Swicord took on a daunting challenge in adapting this piece, and she’s met it more intelligently than convincingly. It would have been asking a lot from any actor to carry this film, and Cranston has done the heavy lifting and more.

For all its manic energy, there aren't enough recreational drugs in the world to make Yakuza Apocalypse anything but a bloody silly bore.

Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's Ten Thousand Saints offers both a premise and a setting ripe for nostalgic sentimentality but indulges in little of it.

Unfocussed editing and Mark Rivett's unimaginative score contribute to a lightweight feel that is best suited to TV viewing.

Alex Strangelove is much more affecting whenever Johnson steps out of genre comfort zones.

While not as strong, or nuanced, an entry as any of the three that preceded it, Yen once again proves at 56 to be something of an ageless wonder.

The doc pads out its assertions of malfeasance with personal scenes that fall flat, never giving much insight into its subject's personality or deepening the sympathy we may have started off with for the children she left behind.

Being Eddie isn’t a great piece of documentary filmmaking, nor does its DNA include an iota of journalism. What it is, though, is consummately polished and affectionate, taking an actor who rarely seemed vulnerable or especially comfortable in the spotlight at the peak of his stardom and making him seem, for 103 minutes, thoroughly at ease.

Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel's latest collaboration offers a more relatable rom-com scenario while generating laughs that should still satisfy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" fans.

Reynolds’ boundless appeal, the frequently witty screenplay and expertly rendered technical aspects make the film enjoyable summer frivolity.

There’s an element of light comedy — rather than the more familiar irony — that feels fresh and invigorating, even if Garrel doesn’t quite stick the landing.

It's not surprising that the remake of the 1986 film About Last Night... is broader, cruder and raunchier than the original. What is surprising it that's also much, much funnier.

Indeed, the picture works best when it eschews dialogue and plot altogether and the lush musical elements combine with the intense hues of Manu Dacosse's 16mm-shot visuals to stimulatingly trippy effect.

The Actor can be fun to think about, but hard to stay connected to. Johnson’s film works on an intellectual level — batting around questions about how identity is constructed — but the director struggles to translate the stakes of those questions.

The narrative cruises to a satisfying finish. The jokes go down easy. The characters grow in predictable directions. The film rarely strays from its genre’s conventions, and that’s not a complaint. Sometimes staying in one lane yields the most gratifying results.

The result is smart, gruesome and inventive enough to more than please niche genre fans who are likely to spread the word to fellow admirers of gallows humor.

Another beguiling if draining fantasia from Jean-Pierre Jeuet that harkens back to silent movies.

This is a picaresque road movie about two mismatched characters, with rookie director A.B. Shawky offering a motley and not entirely smooth cocktail of drama and melodrama, a dash of social critique and insight, some chuckles and a few tugs at the heartstrings, mainly by virtue of its near-virtuoso score.

By the end of Sly, the star proves to be a good enough explainer of his legacy that the documentary finds effective insight and poignancy — despite however much he’s an overly protective custodian of that legacy, and however hesitant Zimny is to shake him off of his preferred course.

The film has a different though no less riveting intensity, thanks to Rooney Mara's emotionally naked performance in the title role, and unflinching support from Ben Mendelsohn.

The debut feature succeeds thanks to a credibly bifurcated performance by star Ansel Elgort.

While it offers some provocative moral quandaries, it serves mostly as a showcase for Patrick Stewart.

There’s a decidedly campy side to the proceedings that Koutras effectively juxtaposes with the hard-edged realities of contemporary Greece, a beautiful but hostile nation wrecked by the ongoing economic crisis and a place in which xenophobia, racism and homophobia seem to fester freely.

In its fine balance of emotional and intellectual curiosity, and its elegant assembly of a rich archive of home movies, photographs and interviews, this film unpacks those memories with beguiling candor

Fortunately for moviegoers, the veteran Scottish actor is an engaging, charismatic presence, and Plane is the sort of breathlessly paced suspenser that barely leaves a moment for audiences to stop suspending their disbelief.

Though frustratingly unfocused and sometimes overreaching (even compared to Philippe’s other docs, which are never what you’d call precision-crafted), the film is consistently enjoyable, with just enough flashes of insight to justify its existence.

Incident at Loch Ness manages to cross "Project Greenlight" with "The Blair Witch Project" in a way that makes one pine for the originals.

Though heavy-handed in places, The Mafia Only Kills in Summer is a generally charming and engrossing debut feature.

That the film proves intriguing despite its overly familiar themes is a testament to the acting more than the writing. Eaton delivers a compelling, highly physical performance, using her endlessly expressive eyes to communicate her character's complex range of emotions and making us care about Liv despite the contrived plot mechanics.

The doc is stuffed with great archive material. But it largely squanders an ideal platform through which to reaffirm the subject’s vital place in pop music history and reclaim disco as a genre whose influence has never waned.

The film deftly explores the story's complex moral issues from several sides.

Centurion delivers some large-scale action but plays almost like a Roman-era Western in its depiction of a few soldiers trying to get home alive after the slaughter of their comrades.

La Vie au Ranch boasts an undeniable authenticity. But how much you enjoy it will depend on your affection for its aimless if attractive characters.

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 contrast between unflappable optimism and deep grief does not play out comfortably in this world of boosted colors, restless pacing and exaggerated tween naivite.

Wherever one draws the line between supporting a group and co-opting it, X captures a night of solid performances and top-notch stagecraft. Just don’t show up if you’re looking to hear the old stuff.

Taylor does capture the Jim Crow era and its anxieties well, but his characters tend toward the facile and his white heroine is too idealized.

Compelling portrait of famed radical lawyer by his daughters.

Sadly, despite its title referencing a dirt bike gang, Charm City Kings doesn’t really show us anything we haven’t seen before. Unable to harness the story’s potential, the filmmakers instead deliver a mostly canned movie that flatlines 20 minutes before it comes to an end.

A drama that is more contemplative at times than dramatic yet one containing several powerful moments.

Closer in tone and old-school psychological fright tactics to the original film than either The Conjuring 2 or Annabelle, David F. Sandberg’s incisive approach capably resets the franchise.

The thriller starts out with a firm footing in horror and becomes less distinctive as it shifts into more psychological and sentimental terrain. Still, the confident storytelling keeps you watching, as well as strong performances from Mamoudou Athie as a widowed amnesiac and Phylicia Rashad as a brilliant brain specialist playing God.

While it has its moments of pure Farrelly inspiration and swell performances from Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear...the patented blend of the outrageous and the sweet that has become the brothers' trademark struggles to find the desired balance here.

The two superb performances and the tactful hand of a gifted new director ensures that the audience will still be thinking about these people long after the journey ends.

Filmmaker Trapero, a proponent of the New Argentine Cinema, employs a minimalist naturalism to tell what is obviously a very personal story that, at the same time, is certain to elicit widespread sighs of familiarity.

Digging around in the crannies of his highly unusual home but never becoming intrusive, the doc feels like it was made by a friend, in a good way.

The fun stems mainly from the amusing interactions between the two main characters so deliciously played by Coogan and Rudd. Both actors are at peak form here, with Coogan clearly having a blast as the flamboyant Erasmus and Rudd employing his expert deadpan delivery and gift for comic timing as the slow-burning Paul.

The winking, rather perverse sexual chemistry between the two charismatic lead actresses, who play sisters (though not twins), is one of the film’s main attractions. But Trapero’s ambitious attempt to strike a unique tone somewhere between serious drama and humorous daytime TV falls awkwardly flat.

Fluk doesn’t have a firm enough handle on the material to make that story interesting. And the uneven division of the Keith and Vera plotlines makes Köln 75 a movie without a narrative center.

Highly entertaining and frequently fascinating.

With his (Friedkin) vigorous camera compositions and a talented cast, he manages to straddle a wickedly fine line between taught portrayal of paranoia and parody of paranoia.

Never really decides whether it wants to concentrate on providing information or sociological analysis, with the result that it fails to fully satisfy on either level.

Vague and unsastisfying, but not as immediately dismissable as Propaganda's 1993 shocker dud "Kalifornia," "Dream Lover" has going for it the lure of Spader and Amick going for broke and a plot that will bring on post-screening discussions. Either masterfully restrained or badly out of whack, depending on how one interprets the conclusion, "Dream Lover" is problematic enough to earn only passing notice in the marketplace. [11 Apr 1994]

Having invested a bit of time early on to the dawn of the internet, Trust Machine has shown us how beautiful inventions can be twisted by entrenched powers. The film's hope is that, if more people are paying attention this time around, blockchain might remain a tool for popular empowerment.

Though the movie is never unengaging, ultimately, it doesn't quite deliver.

Spans four decades of a troubled family with enough gentle pathos and sly humor to compensate for a less than original storyline.

A safer but still funny follow-up to Jeff Baena's provocative debut.

For those who have never heard of these cases, this short and very to-the-point exposé can be an eye-opening experience, especially as it is set in country we tend to idealize for its wholesomeness.

It is saved by its underlying theme of forgiveness and reconciliation between long-estranged family members, for whom the cruel memory of the Japanese invasion and occupation of Singapore during World War 2 is still alive.

This is a large-canvas treatment both epic and intimate in scale.

Though it leaves some avenues underexplored and gives a bit too much attention to the sci-fi landmark name-checked in its title, the film makes for engrossing, sometimes unsettling viewing.

Breathlessly paced and filled with the sort of black humor that makes it as much a comedy as a horror film, Abigail is wildly entertaining for most of its running time, although it becomes overly burdened with baroque narrative flourishes.

As ambitious and sometimes unsettling as it is, the film, after crossing back and forth over the line many times, ultimately feels affected in its aspirations toward making some profound statement about self-abasement and sacrifice, making one feel like rejecting the whole thing despite some striking individual moments.

The Last Mountain makes a powerful case against the coal mining industry in West Virginia. Films like this are largely preaching to the choir -- opponents are unlikely to go near it. But its importance cannot be underestimated.

Dillard’s auspicious shift to features reveals an imaginative young filmmaker prepared to take manageable risks in pursuit of his personal vision.

More than colorful enough to excite genre fans who like a dash of history with their swordplay.

Wonderfully weird and wistful adventure-comedy about a fish-out-of-water oceanographer.

A little more "Grifters" would have gone far here. Not toward making the film palatable for the mainstream, perhaps, but at least toward selling its neo-noir story to an audience already inclined toward such seedy material.

This film of delicate emotional nuance recounts an enchanting but sad love story.

Longing makes you long for a good movie. Tedious and long-winded even at 90 minutes, this German film, written and directed by Valeska Grisebach, tells a mundane tale of adultery that lacks even the slightest insight.

Intelligently assembled by Lemelson, a UCLA anthropologist, it addresses a Westerner's concerns without condescending to its subjects; though a three-family focus is hardly enough to make an authoritative-feeling portrait.

It's a confident, enjoyably nasty piece of work, unnerving enough to cure your FOMO about that canceled summer vacation.

Spectacular rain forest combat scenes are non-stop in an authentic-feeling actioner recounting an aborigine rebellion in 1930s Taiwan.

Essentially serving as a constant spectator, looking in on both the production and her own tangled life, Seyfriend impressively conveys a myriad of tamped-down, long-repressed emotions with an economy of dialogue at her disposal.

Thrillers don't get much smarter than The Interpreter.

The visceral fireworks of the characters’ arguments and the disintegration of trust among them are observed with unsettling intimacy in the script and in the emotional honesty of the performances...This is terrific stuff.

At its best, the movie is kind of like The Stepford Wives meets Rosemary’s Baby, with side orders of Cronenberg, J-Horror and Lynch.

Even at its most predictable, the winning characterizations and soulful insights into aging keep the handsome film on a warmly satisfying track.

Even when the dramatic momentum slackens, the movie's grindhouse world remains vividly rendered and immersive.

It will not teach you very much about either autism or Metallica, but you will leave the theater smiling.

Adapting the novel by Zhivko Chingo, director Trajkov and his co-scripter, Vladimir Blazevski, have created a searing memory piece. Suki Medencevic's widescreen cinematography illuminates a shadow realm halfway between heaven and hell.

A family-friendly fantasy that finds the director working in an uncharacteristically gentle mood.

This is one of those films that, if shown overseas, could potentially make people think that the U.S. is going down the tubes even faster than imagined. Everyone in it — adolescents and grown-ups, too — is beyond stupid and content to remain that way.

Using Walter Hill's cult classic film "The Warriors" as a cultural touchstone, Shan Nicholson's documentary Rubble Kings recounts their stories in breathlessly paced, vivid fashion.

Through an affecting mix of comedy, romance and drama, A Radiant Girl sounds a warning about the perils of not looking directly at tough realities. And yet it’s so alive from moment to moment, so finely attuned to the emotional lives of its characters, that it never feels like a history lesson dressed up as narrative.

Ultimately little more than an extended commercial for his new album. That said, it is an effortless pleasure to watch

Compelling enough to anticipate the inevitable Hollywood dramatization of the story, On the Map will prove fascinating even to non-sports buffs.

Despite its lineage and some impressive special effects, Contact is a disappointingly earthbound production, weighed down by the ballast of talking-heads dramaturgy and bloated storytelling.

Lamb proves itself a deeply intriguing psychological drama that should inspire much spirited debate. Let the controversy begin.

Lucy plays more like a big dumb superhero flick than sci-fi.

Though enjoyable as it touches on some of the liveliest scenes in New York City's recent pop-culture history, the doc's appeal is greatly limited by Garcia's blinkered perspective on his own life.

Takes place in the world of haute couture. And that pretty much sums up the movie. Otherwise, it would be just another Queen of Mean, boss from hell movie. But, oh, what delicious fun Meryl Streep and her conspirators have with that world.

A credibly drawn central character is trapped inside a half-cooked dramatic stew in Hello I Must Be Going.

The Grand Guignol factor climbs throughout the final third, but while climactic battles are violent, they never really thrill.

The film embraces ambiguity in the end, with a coda that places Marco and Carla on the same level but not in the same place. The scene's unsettled but peaceful mood seems an honest reflection of its characters' lives.

Viewers expecting a garden-variety horror flick will likely recoil, but those seeking new voices in Mexican cinema may well hail Minter's effort.

Nothing really adds up, and the ending is downright absurd. You would like even the most austere, doctrinaire existential movie to earn its downbeat ending. This one fails utterly to do so.

The cinematography and editing are as superb as the film's feline stars are photogenic and heroic.