Pelican Dreams will give you a new appreciation for these creatures sometimes referred to as "flying dinosaurs."

An amiable but wholly unnecessary movie that plays like a feature-length version of those reels one watches while eating rubber chicken at a banquet honoring a much-loved artist.

While Isaac Feder's raunchy comedy gives the "Sixth Sense" star the opportunity to roll a condom over a banana and talk really dirty, it offers precious little to even the most undemanding audiences.

Arriving three decades after the fact, this docudrama doesn't quite do justice to its important subject.

The director attempts to infuse the film with a dreamy poeticism via slow motion and other stylistic devices, with the results feeling mildly pretentious.

Despite the presence of Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer, both sprightly and appealing in the lead roles, this misfire of a cornball romance is so tone-deaf, so utterly lacking in screwball snap and visual punch, that viewers will find it hard to care whether or not the aging lovebirds end up in each other’s arms.

Misses nary a single cliché in its visually disorienting and narratively confusing proceedings.

It's a visually stunning experience. Even the shots of riders crashing, and there's enough of them here to fuel a dozen PSAs, achieve a haunting visual poetry.

Representing one of Robin Williams' last films, A Merry Friggin' Christmas lives up to its bah, humbug title. Not only because it's terrible, although it is, but rather because one desperately hoped that the beloved actor would go out on a high note.

An upbeat chronicle of very hard rock in a very hard place, Death Metal Angola is one of the livelier and more enticingly exotic additions to the ever-burgeoning music-documentary sub-genre.

Derivative and otherwise lacking in originality, the film which features enough gratuitous nudity and violence to satisfy the genre crowd is a strictly by-the-numbers affair that probably won't be filling the multiplexes in Salt Lake City.

Although there’s talent on display in all aspects of this time-jumping, visually distinctive independent that rests its commercial hopes on the names of leads Justin Long and Emmy Rossum, Esmail strenuously overplays his hand with the torrent of obnoxious dialogue he asks his male lead to deliver, which is enough to make one want to run out several times for a breather.

Comic subplots are less zany than flatly hopeless, occasionally acting as deflating metaphors for army life.

A clear-eyed, compelling look at getting out the vote, grassroots-style.

More than just a sip of fizzy fun, this 3-hour comedy is Jeroboam-sized. Farah Khan’s Happy New Year is an ambitious musical, a love story, an Oceans 11-style crime caper and an ensemble comedy.

A fly-on-the-wall portrait that provides a vivid reminder that children around the world don't have it nearly as lucky as those in America, with the daunting, UNICEF-provided statistics delivered at the end hopefully inciting a spur to action.

Director Pat O'Connor (Dancing at Lughnasa) achieves a lot with a little... Adding greatly to the overall impact are the strong performances by the three leads.

Thanks to Jon Cryer’s likable-schlemiel shtick, a lost-cause rom-com is more watchable than it has any right to be. But that’s not enough to make Hit by Lightning remotely involving.

ABCs of Death 2 mainly serves to demonstrate that even talented filmmakers need a lengthier running time to craft even a moderately successful short.

Doyle overstuffs some of the content, jumping through dozens of interviews without allowing us enough time to process them. Still, the director and editor John Murphy manage to give all the material a solid through-line, making the many voices echo into one underlying argument: Showrunning sucks, but it may be the greatest job in entertainment today.

The tale is surprising, and directors Carlos Aguilo and Mandy Jacobson blaze right through it -- recounting ins and outs across an entire continent in ways that will challenge most viewers in the West.

Revenge of the Mekons is a buoyant exploration of the musicians’ devotion to their art and each other.

This grandly conceived and executed epic tries to give equal weight to intimate human emotions and speculation about the cosmos, with mixed results, but is never less than engrossing, and sometimes more than that.

At best, Trash works as a vibrant, occasionally suspenseful postcard-portrait of a place that’s always great to see on the big screen.

A thoughtful, emotionally tricky debut benefitting from two strong lead performances.

Less an investigation into or comprehensive summary of the Penn State sex-abuse scandal than a look at the feelings it elicited, Amir Bar-Lev's Happy Valley is more concerned with the phenomenon of team spirit than any single question of fact or moral judgment.

Viktor would be campy fun if it wasn't so relentlessly tedious.

Serves to not only put a very human face on this horrific condition but also as a triumphant valedictory of Campbell's poignant farewell tour.

In the absence of anything truly original in the screenplay he co-wrote with Juliet Snowden, director Stiles White vainly attempts to ratchet up the tension with a series of cheap jump scares fueled by loud noises that are the cinematic equivalent of shaking hands with someone wearing a joy buzzer.

East meets West to immensely satisfying effect in the vibrant mash-up of an animated romp, Big Hero 6.

Bereft of interesting characters, clever dialogue and any semblance of humor or visual coherence, Exists offers nothing to justify its cinematic existence.

Brad Anderson has basically thrown everything into the film's furnace so as to keep its wobbly narrative running — to no avail, sadly: as the leaps between genre tropes and divergent threads exposes ever wider plot holes, this incoherent adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe attempts endless twists and turns culminating in a supposedly cathartic denouement drenched in sap.

Stepping behind the camera, versatile actor Dylan Baker makes an assured directorial debut, drawing spirited performances from his seasoned cast while mainly steering clear of the usual, treacly movie-of-the week conventions that often go with the territory.

Distilling a couple of decades of stunt work and second-unit directing experience into 96 minutes of runtime, Stahelski and Leitch expertly deliver one action highlight after another in a near-nonstop thrill ride.

An affecting drama made more poignant by honest-feeling autobiographical elements.

It is difficult to believe a single word of it, still less to care about these relentlessly selfish and short-sighted characters.

In this spellbinding story, filmmakers Katy Chevigny and Ross Kauffman thrust us into the red-alert lives of four E-Team members. It's a comprehensive portrayal of these people's personal and professional lives.

In the end the taste of H.K. filmmaking dominates in the film's deliberately chaotic visual style, a circular narrative that heads nowhere, and lyrical song interludes that abruptly interrupt the non-stop action and camera movement.

Though the film addresses some questions that remain a sticking point in helping abused women, it sheds little new light on them for viewers who've spent any time thinking about this upsettingly widespread phenomenon.

More a film about ideas and theories rather than a story that’s more directly involving emotionally.

The filmmakers attempt to inject some life into their dubiously thin narrative by incorporating sequences shot at actual haunted houses that favor more elaborate shock tactics.

A technically ramshackle affair whose primary attribute is Tukel’s deadpan comic performance and self-deprecating willingness to portray his character as a total dick.

Botso is a deserving homage to a life well lived.

The endless parade of parodistic gags displays no semblance of wit, with the filmmakers content to perfectly ape the silliness of the era's music videos and such fashion statements as wearing a single cross earring.

Visually arresting as it is, the pic stands out mainly for its subject matter, the first documentary on blind chess, even though it fits snugly within the sub-genre of underdog stories.

The film is a meditation on its themes, and as such is probably too amorphous for its own good. But Vanquishing nonetheless represents a typically audacious effort from an intriguing filmmaker whose work bears future attention.

Default’s search for ultra-realism ironically starts to make it look ultra-artificial.

Aaron Zigman’s score provides reassuring downhome uplift — perhaps a necessary element in a tale of impossible, perfect love, where everything happens for a reason and is as it should be, even when it’s terrible.

The earnest film’s straightforwardness and down-to-earth characters — especially the lead performance by Maggie Baird — have a gentle appeal, but its tendency to spell out every emotion and theme in on-the-nose dialogue undercuts its potential impact at nearly every turn.

Gerard Johnstone, a first-time writer-director from New Zealand, demonstrates a sly command of deadpan humor along with an assured grasp of seasoned horror tropes.

The Book of Life is a visually stunning effort that makes up for its formulaic storyline with an enchanting atmosphere that sweeps you into its fantastical world, or in this case, three worlds.

No matter one's personal stance about what Snowden did, this revelatory work is fascinating and thought-provoking, if, at the same time, oddly lacking in tension; unlike the provocations of Michael Moore or Oliver Stone, the temperature of this film is very cool.

The film unfortunately depicts black female sexuality, a topic rarely portrayed onscreen, with all the depth and subtlety of a late night Cinemax offering.

Fury is a good, solid World War II movie, nothing more and nothing less.

You're Not You isn't entirely successful in avoiding a television movie-style predictability in its depiction of its central character's incapacitating illness. But its superb performances and emotional complexity ultimately elevate its familiar themes.

Co-scripters and directors Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath never seem quite sure which horror subgenre the film should favor, as the supernatural elements demonstrate little synergy with the serial-killer procedural plotting.

Cartoon violence and action, gore and humor, all rolled into one schlocky but enjoyable package.

With a scare factor far greater than its modest dimensions initially seem to promise, The Canal is a polished indie psycho-thriller full of macabre twists and nerve-snapping tension.

Essentially a feature-length advertisement for the Mormon Church which makes AT&T's "Reach Out and Touch Someone" TV commercials seem edgy by comparison, Meet the Mormons is strictly for the converted.

Shot over the course of several years, Evolution of a Crime is often rough-hewn in its execution, but it's deeply moving nonetheless.

It offers a plethora of personal accounts, practically all of which are unabashedly laudatory, that provide a fuller picture of its subject's complex personality even if the results border on hagiography.

Sad and disturbing, this smartly and conscientiously crafted film is a powerful wake-up call, heard but not yet implemented, by the “civilized” world.

It's pretty silly stuff, leaving the film to rely on more conventional car chases, woman-in-peril scenarios and mistaken identity to keep things interesting -- all seen on that laptop via security cameras and the like.

This terrifically performed piece of filmed theater is filled with twists, turns and underhanded schemes that show how history sometimes lies in the hands of a selected few, not to mention a good glass of Chardonnay.

Only fitfully does the film manage the kind of lift-off as that achieved by Pynchon's often riotous 2009 novel and, most disappointingly, it offers only a pale and narrow physical recreation of such a vibrant place and time.

This juicy tale of a reckless robbery and its spiraling bloody aftermath is enjoyably overripe pulp, steeped in grubby textures and flavorful atmosphere.

Some of the film’s most effective moments are masterful in their visual storytelling skill.

Though it doesn't answer every question it raises and may occasionally confuse the uninitiated, the polished film easily stirs indignation.

The rather routine imitation of reality TV-style camera and editing techniques, along with uninspired special effects associated with Carson’s spiritual affliction, don’t attempt to break new ground but gain little by repeating familiar formulas.

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.

The story of Mohamed, who leaves behind his normal life for the money and excitement of piracy, is illuminating, even if he is never a terribly sympathetic character that the viewer can warm up to.

A low-key verite charmer.

Haunting and atmospheric, For Those in Peril proves that creeping grief and guilt can deliver just as much dread-filled dramatic tension as a straight horror movie.

It’s all pleasant and forgettable.

Despite the author’s scripting and the fine central performances by Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia, this low-key effort directed by Peter Askin fails to fulfill the potential of its provocative premise.

The Rapture won’t come soon enough for the unfortunate souls forced to suffer through Left Behind.

The homily-laden wrap-up, stressing the upside of bad days, is enough to make you hold your nose, but it only lasts a moment, which is suggestive of the way Arteta and the cast provide the energy and momentum to get the job done but not overstay their welcome.

Gary Dauberman’s haphazard screenplay merely piles on the cheap scares, with director Leonetti cranking the volume up to 11 to accentuate the frequent jolts. It all adds up to a compendium of horror movie clichés.

Essentially a chase movie infused with buddy comedy elements, the film is a fast-paced, mildly entertaining lark that’s chiefly enlivened by Cusack’s droll performance.

Much like the recent, widely reviled I, Frankenstein, this misconceived project mainly signals a need to go back to the drawing board.

It’s perhaps too focused on the Reichsfuhrer’s personal life... while the director’s decision to add sound effects to silent images sometimes feels uncalled for.

Two excellent performances bolster a thoughtful script, and the result is that the discomfort we feel seems perfectly controlled by the filmmakers. The movie is candid and disturbing but never exploitative.

Technically and in his work with actors, Philip represents a great leap forward for Perry; a subsequent jump might involve presenting a central character with whom viewers could legitimately engage.

Though it’s strictly for the faithful, the tween-friendly mix of cute and earnest has a forthright sharpness and is never cloying.

The film is funny, warm-hearted and enormously satisfying.

While the film feels slightly padded and might have been sharper in a tight, hourlong format, it's impossible not to be seduced by the joie de vivre of its subjects.

This computer animated work has strikingly designed characters, and some good isolated sequences, but the script’s un bordel (French for shambolic mess).

Neither an inspirational faith-based film nor an attack on Christian dogma, Will Bakke’s comedy/drama Believe Me plays like a religious variation of "Risky Business" minus the sex.

Renner appears completely immersed in his role and when the clouds of doubt accumulate and the man becomes a professional pariah, it's a painful thing to see.

Laughs are virtually non-existent.

Striking nary an unfamiliar note, The Song sluggishly lurches towards its predictable conclusion — spoiler alert, Jed sees the error of his ways — but it does offer some pleasures along the way.

This film’s thin charms lie not in its authenticity but in its zippy energy, good-looking cast and mild sprinkling of action.

Cutter Hodierne's Fishing Without Nets is a tense drama with well-drawn characters and only as much action as its story requires.

Best viewed as a glossy advertisement for the venerable military academy that is its focus, Field of Lost Shoes doesn’t exactly score points for objectivity.

Good People follows a familiar thriller template without managing to be particularly compelling.

The overwrought, uncontrolled sci-fi thriller Automata is a disappointing example of a film which lacks the imagination to follow persuasively through on its engaging initial premise.

Fortunately, the two stars always brighten the proceedings.

Strickland and Fenton bring an extra layer of visual invention, smartly expanding on the show's pre-existing video elements and adding their own bespoke cinematic touches.