The directors and screenwriter Karen Croner are attuned to the different ways that Phil and Sandy selfishly draw their kids deeper into the domestic mess.

Less performance-centric than it might have been, the straightforward documentary consists largely of talking-head testimonials and interviews with current Trockadero members about how they spend their too-brief time offstage.

The film's title promises a story told with the tidy structure of the blues. (Either that, or it's a bad joke about Clapton's long struggle with alcoholism.) But Life proves weirdly assembled, with counterintuitive emphases.

A work of old-school humanism that hovers between pro-Revolutionary fervor and a more objective documentary stance, Cuba and the Cameraman is sustained by the strong bonds of trust which the gregarious Alpert has evidently been able to maintain with Cubans from various echelons of this theoretically classless society.

Belly-laughs are duly reaped courtesy of the game ensemble, who throw themselves into proceedings with suitable brio — egged on by Shunsuke Kida's infectious, percussively jaunty-jazzy score — while Shiota's screenplay is good for intermittent belly-laughs before dribbling away somewhat post-climax.

Key to the strength of Big Sonia is its refusal to give in to easy bromides. Its use of animation to illustrate Sonia’s memories spins off her own artful drawings in a way that amps the sense of unspeakable horror rather than sugarcoating it.

Qasim Basir's indie drama Destined proves both uncommonly ambitious and frustratingly derivative.

What director Jamie M. Dagg achieves with his slow burn of a second feature is a total immersion in end-of-the-line atmosphere, with four superb central performances bringing archetypal intrigue to life.

The movie delivers a modicum of magic without getting pious or gushy. It never soars, though, or burns especially bright.

Garishly unattractive to look at and lacking the spirit that made Wonder Woman, which came out five months ago, the most engaging of Warner Bros.' DC Comics-derived extravaganzas to date, this hodgepodge throws a bunch of superheroes into a mix that neither congeals nor particularly makes you want to see more of them in future. Plainly put, it's simply not fun.

The performers' fine acting and vocal efforts (the film is almost entirely sung-through) are not enough to compensate for the vacuousness of the material.

The narrative frequently wanders into unfulfilling tangents, several of the characters are barely developed and we never get a sure sense of where the story is supposed to be going.

Maslow and Pepe's attractiveness and charm go a long way toward making the proceedings palatable. While we're never actually invested in the fate of their characters' relationship, they make the 90-minute running time go by fairly painlessly.

Fitfully amusing and occasionally grating, Amanda & Jack Go Glamping succeeds best when it focuses on its protagonists’ unique shared experiences rather than the overly familiar conflicts of partners in crisis.

Starring John Hawkes as a booze-addicted former cop who stumbles across a mystery he can't stand to leave unsolved, the scuzzy-looking pic is a boon to the actor's fans.

Wonder is a story of connection, not suffering. Dramatizing one boy's effect on the people around him, it invites the viewer into that fold.

An amiable misfire that (for better or worse) isn't quite as nutty as it sounds, Seth Henrikson's Pottersville pairs Yuletide cheer with the deviance of the Furry scene and an out-of-control hoax involving an ersatz Bigfoot.

Though it's not particularly inventive, the film has a fine time pitting the office dwellers against each other.

All of this material proves fascinating. It's a shame, then, that so much of Intent to Destroy plays like a special feature for the DVD edition of The Promise.

Destination Unknown represents a worthy addition to the canon if only for its historical importance.

The three-hour runtime seems justified when Iwai lets his characters fragile, burgeoning relationships develop at a leisurely pace and revel in the little details. At other times the pic is simply self-indulgent, allowing scenes to slip from emotionally naked to embarrassingly overwrought in a flash. Iwai served as his own editor and it shows.

What begins as an examination of middle-class-mom exasperation — in which demanding some marital equality makes one not just a figurative "bitch" but a literal one — turns into a more commonplace bad-dad parable in Marianna Palka's off-kilter, largely off-target satire Bitch.

Though we care for those who lost loved ones, and root for them as they pursue a decades-long hunt for the killers, No Stone Unturned plays like a very well made piece of true-crime television.

It's odd, for a film that ostensibly makes male vulnerability its ultimate goal, how much contempt it has for its most open and loving character.

It’s the little moments that provide the most fascination.

Offering a refreshingly low-key take on an idea that could too easily have become strident, noisy and melodramatic, the virtues of Carlos Lechuga’s second feature are the quiet, human ones, the script carefully and respectfully training its gaze on two unwilling outsiders struggling to live a life that the system has stolen from them.

Bad Match clearly only aspires to be a thriller with a surprise or two up its sleeve. On that front, it's adequate.

Gilbert is less interested in the ups and downs of Gottfried's public life than in showing what we've never seen.

Featuring a terrific performance by Ryan Barton-Grimley in the lead role, Repatriation is a modest indie film worth seeking out.

Given the confined nature of the material as well as its period-specific aspects, this is a yarn that does not exactly invite radical reinterpretation. As such, its appeal is confined to the traditional niceties of being a clever tale well told, with colorful characters that are fun to watch being made to squirm by the inimitable Belgian detective.

Although its central issue is sadly familiar (but hopefully won’t be for much longer), No Dress Code Required offers a heartwarming affirmation that decency sometimes prevails.

Viewers who'd prefer a bit more psychological probing may be left unsatisfied, but most will appreciate this chance to hang out with the legendary whistle-blower.

Though this anecdote-stuffed doc leaves us wanting more of her songs-and-gags routine, it has just enough clips for us to wish she could return to the stage as well.

The well-chosen profile subjects prove both engaging and sympathetic in their fears and desires, giving the film a much-needed emotional resonance.

Hawke delivers a workmanlike performance, but can't redeem the third act's macho baloney; sadly, Rutger Hauer (introduced in the opening and then wasted) doesn't come save him.

The huge political and social divide is in full evidence, but the strength of the doc is that it shows that those sides aren't as monolithic as the red and blue blocks on electoral maps suggest.

With brilliant comedians like Hahn and new addition Christine Baranski on board, there are line readings that pop and jokes that land.... But A Bad Moms Christmas is louder, busier and more pandering than the original — an exhausting spectacle of skilled performers gamely mugging their way through a cash grab.

Densely packed with info, incident and philosophy, the film is a guaranteed debate sparker. Its strength lies not just in the filmmaker’s intimate access to his subjects, but in the multiple points of view he engages.

Writer-directors Andrea Testa and Francisco Marquez shrewdly use their Average Joe protagonist to explore questions of (feigned) political disinterest and civil responsibility under a repressive dictatorship.

In its fusion of craft and narrative, My Friend Dahmer is exquisite. In its portrayal of Jeff's agonies, it can be excruciating.

Not unlike her gutsy protagonist, Twomey moves through the charged landscape with extraordinary agility. Combining gripping suspense with a quote from the immortal Persian poet Rumi, she creates a stirring final sequence from the rising chords of terror and resilience.

After watching Maysaloun Hamoud’s sparkling, taboo-breaking first feature In Between (Bar Bahar), audiences will have to seriously update their ideas about the lifestyle of Palestinian women in Israel.

There are many pleasures along the way, including the effective evocation of Victorian-era London.

In its poetic portrait of a man whose quest to help others has cost him dearly both emotionally and physically, The Departure proves quietly profound.

This arresting work, starring Margaret Qualley, Julianne Nicholson and Melissa Leo as well as a celestial choir of up-and-coming young female actors, mesmerizes as it probes a uniquely female-dominated milieu where passions — both religious, sexual and a combination of the two — run hot under those starched, lily-white coifs and black habits.

Modest but funny, it makes a fine calling card for a performer deserving of bigger things.

The Divine Order (Die Goettliche Ordnung) is an entertaining, if largely predictable, story of an individual swept up in the tide of history.

The movie's reason for being is the chemistry between Gleeson — mop-headed and awkward, an idealistic milquetoast wearing a pajama top as a shirt — and Church, mustachioed and oozing testosterone, but coolly incisive despite the dumb misogyny of Grady's lines.

Director Isaac Florentine, a veteran of this sort of direct-to-video violent fare, not surprisingly proves more effective with the action than dramatic scenes, but he keeps the pace moving nicely.

Considering the long amount of time since the last installment, you'd think that more effort would have been put into creatively reviving the franchise. But Jigsaw just seems rote and mechanical, with long stretches of its running time feeling like a police procedural or CSI spinoff.

Gently amusing while avoiding needless sentimentality.

Davis and Kaye’s script lacks the black humor and high-wire comic timing that made The Celebration such a breakthrough, and the antics of the three main leads just become a bit sordid, inexplicable and oddly tiresome by the end, even though the performances are admirably committed.

Rather than a plot-driven narrative, it’s a collection of keenly observed scenes, and the lack of hyped-up drama, intrigue or sentimentality is one of the strengths of the low-key but visually expressive movie.

Even after 90-odd minutes, Mansfield remains something of an enigma. There's the nagging sense that Ebersole and Hughes are tossing myriad darts at a skittish moving target, trying out numerous techniques (including a couple of fifties-style animations) without ever settling into a proper rhythm.

Despite the strain of what they go through together, Beatriz and Stahl-David have a combustible chemistry together that adds credibility and Thompson clearly has a knack with actors, coaxing sharp, believable performances from all involved — even from actors with relatively small roles.

Olin never wavers in her commitment. She's often extraordinary in individual moments.

Every bit as perfectly tuned, cruelty-free funny and kind-hearted as its predecessor, maybe even more so.

The sequel will impress any fan of the original. It's fresher than most of the low-budget thrillers gracing theaters lately.

Considering that there seems to be no end in sight of the country's involvement in the Middle East, the film proves timely and affecting.

While Zabielski and his cowriters never shortchange their stars in terms of screen time, their imaginations fail them when it comes to giving Crews and Method Man interesting things to do and say. In the case of Method Man, though, the rapper/actor's attitude alone carries him past the script's deficiencies.

At every imaginative juncture, the filmmakers (the screenplay is credited to Pixar veteran Molina and Matthew Aldrich) create a richly woven tapestry of comprehensively researched storytelling, fully dimensional characters, clever touches both tender and amusingly macabre, and vivid, beautifully textured visuals.

Big, dumb, and boring, it finds the cowriter of Independence Day hoping to start a directing career with the same playbook — but forgetting several rules of the game.

Earnest to a fault and soft-edged in its approach to faith (God is more in the margins here than he is a central, narrative-driving presence), yet direct and moving in some scene-by-scene specifics because of their basis in reality.

Having already given us a shootout or two, the film grows more involving as Lefty fights for both his life and his good name. Pullman has no trouble making the character sympathetic, even as he maintains the near-ineptitude Lefty's known for.

In the end, the scariest thing about Boo 2! is the idea that A Madea Easter might be next.

An original, unexpectedly affecting tribute to two distinctive comic performers.

Unfortunately, Schwarzenegger doesn’t show up until more than an hour into this relentlessly unfunny comedy and by then viewers may have tuned out long before.

The relatively laidback angle on all the murderous spree-ing gives Chris Hemsworth a chance to find the comic groove beneath the title character's beefcake godliness. He does it expertly, and the self-mocking humor is all the more welcome given Thor's essential blandness.

The odd subject matter should have made for a riveting film, but, like many documentaries, Liberation Day (the title refers to the North Korean holiday celebrating the anniversary of the end of Japanese rule) feels both too short and too long.

That the film works to the extent that it does is largely due to the superb performance by Kilcher, who imbues her starring turn with a radiance and magnetism that makes you fully believe in her character's ability to woo audiences

The film has two powerful, loosely connected stories to tell but not a unifying vision that could package the often-potent material for maximum impact.

The warming affection that the director has bestowed on so many of his best characters is largely missing. In fact, he seems barely engaged.

One thing's for certain: Not even Charles Darwin could fully figure this monkey out.

By keeping a tight focus on the subject as she navigates senior year, early motherhood and the crushing stigma of negative expectations, the film assembles a poignant snapshot of black struggle that humanizes a range of social issues through the first-hand experiences of one young woman.

A resourceful, if rather hyperbolic documentary that devotes 90 minutes to analyzing one of the most famous scenes in film history.

It’s the sort of self-regarding, preachy documentary that should be sold in health food stores, not shown in theaters.

The film just seems to lack the courage of its convictions. Hartnett doesn’t bring much depth to his troubled character, making it hard for the viewer to care about his fate.

As much as the helmer’s aesthetic is impressive, the laconic pacing and somewhat flat performances can be a bit of a drag, as is a script that heads to familiar places and takes a while to do so.

For all its high-caliber talent mix, The Snowman is a largely pedestrian affair, turgid and humorless in tone. The cast share zero screen chemistry, much of the dialogue feels like a clunky first draft and the wearily familiar plot is clogged with clumsy loose ends.

Marshall is a solid, straightforward courtroom drama with proud liberal credentials, one that could have been made by Norman Jewison around 1967.

Because of its cast of young men being buff and hormonal and good at their jobs, one could say that Only the Brave is the Top Gun of firefighter movies, the difference being that the new film feels like it's embedded in reality rather than in an aerial wet dream.

Although concentrating on delivering easily digestible situations and scene progressions, Landon does demonstrate some enticing visual flair that gets rather diminished by the repetitiveness of the plot.

While Brosnan has quite a few opportunities to show his acting chops, Chan makes do with less.... In any case, it’s good to see Chan swapping his happy-go-lucky persona for two hours for some gravitas as a tragic rogue with a marked past.

Charged never simplifies Eduardo’s nature or the key relationships in his life. We end up appreciating his charisma and marveling at his resilience without ever seeing him as a paragon.

A bouncy attempt to get a handle on the fast-changing state of things for pot smokers in America, Peter Spirer's The Legend of 420 wears its sympathies on its sleeve without coming off as a complete lightweight.

While the main characters appear to have been given a bit of Powerpuff Girl sass by screenwriters Meghan McCarthy, Rita Hsiao and Michael Vogel, it ultimately does little to goose the limited hand-drawn 2D animation.

Trafficked proves reasonably effective for educational purposes, with statistics and information about how to help inevitably projected during the end credits. But as a thriller it’s plodding and predictable, not distinguishing itself from the seemingly endless other movies dealing with the subject that have been released in recent years.

Ultimately, of course, Wakefield himself is beside the point. The controversy over vaccinations will rage on and this cinematic portrait will merely be a footnote. But it proves a compelling one, however you may feel about the burning issue.

Demented absurdist comedy that doesn’t just push the envelope in terms of offensive and disgusting content, it folds it neatly and uses it for toilet paper. Desperately striving for cult status that it will never achieve, Assholes could be described as forgettable. Except, sadly, it isn’t.

Most magically, it transcends the colossal power of its own story to show how individual beings, one step at a time, can right the course of inequality and injustice.

Strong performances and outstanding cinematography aren't enough to rescue an unfocused and episodic screenplay, which will leave many stranded in a purgatorial cinematic-halfway house between bliss and despair.

Few genre fans will fail to guess the direction in which this is heading. All viewers, though, will scratch their heads at a final plot point, an unnecessary gesture at odds with any conceivable motivation.

Involving and poignant if sometimes less informative than it might be.

The expertly shaped narrative zigs and zags like the most dexterous board rider between Southern California and Hawaii, with detours to Bermuda, Tahiti and briefly to Europe for one particularly amusing daredevil adventure.

Instead of improving on the original's visualization of the liminal state between life and death, director Niels Arden Oplev turns the conceit into just another excuse for rote haunting, making this Flatliners often indistinguishable from its 2017 thriller peers.

As a contrast to Gosling's deliberately deadened, emotionally zoned-out turn, Ford almost single-handedly amps up a film otherwise intentionally drained of character vitality.

It feels like a gift from one outstanding character actor to another, but never one that indulges the thesp at the expense of the film.

Don’t Sleep practically begs audiences to defy its ill-chosen title.