The Time Being is a visual pleasure, with Cicin-Sain unveiling shot after shot of glorious landscapes and striking silhouettes.

Ravenous is misbegotten in multiple ways. It isn’t scary enough to be an effective horror movie, or funny enough to be much of a comedy... But say this for Ravenous: It isn’t generic.

Director Kevin Connor, coming off a string of British horror films and Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations, never turns Motel Hell into an all-out comedy, but humor is always part of the mix.

Too much of Ari Folman’s half-animated science-fiction feature The Congress feels just a bit off—but every now and then, the concept, the performances, and Folman’s visual flair combine to produce something extraordinary.

Simien is clearly a talented, witty writer, with a fantastic sense of character development and dialogue, but he makes a lot of rookie mistakes as a filmmaker, from trying to cover too much ground in one movie to making stylistic choices that render Dear White People visually incomprehensible.

Dupieux might have done better to construct an entire movie around his best idea.

This Bizarro-universe Coen brothers mash-up has the decency to be sporadically fun, even when it isn’t especially original or steady.

If nothing else, the sweep of Workman’s cradle-to-grave approach helps place Kane in a broader context, making it one chapter in a long life and a drama-packed career. The only trouble with the film is that Welles’ story has been told many times over, and Workman struggles to find anything new to say.

A credulity-straining duet between two fine actors.

The film thrives thanks to its superb lead performances, with Sparks exuding an endearingly off-kilter earnestness that nicely contrasts with Ireland’s internalized phobic fears and self-doubt.

Rudderless’ biggest flaw is that it’s overly committed to its trajectory, creating obvious cause-and-effect scenarios rather than letting its characters simply live and act within the situation the story places them in.

Big Eyes contains comedy and tragedy, too, but they pair much less agreeably here, in part because each of the film’s two protagonists belongs much more to one world than the other.

There’s not much to Jackie & Ryan, which is what almost makes it something special.

Mann’s achievement in creating his own dreamlike alternate reality alongside a historical one isn’t necessarily diminished by his failure to bring the story across. The keep has a presence: castle walls that stretch to infinity, an ancient Evil that forbids lodgers and requires rituals to contain it, the metaphorical heft of standing over a war of unimaginable atrocity. And thanks to Mann, The Keep has a presence, too.

Edgerton may write himself out of the problem too easily, but at least the problem itself is fascinating to consider.

Despite the sharp dialogue...and carefully managed dramatic rhythms, Match still can’t help but seem a bit cramped, particularly once the plot starts to take some predictable turns and the shouting starts. It’s a fine line that divides the intimate from the claustrophobic.

Ariely’s inquiries into how and why we stretch, reframe, or ignore entirely the truth are certainly eye-opening, but he and Melamede are better at demonstrating the ubiquity of subterfuge than prescribing remedies for it.

Donner moves the film at an unhurried pace. The action scenes, for which Broderick and Hauer seem to have done quite a few of their own stunts, are fun, if not especially ambitious, and spaced out between long stretches of Mouse and Etienne traveling the countryside. But, oh, what countryside!

Diplomacy is at its worst when Schlöndorff consciously attempts to open the play up.

Alternately exhilarating and tedious, Why Don’t You Play In Hell? is Sono’s tribute to moviemaking—specifically an elegy to 35mm film, though the tone could hardly be called mournful.

Filth is bolstered by a gonzo performance from McAvoy, who seems determined to out-Bad Lieutenant the American Bad Lieutenants.

Though the film gets more banal as it reaches its climax—most viewers will have seen it all before—Onah creates refreshing space around these familiar stories and themes. He has a wonderful sense of style and movement, and he isn’t afraid of a story’s personal elements. He goes after them.

Unfortunately, Kill Your Darlings doesn’t know what to do with Radcliffe and DeHaan, good as they are; there’s little sense of how they fit into a larger framework, or what bearing, if any, it might have on its more famous subjects’ later output.

Torn’s sometimes-stodgy dramatics give way to a genuinely unsettling microcosm of modern terrorism.

Content to let his work speak for itself, Giger has little to add to the conversation, and while it’s intriguing to see him working in—or sometimes just ambling through—a house filled with his work and sources of inspiration, Sallin too often lets these scenes crowd out the story she’s trying to tell.

Big Game tries a little of everything, but ultimately settles into being a scrappy, lower-budget spin on the Big Dopey Action Movie genre. And as with nearly every stab at the BDAM, the audience’s satisfaction will depend largely on just how dopey they expect it to be.

There’s a matter-of-factness to Israel: A Home Movie that’s disquieting, as it shows the joy and determination of a nation in the making, and the dismayed faces of those elbowed aside.

Unfortunately, as with so many social-survey documentaries, the film’s macro view comes at the expense of any microcosmic depth.