the set expecting a party.

[Scorsese's] latest, “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger,” is a personal guide to the work of a one-of-a-kind directing duo who continues to influence filmmakers today.

Sing Sing is also a celebration of the creative expressiveness of live theater and its possibilities.

Wang, the director, is smart to spend much of the camera’s time lingering on the young star’s expressive face as his wide, inky eyes take in the world around him.