Exploiting the serious issue of homelessness for the purpose of cheap romantic melodrama, Other People's Children squanders whatever potential it might have had.

You need more than a little faith to endure Carl Lauten's stylistically ambitious but hackneyed faith-based film that infuses its treacly love story with heavy doses of CGI animation and even heavier doses of Christian moralizing.

Kwek's critical view of his home country is certainly there, burning brightly, but Unlucky Plaza should be considered a small step for a promising socially-conscious filmmaker trying to connect his fury with the right kind of art.

Although he can’t quite get a grip on guiding the lightweight narrative, Zada demonstrates a fluid visual style, particularly in the complex sequences filmed in the forest settings.

If the film runs a tad too long, especially in its second half, Embrace of the Serpent is still an absorbing account of indigenous tribes facing up to colonial incursions, revealing how Westerners are in many ways far behind the native peoples they conquer.

As spooky as The Shining's Overlook Hotel and Rosemary Baby's Bramford, the location -- actually multiple locations -- of the atmospheric horror film The Abandoned is spectacular. It's too bad that the same can't be said about the story.

Without that sort of compelling figure at its center, Diablo feels far more like a pastiche than the real deal.

Autobiographical but also singularly imaginative, this formally exuberant bildungsroman plays like a Gregg Araki film with a dash of Cronenbergian psychosomatic body-rebellion thrown in.

Just like a cubist painting, what happens in the film doesn’t necessarily resemble real life in a narrow documentary sense but instead gives the viewer something else: a chance to consider certain behavior from various sides and on a more abstract level.

Since from her other features it is clear she's an uncompromising director, it should perhaps come as no surprise that this film is as unapologetically personal and self-absorbed as it is, making no attempt to draw in viewers perhaps unfamiliar with the filmmaker.

Lee makes a credible transition from directing comedy, but relies too frequently on sub-par special effects and poorly staged reenactments that only inconsistently pump up the action.

It has all the flaws of the recent Bradley Cooper vehicle Burnt, only without the sex and the charm.

Yosemite is a contemplative drama, low-key perhaps to a fault. But Demeestere shows acute sensitivity in her understanding of boys and their growing awareness of the world, with its real and imagined menaces.

Its rhythms are sluggish, its jokes predictable and the gags are set up with such thudding deliberateness that even the sight of Ferrell losing control of a motorcycle, careening through the air and crashing straight through his house barely raises an eyebrow.

The filmmakers' access is remarkable, and they eventually compound the film's novelty in an exciting way (spoilers below). But claims that this film opens our eyes to unknown practices are exaggerated.

The charismatic performers — who include Angelababy as a woman at the center of a past love triangle with the two male leads — are engaging from start to finish.

The film is the product of the same production company responsible for such previous Willis duds as "Vice," "The Prince," and "Fire With Fire." Either the Die Hard star enjoys working with them, or he's being blackmailed.

While He Never Died is hardly a comedy — it's bloody and reflective, with a gloomy side that sometimes threatens to sink it — these wry moments are central to its appeal.

Its feature-length assemblage of found footage, unified by an original soundtrack and eccentric narration by Tilda Swinton, will be too much of a good thing for some art-house patrons. But auds accustomed to the work of Bill Morrison and other archive-combing meditation artists should respond warmly.

No less noisy, obnoxious or just plain groan-inducing than the previous installments.

Director Beth Harrington packs enough drama, music and history to fuel a miniseries in her thoroughly entertaining and comprehensive account of the Carter and Cash families and their enduring contributions to American music.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens pumps new energy and life into a hallowed franchise in a way that both resurrects old pleasures and points in promising new directions.

There is absolutely no doubt about who wrote the elaborate, pungent, profane and often funny dialogue that a fine cast chews over and spits out with evident glee, nor as to who staged the ongoing bloodbath that becomes a gusher in the final stretch.

Though they have little to add to familiar genre themes, Uthaug and the screenwriters make the most of the unique location, which lends itself to jaw-dropping vistas from every camera angle.

There are some fascinating cracks in his constantly upbeat personality that Rice manages to smuggle in. A little more of this material, or at least a little more carefully edited and juxtaposed with the rest, might have made the film less of a valentine for Oakley fans and more of a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a relatively new phenomenon in general and this "personality" in particular.

American Hero, which intermittently uses a faux-documentary style to awkward effect, never quite decides what it wants to be.

Building on a string of B-movie action titles like Assassin’s Bullet and Ninja, martial arts veteran Florentine doesn’t need any schooling on running an efficient and energetic production.

Refreshingly free of the tired human-interest personality profiles that afflict sports documentaries on both the big and small screens, director Eryk Rocha has created an impressionistic, visually stunning cinematic essay.

No one emerges especially worse for wear because the entire production is wholly apathetic to everything from a compelling story to sharp comic timing.

For every emotionally resonant scene, there's another that seems to drag on pointlessly, although the filmmaker once again displays a talent for delineating the emotional tensions that develop when disparate characters are thrown together.

Although the film directed by Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) mostly concentrates on over-the-top comic mayhem, it's actually funniest in its quieter, subtler moments.

This is a solid and detailed record of an extraordinary protest movement.

The doc’s stunning slo-mo footage of midair locomotion emphasizes these messengers’ grace and mystery.

If a film's opening credit reads "Presented by Larry King," run screaming for the hills. The venerable talk show host and his wife, Shawn King, are among the producers of this cinematic trifle that proves yet again that Christmas is responsible for more bad movies than any other holiday on the planet.

[A] blankly heroic, clunkingly predictable portrait.

It’s a surprising and often thought-provoking effort from a filmmaker who has never chosen to take the simple path, confirming Larrain as one of the more genuine talents working in cinema today.

It is irresistibly laugh-out-loud and feel-good.

Despite the film's flaws and missteps, there’s a low-key charm and sincerity at play in Cronies, as well as a sly recognition of fragile male egos and the way bravado can mask sexual anxiety.

Cohn displays deep sympathy with her protagonist’s intersecting emotional crises, scripting a narrative that’s intensely perceptive without becoming mired in mawkishness.

Even if the film could be accused of lacking subtlety and overloading on whimsy, it spreads a sobering message in a lucid story that remains visually alive and inventive throughout — its aesthetic keeps constantly shifting yet remains fluid.

What makes the film so much fun to watch is not only its clear underdog narrative — the story's only halfway told by 2007, with several more surprising twists in store — but also that the no-nonsense commoners are such pleasant company, recounting how things went in candid, soundbite-ready and often amusing ways.

That the film itself is nearly as chaotic as the clan it examines can either be regarded as an admirable artistic correlative or a crippling defect, but the splendidly dextrous cast ensures that this goofy success story, which could just easily be titled American Hustle 2, keeps firing on all cylinders in the manner of the writer-director's previous few outings.

Pushing both brutal realism and extravagant visual poetry to the edges of what one customarily finds in mainstream American filmmaking, director/co-writer Alejandro G. Inarritu, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and a vast team of visual effects wizards have created a sensationally vivid and visceral portrait of human endurance under very nearly intolerable conditions.

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

What starts out as a familiar kind of portrait...eventually grows a layer or two more complex.

For the most part the film is compelling, with Jones' riveting performance as the alternately sympathetic and nasty protagonist anchoring the proceedings.

While the violent sequences are very effectively staged, the results are a strange hybrid that doesn't quite work. Lacking the antic, witty humor of something like the similarly conceived Gremlins or the full-out gore of a traditional horror flick, Krampus never really finds it niche.

Victoria is definitely what you would call a passive protagonist, and although the film subtly explores questions of ethnic identity, it doesn't necessarily keep one engaged until the end.

Ericson Core’s Point Break strips the silly fun and relatively straight-ahead narrative from the original for a humorless, if photogenic spin on extreme crime.

Failing to live up to it anarchic convictions by adding sympathetic aspects to its central character shortly before the conclusion, Uncle Nick, much like the sorts of holiday celebrations it depicts, is ultimately too strained to be enjoyable.

A sort of maritime Donner Party, In the Heart of the Sea is a rugged but underwhelming true-life drama of a cursed 19th century whaling voyage.

Heneral Luna is a sturdy, stirring if perhaps sometimes simplistic historical epic about bravery and treachery in a country at war.

Ali has found his footing as surely as has his protagonist, Ved (Ranbir Kapoor), in this satisfying and emotionally challenging tale of a young New Delhi man struggling to determine which parts of his life are artifice and which are real.

At once comical and poignant, this offbeat, true-life show-biz tale deserves instant cult status.

Although undercut at times by self-indulgence that includes navel-gazing narration by the filmmaker, Rock in the Red Zone delivers a moving portrait of a musical community that's managed to survive under far greater pressures than worrying about the next gig.

With artistic flourishes, N.C. Heikin’s documentary portrait fits the exceptional life story into a biographical boilerplate that covers the general trajectory and turning points.

Pairing another Firth (no relation) with crackerjack newcomer Taron Edgerton, Kingsman's fizzingly droll chutzpah can't help but make Spooks: The Greater Good, for all Peter Firth's ballast, seem dowdily old-school in comparison.

Gathering vintage interviews from a couple of different documentaries, the film movingly observes a man who can be physically unsettled by things he saw several decades prior.

The seemingly autobiographical film from writer/director/star Philipp Karner may have been therapeutic for him, but it is too opaque and slow-moving to compel the attention of many audiences beyond the gay festival circuit.

Bolshoi Babylon explores the bizarre case in more detail, but grows even more interesting when it examines how this storied cultural institution struggles to survive tempestuous politics both inside and outside the theater walls.

If Berardini isn't very generous to the company's execs, shortchanging what is likely a genuine belief that they're doing good while making a ton of money, he does spend time with officers who, for a time, embraced the Taser eagerly.

Mostly one wishes for a more concise edit that would pull this impressive avalanche of memories and faded photos together a lot sooner.

"The truth is malleable,” an onscreen title declares at the beginning of the film. It’s also somewhat elusive in this saga, which is less an investigation than a spirited tribute. But the combination of humor and grit is always intriguing.

Despite it’s entirely predictable, cliché-embracing script, executed with a shrewd mix of forelock-tugging rectitude and cheekiness by director Julian Jarrold (Brideshead Revisited, Kinky Boots), it remains an eminently watchable diversion.

This earnest but painfully clunky film, though professional in tech respects and seemingly well financed, plays like the work of an ambitious high school history student.

McAvoy and Radcliffe are actors with charm to burn, but it’s only in brief moments that their characterizations cut through the film’s pandemonium, while the jokes they’re called upon to deliver land with a thud.

Though Whelan's debut filmmaking effort wears some of its homemade characteristics proudly, it wrangles more than enough credible interviewees to make its points.

Even if the now-veteran director lays everything on a bit thick, repeatedly makes many of the same points and lets things go on too long, he's still found a lively and legitimate way to tackle urgent subject matter that other filmmakers have found excuses to avoid.

Renzi's uneven script makes this a less sturdy vehicle than 2012's Arbitrage, and a less marketable one given the absence of thriller elements that sustained that film's character study. Still, there's plenty here for Gere's admirers to appreciate.

Buzzing attentively but not exclusively around cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, director Leah Wolchok strikes a pleasing balance between office minutiae and comic greatest hits; she gets enough face time with individual artists to please comedy nerds while keeping things wholly accessible to casual fans.

Infusing its generic horror tropes with vaguely satirical aspects, the film doesn't really work on either level. Unintentionally campy (or purposely, it's hard to tell) and marred by ridiculous plotting and dialogue, #Horror is mostly just a horror.

Be prepared to be emotionally devastated.

The portrait that emerges is intimate — perhaps too intimate for film lovers who might have preferred to hear more about the star’s working methods, and fewer details about her husbands and kids.

It’s a solid genre outing with unsettling topical resonance.

Nielsson somewhat frustratingly avoids giving us many cues to the passage of time, but nevertheless the film captures some of the drama generated by the public's impatience and Mugabe's maneuvering during the long drafting process

Sylvester Stallone doesn't get back in the ring in Creed, but he still comes away as a big winner in this far-fetched but likeable offshoot of the geriatric Rocky series.

It offers more than enough laughs to justify taking time out from TV marathons of A Christmas Story, and maybe enough, at least for younger audiences, to become a pinch-hitter each year when established classics like Elf grow too familiar.

An uneven but promising sophomore outing for Montreal-based Italian director Simone Rapisarda Casanova.

Other than undeniably looking good, Harding is unable to bring much depth to his role that, if the film had been shot closer to the period in which it was set, could have been knocked out of the park by a young Pacino or De Niro.

What should have been a tautly paced B-movie thriller instead comes to feel like a mini-series, leaving the viewer too much time to ponder the silliness of its narrative contrivances.

However polished the doc's tech and score, it simply doesn't find drama in this familiar template.

The whimsically humorous script relies primarily on playing up the individual idiosyncrasies of the characters rather than full-on comedic situations, although the overall approach remains grounded in reality, rather than taking to Wes Anderson-style flights of fancy.

Pizzo finds nearly no drama in Freddie's path from high school to college ball.

Using a cinema verite style to explore this little-known subculture, the filmmaker presents a tender portrait of his subjects who have little place in their country's society.

Bollywood spectacular is bloated, but hits the right emotional targets.

The Dark Horse is an emotionally potent story of redemption anchored by a heart-piercing lead performance from Cliff Curtis.

The Good Dinosaur emerges as a visually breathtaking work of computer-generated animation that is ultimately unable to compensate for a disappointingly derivative script.

On their own, individual scenes are effective enough in semi-farcically portraying the ignorance, avoidance and/or downright denial by the practitioners of bad loans. Together, however, they are wearying in their repetitive nature.

Patterson makes the most of his access to the two musicians, shooting on the run as often as sitting down for interviews with key participants in the presidential contest.

A likeable if not especially vibrant doc.

After Laurent Cantet's Return to Ithaca starts out as one of those frustrating no-access parties, this reunion of five middle-aged friends on a Havana rooftop almost imperceptibly transitions into a richer, more emotionally expansive experience.

Heist nonetheless has a B-movie appeal thanks to its strong ensemble and wacky commitment to its overcomplicated, wildly absurd plotting.

One of the most egregiously awful horror films in recent memory.

A Christmas comedy of numbing tedium and tackiness.

A confident and quietly promising feature debut from director/co-writer Fellipe Barbosa.

This film is vital in uncovering a hazard that was kept hidden for far too long. At last the secret is out, and Landesman and his fine cast will help to keep the conversation going.

This Isn’t Funny is insightful and quick-witted, a romance that take chances while its lovers learn to do the same.

It may be Hot Sugar's Cold World, but that doesn't mean we have to live in it.