An impressive film ... Alternately disturbing and inspiring, it manages to capture the diversity of America in a tight 73 minutes.

Alternately incisive and uneven.

Like Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy or Granik's Leave No Trace, this low-key drama focuses on a regional American woman trying to sustain herself through rough economic and emotional times. It's derivative of both films, but, for a little while at least, not disagreeably so.

Provides a compelling history of a company that created a groundbreaking product that was unfortunately ahead of its time.

There is no big redemptive payoff here, just a few small victories and hopeful pointers to the future. The struggle continues. But this is still a very necessary story, delivered with rigor and conviction.

[A] modest but heartfelt picture. ... Lost Transmissions tells its story without engaging with foolish cliches about creativity and madness.

Neither a no-nonsense delight like "She Loves You" nor the White Album-style head trip its premise might suggest, it's more of a "Yellow Submarine" sort of film: crowd-pleasing and sometimes enjoyable, but pretty damned dumb when you stop to think about it.

There's a shakiness in how Hormann utilizes the fact that Aynur's murder is a foregone conclusion. It's as if the director is delaying gut-wrenching emotion as opposed to letting it emerge organically from the stylistic severity.

The doc has stirring moments, but it has too many gaps to be considered a complete success.

Plus One is nothing if not formulaic. ... But what Plus One lacks in originality it at least partially makes up for in warmth and watchability.

Graham begins Run with a solid premise, but he lacks the dramatic horsepower to move the story out of second gear.

Considering that it was filmed in bits and pieces over two decades, it's not surprising that 17 Blocks is disjointed in its storytelling, nor that its technical elements are ragged (subtitles are frequently employed due to poor sound quality). But it nonetheless packs a potent emotional punch.

The idea is cartoonish in its essence but the pic is shot and played with such straight-faced realism that Swallow becomes utterly ridiculous.

A drama with dazzling visuals, subtle performances and deft nods to classics like Days of Heaven and Bonnie and Clyde. ... While Dreamland doesn’t entirely overcome its familiar trajectory, the film is so stunning in every other way that its narrative shortcoming hardly matters.

Final Cut will be screened theatrically ... and it demands to be seen there, both by longtime admirers and by young viewers lucky enough to have their first viewing be in a theater. ... This is an overwhelming sensory experience, with deep colors and nuanced sound amplifying the film's hypnotic effect.

Sensitive, keenly observed and unflinchingly honest. ... House of Hummingbird can be a little too deliberate in its contemplations and contextualizing Eunhee in her solitude and search for intimacy can be bloated at times, but ultimately it's an assured and affecting portrait of teenaged uncertainty and insecurity.

Handsomely made in the customarily fastidious style of most period biographical dramas, Tolkien is strongly served by Hoult, who, after four X-Men outings (and a supporting role in last year's The Favourite), demonstrates that it's high time he moved on from that sort of thing to more interesting and challenging dramatic characterizations.

It turns out Pokemon Detective Pikachu isn’t half bad.

Irizarry sees locals who survived these challenges acquiring new layers of toughness and pride, increasingly ready to fight for their communities.

Some would say the jury's out on that issue; but near-unanimous love and admiration suggests Hesburgh's stance was a great way to win friends and influence people.

This labor of love should be embraced wherever the term cinephile means anything.

Despite some narrative cliches, the painstaking way that the movie documents a very dark period in Cambodian history is a noteworthy achievement.

As a teaching and consciousness-raising tool, it will be an indispensable resource.

Although she seems primarily concerned with whether conflicting views of sexuality can be reconciled in a committed relationship, Cash dresses the issues up in so many layers of cuteness that the message practically gets smothered by the candy-colored cinematography and insistent indie-pop soundtrack.

It looks and feels far more substantial than most indie debuts, confidently bending genre rules with its minimalist dialogue and hallucinatory plot, which owes more to David Lynch or Lars von Trier than to more orthodox horror maestros.

The plot machinations of Stuart Flack's screenplay can be seen from a mile away, but that doesn't make this familiar tale of a vengeful, obsessed woman any less satisfying.

The film, marking Ben Hernandez Bray's directorial debut, is mainly a violent police procedural and vigilante drama that succeeds well enough on those terms. It's also notable for its almost entirely Latino cast and deep immersion into East Los Angeles culture. The pic certainly looks authentic, despite the fact that it was largely shot in Calgary.

A cookie-cutter thriller that takes its time getting to the (sorta) good stuff, it's for die-hards only.

Astutely chronicling an amazing musical career that ended prematurely due to Parkinson's disease, the doc will delight the singer's old fans and likely make her many new ones as well.

A finding-yourself dramedy grounded in a sense of place that's socioeconomic as much as geographical, the warm-hearted film ... is an understated but assured debut.

Clara forgets to have anything resembling a compelling plot. Or an original one. Even science geeks will find little here compelling.

The film weaves enough social, political and personal themes into its mix to make it interesting even for those who mainly think of "hockey puck" as a Don Rickles insult.

Nearly eight years on from the signing of all the brand extension contracts, here is the primarily pop-star-voiced animated musical UglyDolls, an imbecilic eyesore that could lay claim to being one of the worst movies ever made if it was worth such hyperbole.

Don't tell anyone I said this, but the result is not only pleasingly emotionally purgative, but also has some elements worthy of genuine admiration, despite the fact that the third word in the title is one that should now be entirely banished from the English language for its precious, psychobabble connotations.

It's the kind of serious but broadly appealing, modestly scaled picture that people love to say doesn't exist any more.

Savage rivals most mid-budget Euro-American wintry police actioners in its lush production values and slick execution of genre tropes. There are plenty of visceral thrills on offer in the dark and violent confrontations between a hard-boiled detective and a gang of cold-blooded robbers, as the action unfolds in impressively choreographed sequences on Changbai’s snow-covered slopes in northeastern China.

Herzog’s film may not be the final word on Gorbachev, but it is affectionate and candid and leaves audiences in a melancholy mood about the sometimes short-lived nature of reform.

It’s hard to dislike this pleasant, earnest work.

[A] fascinatingly oddball story.

Those who grew up reading Scary Stores to Tell in the Dark will no doubt be thrilled by this cinematic tribute. And those who didn't may find themselves compelled to read the books to find out for themselves what all the fuss is about.

Too often coming across as an elaborate home movie, the doc would have benefited from its story being told by a more experienced filmmaker who was less emotionally involved in the proceedings.

The doc's a delight for six-string gearheads and a reverie for those who still treasure what remains of pre-Bloomberg, pre-Giuliani New York.

Mildly involving indie.

Though completely implausible and hardly revelatory, the screenplay's identification with multiple points of view will be comforting enough to arthouse liberals that they might not object.

Unfortunately, for all the debuting filmmaker's talent for creepy atmospherics, I Trapped the Devil feels draggy and attenuated even with its brief 82-minute running time including credits. Despite some good performances, the film goes nowhere, and very, very slowly.

Among the film's most visually dazzling sections are a series of extremely sensual black-and-white photographs of the dancer shot by Richard Avedon, who famously commented of his subject, "His whole body was responding to a kind of wonder at himself. A narcissistic orgy of some kind...an orgy of one."

Although repetitive at times and, like so many show business documentaries, displaying a tendency toward self-congratulation, the film will prove fascinating for dance buffs.

Nattiv's bio-drama has its flaws, but the performances across the board are outstanding. ... Nevertheless, there's something a bit queasy-making about the film's full-on plunge into melodrama in the last act.

While constantly eventful and a feast for the eyes, it's also notably more somber than its predecessors. But just when it might seem about to become too grim, Robert Downey Jr. rides to the rescue with an inspired serio-comic performance that reminds you how good he can be.

Any viewers actually interested in the topic would be well advised to search elsewhere for information.

Clearly a microbudget labor of love, the earnest documentary never attempts to assess the road pic's place in film history or the culture generally; most frustratingly, it never asks what a young viewer today might think of it.

It’s very funny and offers up plenty of heartwarming fodder for the sentimental among us.

Cinematically modest but full of social and political urgency.

Breaking Habits, Robert Ryan's film about "Sister Kate," the habit-wearing founder of a medical marijuana company, proves yet another dispiriting entry in the current documentary glut that embraces all things quirky. Even its title referencing the hit television drama starring Bryan Cranston seems tacky.

Unfortunately, their strenuous efforts (and Esposito tries very, very hard) aren't enough to lift the material above abject hokeyness. This is a film that makes subway riding seem such a miserable experience, you suspect it's been bankrolled by Uber.

Chauncey Page (Jason Woods) is no Michael Myers, and this Homecoming killing spree is far from "Halloween" in almost every respect. Notable only for a cast consisting solely of people of color (and for the involvement of RZA), the pic fails to deliver what its title promises.

I feel confident that even if I were to be magically transformed into the target demographic, I would still find After to be a cliched, mediocre affair. Come back, "Twilight," all is forgiven.

Even more than those acclaimed lion, chimp and bear films that have preceded it, Penguins proves especially delightful — a coming-of-age story outfitted with an engaging anthropomorphic overlay that can make you forget you’re watching an intimately filmed documentary instead of an animated adventure.

At times, The Most Dangerous Year gets bogged down with its extensive footage of hearings about various bills and ballot initiatives that, however pertinent, inevitably come across with a C-SPAN dullness. But that's a minor quibble about this powerful documentary, which makes the valuable point that this is a civil rights issue and that the arguments being put forth about transgender people sound much like those promoting segregation decades ago.

Deadly earnest in its highbrow seriousness, William would seem ripe for parody, except that "Encino Man" got there first.

Given its focus, viewers might forgive Mia for its clumsy direction of actors, its contrived plot or its on-the-nose dialogue. But training impressionable kids to identify with a girl who sneaks into lions' cages is a cinematic flaw that could have heartbreaking real-world consequences.

Pure dead gallus (that's Scots for 'wonderful').

It's just lousy. Bloated, vastly less funny than it aims to be and misguided in key design choices even when it scores with less important decisions, the film does make bold choices that might've paid off under other circumstances. But these aren't those circumstances.

V. Scott Balcerek's documentary Satan & Adam makes for fascinating viewing. And even as the film captivates, it sparks instant theorizing as to who will play the lead roles in the inevitable Hollywood feel-good dramatization. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling and Samuel L. Jackson.

But it's Scott who fully carries the film, helping us overlook the story's contrivances with his moving and intense performance as a character who is as far removed from Professor Moriarty as you can get.

What really works about Little easily surpasses what doesn’t.

Both Metz and Lucas are solid enough, but their fairly stock characters do not emerge quite as vividly as they might have. On the other hand, Topher Grace is extremely engaging as the hip, rap music-loving pastor who initially rubs Joyce the wrong way but eventually wins her over in a plot development that is not exactly brimming with surprise.

The lush production design by Raymond Chan, Joyce Chan’s swanky ’60s costuming and some astoundingly clever set pieces — a duel between Tin-chi and one of Kit’s thugs atop of a strip of neon signs, a brilliantly old-school four-way fight at Cheung Kok’s offices, a whiskey glass tango with Yeoh — more than make up for any plot flaws, with the exception of the shameful underuse of Tony Jaa as a mysterious assassin.

While the film doesn't break any new ground either in terms of substance or style, it packs a quiet punch.

Even those unfamiliar with the tale will find it charming and moving, and, as is so often the case with Australian films, the scenery can't be beat.

Never really deciding if it hopes to be a black comedy or a sincere dive into violence and self-delusion, the movie stops abruptly at a couple of points so Wakefield can give his costars chances to act.

While it lacks the ambition to turn its obvious plot into a film that feels new, it also avoids the pitfalls of moral smugness and stereotyping. It flows along easily, bolstered by Taraji P. Henson’s and Sam Rockwell’s vibrant performances.

Starring a miscast Hilary Duff in the title role, The Haunting of Sharon Tate deserves the instant obscurity for which it is certainly destined.

One wishes the script might have shared the degree of precision that has obviously been applied to the technical side of the production, which is resplendent in visual dazzle from the smallest beads of sweat on a character’s forehead to the vintage knit fabrics to those sprawling exotic vistas.

Enigmatic but oddly entrancing feature debut.

Viewers may worry that Bazawule's starkly gorgeous pictures aren't going to add up to anything, but Burial satisfies in prosaic as well as poetic terms, supplying an end that makes sense of its beginning. It will leave many who see it eager for the young filmmaker's next fable.

Unfortunately, Reinventing Rosalee, the new film about her directed by her daughter Lillian Glass, feels less like a documentary than the most elaborate Mother's Day present ever.

Unfortunately, while Long Lost has its moments, it ultimately fails to capitalize on its intriguing premise.

Captivating and deeply felt coming-of-age fable.

There have been films that treated Nazi doctors conducting evil experiments in concentration camps more sympathetically.

As with any vérité portrait, there are many things that go unexplained. But the images tell us what we need to know: The unforced choreography between Hatidze and the bees.

To say that thespians live for opportunities such as this is an understatement, and Schull, whose restrained underplaying only makes the material more powerful, makes the most of it.

The latest example of the unfortunately fertile trend is a comedy from Josh Huber that features every stereotypical plot element and predictable gag imaginable. Making Babies demonstrates the need for creative contraception.

Whatever its shortcomings, American Relapse deepens our sense of the catastrophe caused by opioid overprescription and over-availability.

Promising but inert genre pic.

A charmer with strong appeal for video release, it is lively enough to merit a niche theatrical run beforehand.

Not exactly the celebration of female promiscuity its title suggests.

When that visual leaves a more captivating impression than a baby elephant spreading its ears and getting airborne like a glider, something is definitely off in the balance. The new Dumbo holds the attention but too seldom tugs at the heartstrings.

A very entertaining film, stuffed with colorful idiots and serves-you-right twists. Silly in ways that reflect poorly of the filmmaker's taste but will endear it to many viewers, it's a true-crime tale that has much to do with Major League Baseball but requires no interest in the sport to enjoy.

The picture is a slow-burning but ultimately empowering drama that works despite a lack of the bigger, louder, more outwardly emotional moments it could have succumbed to.

A Vigilante offers some grim, imaginary satisfactions in support of real survivors who need whatever help we can give.

Proves so determinedly ebullient you begin to think they're pumping laughing gas into the auditorium. The most kid-friendly DC movie so far, the film is thoroughly entertaining.

None of it adds up to much beyond painting the band, despite their often repellently bad behavior, in a flattering light.

It's an intelligent, well-done pic whose restraint can be commended. But it also operates at such a slow burn that it comes close to fizzling out completely.

There's plenty of material here for a reasonably engrossing drama. Somehow, screenwriters Craig R. Welch and Greg Gerani fail to come up with anything remotely interesting.

A good old-fashioned British spy thriller.

Writer David Hare and director Ralph Fiennes have a good feel for the artistic world the story inhabits and professional dancer Oleg Ivenko does a more than creditable job in personifying one of the 20th century’s most celebrated artistic figures, but the narrative bounces all over the place trying to cover too much ground when concentrating on the core drama would have far better served the desired end.

If the title MS Slavic 7 fails to ring a bell, its abstractness conveys the industrious intellectual labor demanded by this witty one-hour Canadian film.