The filmmakers’ enthusiasm for their characters and the vanished period setting is palpable, asserting a certain fatalistic charm of its own.

Mostly lighthearted and, especially in its closing reels, rather clichéd, the character-driven film nonetheless manages to gently resist the temptation to turn into a full-throttle and heart-warming crowdpleaser.

The film pulls off the action climax of this spy-vs-spy narrative quite well given its obviously limited means. But Avalanche will attract more attention for its sneaky ethic...and for its efforts at recreating a period-appropriate look.

Kelly depicts a deep filial love that isn't dependent on complete telepathic understanding.

It may never be quite solid enough for us to be truly worried about its inhabitants' happiness, but watching them pursue that happiness is a uniquely diverting experience.

One of the film's most poignant moments occurs at the end, with a brief shot of Hesse's gravestone. It was designed, we're informed, by Sol LeWitt.

Twice in the film, giant lumbering objects ricochet through crowded city streets wreaking absolute havoc in their wake. They’re perfect visual metaphors for the movies themselves, so stuffed with over-the-top mayhem and testosterone-packed macho aggressiveness that they’ve become utterly ridiculous. What saves Fast X is that it’s so aware of its own absurdity that it becomes an entertaining parody of itself.

Ashley Benson gives a striking performance as the target of an anonymous hacker in Branden Kramer’s ingenious debut feature.

It's Goldstein's performance that truly impresses.

Seductive and repellent by turns, it’s a title that will provoke fierce love-or-hate reactions, but there’s no question it augurs the arrival of a powerful, audacious new directorial talent.

Though the story’s midsection, with its shifting alliances and reversals, feels distended, the movie offers well-defined characters and an inventive sense of earthbound fun, as well as poignant moments.

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.

With no time for allegory or parable, the fantastical Mermaid delivers its message without a shred of subtlety (and is unapologetic about it) but with considerable charm, wit and darkness to make up for it.

The story moves along in fairly predictable beats, including the inevitable denouement in which Jack's deception is exposed. But it's effective nonetheless, thanks to the authentic-feeling depiction of the physical and emotional toll of caring for an autistic child.

It’s never dull. Without destroying the sheer poetry of the matchup between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, Hock explains it all, and in the process pays tribute to the extraordinary speed factor of a game that has been damned for its slowness.

Hands of Stone is far from perfect, but it punches above its weight enough to prevent it from being easily dismissed.

While Chow and Taiwanese star Eddie Peng aren’t going to make anyone forget Tsui Hark and Jet Li’s defining Once Upon a Time in China, or for that matter Jackie Chan’s earlier spin on Wong in Drunken Master, they do a frequently thrilling job with a familiar story.

The Monkey King 2 is served well by Cheang’s willingness to keep the story straightforward and linear, weaving the various threads together seamlessly and complementing it with its outré action and stunts rather than smothering it with them.

While the other Predator films tried to remain dark and tense, tossing in a decent one-liner here or there, Black’s movie is so cleverly over-the-top that it’s easy and pleasurable enough to watch, though never exactly scary or suspenseful.

Like the heroic Bostonians it celebrates, civilians and law enforcement both, Peter Berg’s Patriots Day gets the job done.

Delivers an easily digestible and amusing portrait of youthful hijinks that should well please its target audience.

A resourceful dreamer needn't be alienated from fields of endeavor usually requiring years of training or unthinkable wealth. Imagination, seriousness and a small set of shop tools are sufficient.

The First Monday in May should prove catnip to fashionistas.

Ti West's In a Valley of Violence plays like a grim, Eastwood-style genre revival before some conspicuous Tarantino-influenced humor infects its climactic showdown.

This ensemble comedic drama maintains a light touch while surveying the challenges of accepting adult responsibilities.

Making good use of his camera-department experience on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and elsewhere, Shirai seeks out the visual appeal of both the brewery's operation.

By turns touching, funny and sometimes strangely existential, David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s documentary, destined for broadcast on public television’s POV program next year, succeeds in telling a highly personal story in a surprisingly relatable manner.

Even given the standards of off-the-rails cinematic family reunions, you'd have to look a while to find one as bizarre as Anders Thomas Jensen's Men & Chicken.

It’s only when the story heads to pure sci-fi territory later on that April stretches itself a bit thin, though a smart epilogue manages to put things in perspective for both the characters and viewer.

Wispy and familiar in its themes and humorous strokes, Café Society benefits from an exceptionally adept cast led by Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell, as well as from a luminous glow that emphasizes both the old Hollywood nostalgia and the story’s basis in dreams and artifice.

As a film, Victor Kanefsky's documentary about the iconoclastic painter Robert Cenedella makes a great art exhibit.

The film's strength lies in its honest and realistic portrayal of mental illness and the toll it exacts on those in its sufferer's orbit.

Far from being the convoluted mess it could have been, incoming director Cheang Pou-soi (Yip serves as a producer) crafts a tight, swiftly paced action yarn that ensures viewers won’t be pining for the presence of the first film’s stars, Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung.

The film is a body-mover above all, with great vintage clips pairing nicely with well-photographed new material in which dancers wearing appropriate fashion dance in slo-mo — everyone reveling in the melting-pot beat.

An evocative portrait of strained friendships and creative turmoil.

Unlocking the Cage makes its case for reevaluation of non-human animals' legal status in crisp, convincing fashion.

Though only an adequate singer, Medhaffer practically explodes with energy when she’s behind the microphone, making for a very charismatic performer.

First-time director Justin Tipping's finesse with dialogue and story is less developed than his visual sense. But if the movie is over-reliant on slo-mo, voiceover and almost wall-to-wall music to drive scenes, its silky blend of lyricism with urban grit marks it as a promising debu

An officially sanctioned but pleasingly gush-free cinematic monograph.

Speed Sisters is an eye-opening doc that succeeds in its goal of shattering stereotypes.

What’s particularly admirable here is the way the cast and filmmakers illuminate not just the wit and charm of young men, but also the callow cruelty of youth, driven by a killer combination of naïve idealism, solipsism, poor self-esteem and raging hormones.

It is a solid thriller that works best when it is most involved in its adolescent heroes' non-monster-related concerns. It will prove much more satisfying to King's legion of fans than "Dark Tower" did. But it falls well short of the King-derived film it clearly wants to evoke, "Stand By Me"; and newcomers who were spoiled by the eight richly developed hours of Stranger Things may wonder what the big deal is supposed to be.

It’s a must-see for anyone interested in the mind of a major auteur, even if Thomsen tends to favor psychology over cinema.

The American Side is a loving homage that should be of particular interest to film buffs who can play spot the references.

Although stronger on atmosphere than narrative clarity, its gorgeous visuals and sensuous evocation of the exotic setting render it a hauntingly poetic cinematic experience.

The dynamic ski chases are the most exciting, not to mention novel, element of this medieval epic, although there's plenty of fighting with swords, axes, crossbows, and bows and arrows as well.

A thorough knowledge of Israeli history and politics would be helpful for viewers, as Rabin in His Own Words is sometimes sketchy and scattershot in its narrative. But its subject emerges as a thoughtful and articulate chronicler, and the wealth of footage presented, including rare home movies, is consistently fascinating.

Although a bit too diffuse to fully realize its potential, the documentary is an evocative portrait of its subject.

Malik Bader's Cash Only is one of the more convincingly gritty indies to hit fests in several seasons.

It’s a sobering, collage-like overview of a problem that sadly hasn’t much changed since Michael Moore’s angrier and more provocative (if perhaps less rigorously journalistic) feature came out.

Addressing its serious themes with subtle and insightful humor, Divine Access is a quiet gem.

Hoover doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of the kids’ detox and rehabilitation, but Mokhnenko’s compassion is as evident as his self-regard, and inextricable from his sense of a moral imperative.

Some of the most acute pleasures here are in the doctor-patient exchanges, depicting with a rigorous absence of fuss or sentiment a relationship that's as much intimate as professional.

Nichols has delivered a timely drama that, unlike most films of its type, doesn’t want to clobber you with its importance. It just tells its story in a modest, even discreet way that well suits the nature of its principal characters.

More weirdly fascinating than genuinely good, this beautifully made, bracingly eccentric and often arch film will generate a measure of strong support but will bewilder more.

Cotillard’s performance is luminous throughout, enriching the willful heroine with the depth of a single obsession.

Unassuming, idiosyncratic and set in the run-down eponymous New Jersey city that has produced more than its share of noted personalities, this is a mild-mannered, almost startlingly undramatic work that offers discreet pleasures to longtime fans of the New York indie-scene veteran.

Staying Vertical slowly morphs into something closer to a dark — and darkly funny — myth or fairytale, though this transformation isn’t entirely smooth.

While the plot can sometimes feel too lightweight for feature length, with a score by composer Laurent Perez del Mar (Now or Never) that tends to overdo it on the gushy side, The Red Turtle benefits from the beautiful animation work of Dudok de Wit and his team.

This is a fitfully funny quasi-farce that takes off promisingly, loses its way mid-flight and comes in for a bumpy but safe landing.

Director Bose handles the material with a light, elegant touch. It helps that the cast, especially the remarkable Koechlin who gives a bravura performance in both physical and emotional terms, can carry it all off.

With the artistic choices he has made, Mendoza achieves a singularity of purpose in hammering home his message, and the experience compels one to watch even as one wishes to turn away.

Wolf and Sheep is an absorbing ethnographic docudrama hybrid, marbled with a curious vein of phantasmagoric storytelling

Because it wants to be a primer on a serious subject, an exciting cinematic exposé and an argument for more openness and some kind of regulatory framework, the necessities of these different strands end up getting in each other’s way.

As dark and pessimistic as the rest of South Korean thrill-master Na Hong Jin’s work, The Wailing (Goksung, a.k.a. The Strangers in France) is long and involving, permeated by a tense, sickening sense of foreboding, yet finally registers on a slightly lower key than the director’s acclaimed genre films The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010).

Some viewers will find the film's mannered performances and direction silly; but while Wang Tianlin's lensing doesn't match the luxuriant sheen that Christopher Doyle and Philippe Le Sourd have delivered for Wong, the production elements do add up to a coherent style.

Slow and talky but suffused with insight and intelligence, the film is another noteworthy effort from the writer/director of such intriguing if unfortunately little-seen dramas as Glass Chin and Sparrows Dance.

Unlike the films he’s co-written for Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone…), which often rely on Audiard’s stunning capacity to foreground grand emotional sweeps, this is a much more constructed narrative that could only be described as a writer’s film, though one with several pleasant — if shocking is your idea of pleasant, that is — surprises up its sleeve.

Honey Buddies is a comically contagious tribute to male bonding in the great outdoors.

The tight time-frame gives the excellent cast a chance to play with intensity, making even old genre hands hold their breath and feel their minds sufficiently shaken up.

A thoughtful and illuminating examination of a provocative subject.

It's in the more personal moments — such as when the artist enthusiastically describes her painting of an elderly Marilyn Monroe — that it becomes most interesting.

It's no rival for le Carré when it comes to the old cross/double-cross stuff; but a surfeit of style and a tasty supporting turn by James McAvoy help fill the time between fight scenes, which — this being a film by the stuntman/codirector behind John Wick — are pretty much the whole point.

Serving as a gentle reminder that enduring love is still possible, My Love, Don't Cross That River is practically the cinematic equivalent of marriage counseling.

While Olympic Trials don’t usually tend to be the sort of milieu that readily lend themselves to quirky comedy, the engagingly amusing Tracktown quite capably goes the distance.

The shtick sticks in The Mind's Eye, which lovingly apes period details, this time with psychokinetic warriors instead of alien invaders. But where the first film was dour, this one works so hard at its ultra-grave air of menace that it eventually turns (intentionally, one hopes) comic, building to third-act violence that will leave the right kind of audience howling with delight.

Both informative and moving.

River ends with relief, followed by a reversal that’s the last thing you expect from this unvarnished, unsentimental tale of self-preservation: an act of quietly powerful heroism.

Sometimes all a documentary needs is one strong, charismatic personality to keep things watchable: Garnet's Gold boasts two in the form of the middle-aged eponymous protagonist and his feisty octogenarian mother.

Stuffed to its statement earrings with celebrities, fashion folk and comedian chums making cameos, this breezy blast of bawdy jokes and Bollinger product placement should lift spirits in a post-Brexit Britain.

The story’s anchored by strong performances from Belgian star Cecile de France (The Kid With a Bike, Hereafter) and French singer-turned-actress Izia Higelin (Mauvaise fille), who have a natural chemistry that’s not only credible but actually infectious.

Ethnic comedies have their limitations, and a sharper script would have helped this one to stand out from the pack. Nevertheless, audiences in a forgiving mood will enjoy the byplay among an appealing bunch of desperate characters.

It's hard not to have mixed reactions while watching Ted Balaker's documentary Can We Take a Joke? about how political correctness is stifling free speech, particularly when it comes to satire and stand-up comedy.

Setting out to show the range of expression found in a field of craft it feels is too often dismissed as a trivial women's pastime, Una Lorenzen's Yarn showcases four artists doing things with crochet your spinster great-aunt probably never imagined.

Imperium traffics in familiar undercover cop thriller conventions while gaining resonance from its disturbing, timely milieu.

In Order of Disappearance provides a wonderful vehicle for Stellan Skarsgard's stone-faced gravitas and calm intelligence.

Bleed for This is a gritty, pungently Rhode Island working class-set boxing drama that connects with most of its punches.

The first couple of reels are very loosely structured, with no one identified onscreen, which gives the film a verite edge but which also means that it takes a good while for the material to find its footing and make it clear what and, more importantly, who, the film is exactly about.

Things head eventually in an abstract direction that may have played better onstage than it does here ("we must forget what we didn't see here," guests are eventually instructed), but a compelling atmosphere lingers.

Interspersing technical talk with a quick history of nuclear testing and other near-misses, the doc demonstrates how often situations like this arise.

It's a gripping ride through the storm...with powerful imagery, a simple and accessible story and a stellar performance from Kim Yoon-seok.

Though too inside-baseball for many casual art fans, it should find some takers in its nationwide tour of bookings at art houses and museums.

To say 13th is stimulating and thought-provoking is the understatement of the year.

The film will have a hard time attracting attention outside the community of veterans. But that doesn't diminish its ability to put us in the shoes of ordinary men balancing boredom with life-or-death action on a daily basis.

For all the sloppiness of its approach, The Lost Arcade is an enjoyable and nostalgic portrait of a bygone era and a local institution that has now lost the pungent atmospheric flavor that made it so unique.

A rollicking if somewhat ham-handed documentary about the life of costume designer Orry-Kelly.

The film is emotionally manipulative, to be sure, but it's ultimately hard to resist, especially given the quality of the lead performances.

Though more mainstream-oriented audiences will not be on board with Ahn’s brand of subtlety, for those willing to fully invest themselves, Spa Night offers a carefully considered story about identity or rather identities.