As an enjoyable documentary about the history behind a surprising game-changer of a song, this film works well. But it misses the opportunity to take its material to the next level and say something bigger.

What’s proffered isn’t a scientific argument against a burgeoning agro-industrial movement, but an emotional, quasi-spiritual case about humanity's relationship with the environment.

While some of the scenes feel contrived, the naturalistic performances never do.

It finds no clear answers, but that suits both the horrific event and this haunting, elusive film.

It’s a little frustrating at first to realize that Huber isn’t going to get much explanation of anything from Stanton. But she ends up making a virtue of the actor’s Zen calm.

For those able to overlook the obviousness, The Painting is both beautiful and affecting.

More of a fawning love letter than a nuanced profile of a woman who surely must be more fascinating than she comes off here.

There’s an overlay of gender politics, but it isn’t so firmly ingrained in the material that it transforms Levine’s throwback ’80s slasher film into a much nobler, more thoughtful endeavor.

Populaire’s initial appeal comes largely from its airiness, and it simply doesn’t have the heft or gravity to tackle weightier emotions.

Riddick taps into a primal well of audience wish-fulfillment, but over the course of its unrelieved, monotonous length, it does its best to suck that well dry.

Salinger thinks it’s big, important news, but it’s barely a footnote.

Given the level of sophistication at which the movie operates, they might as well have called it Motherlover, after the Lonely Island video in which Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake sing about the exact same taboo foursome. The only significant difference is that the comedy in “Motherlover” is fully intentional.

The film’s lack of seriousness isn’t the problem; rather, it’s that its jokey carnage is all caricatured poses devoid of original verve or legitimate wit.

There’s a wealth of information in My Father And The Man In Black, but Holiff’s directorial choices don’t always help in conveying them.

A Teacher feels a bit like watching some fool cross a busy freeway on foot over and over again for an hour and change. There’s little to do but await the inevitable splat.

While Good Ol’ Freda will surely fascinate hardcore Beatles fans, there simply isn’t a feature-length story here.

Red Obsession is informative, and entertainingly so, with its honeyed Russell Crowe narration and sweet tracking shots through sun-dappled vineyards.

Ultimately, the filmmakers are more interested in congratulating Occupy for taking a stand than in shedding light on its fascinating infrastructure and backstory, as though a protest’s existence automatically spells victory for its cause.

Director Darrell Roodt’s by-the-numbers biopic suffers from clunky dialogue and shallow characterization, all while never deciding what to make of its leading lady.

Bad Milo! gets nasty laughs out of putting its overmatched hero through a gauntlet of comic humiliations, but it works just as well as a dark allegory about the way we handle our demons.

Philibert allows even those who’ve never heard a second of Radio France to experience what the network is like, on both sides of the speakers.

It isn’t a terribly intimate portrait of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Chapin, or Nixon, but it is revealing in its own right, as a fascinatingly warped and aged Polaroid of an epic life that’s grown more compelling with the passage of time.

It’s well-intentioned, but it’s all diagnosis, no prescription.

Afternoon Delight is one of those bad films that seem to drift further and further away from a recognizable reality the more we get to know it.

Even with all the SFX overlays, it’s questionable whether any of this is entertaining enough to sustain even a svelte 92-minute runtime, but Spurlock and the boys can’t be faulted for holding back.

It couldn’t be a simpler, more workable premise for a good B-movie, but the amount of effort put into making it fast and edgy is inversely proportional to the scant thrills it yields.

Quietly, persuasively, Tokyo Waka asks whether cultures decline by pouring resources into propping up entities that can no longer support themselves.

It’s a slickly packaged, proficient thriller first, political statement a distant, speck-on-the-horizon second.