Upsetting but too curious to wallow in misery (and blessed with a few grace notes), the film pays tribute to a girl who rarely indulges in the self-centeredness that comes with adolescence.

Those who believe that all Buddhists respect their religion's core principles of peace and tolerance should take a look at The Venerable W (Le Venerable W), director Barbet Schroeder’s eye-opening chronicle of one Burmese monk’s long campaign of racism and violence against his country’s minority Muslim population.

Pulling off a rare three-peat, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a tender, spirited coming-of-age CG-animated feature that proves every bit as emotionally resonant and artistically rendered as its 2010 and 2014 predecessors, if not even more so.

Genesis 2.0 is a double-stranded helix of a real-life thriller, chilling and unforgettable. An inquiry into the brave new world of "synthetic biology," it moves between two filmmakers in very different locations. Their twinned subjects, whose connections are gradually revealed, are past and future, superstition and logic, a hunter and his scientist brother.

Making their previous vehicles Step Brothers and Talladega Nights seem the height of comic sophistication by comparison, Holmes & Watson features the duo parodying Arthur Conan Doyle's famous characters to devastatingly unfunny effect.

Although the procession of talking heads inevitably gives the film a static quality, the visual tedium is alleviated by the filmmaker's handsome cinematography and the picturesque locations in which many of the interviews were shot.

Presenting an evocative portrait of a now-bygone era in the city's past, The Last Resort delivers plenty of nostalgia as is spotlights the work of two photographers who captured the period with vivid immediacy.

A labor of love, to be sure, but a simple, small-scaled domestic drama with none of the broad appeal of the hugely popular "Shakespeare in Love" of 1998, this thoroughly respectable Sony Classics pickup will command the interest mostly of older-skewing art house habituees.

Veering heavily into sexual territory, the film is more a gothic melodrama than a horror film. It certainly feels like a waste of not only Cage's talent (although the actor has a climactic, literally fiery scene that will forever change the way you think about the pop song "Leader of the Pack"), but also Potente, whose potential has been sadly underrealized in American films.

If there are any dadaist cinephiles out there, perhaps they can reclaim Second Act as a multilayered masterpiece of illogic. Certainly the film seems destined to survive all future nuclear winters, enduring as a time capsule of humanity at its most pitiably pedestrian.

The story's knotty aspects reverberate under its sentimental-cum-inspirational surface. In the guise of a glossy entertainment, Welcome to Marwen gets at some unnervingly irresolvable truths about humanity.

The Quake offers visceral thrills.

Through wit, surprise and an irrepressible ballsiness comes a scorching humor that neither curdles nor becomes exhausted.

Though fans will enjoy the behind-the-scenes view, and anyone interested in creativity can appreciate watching a master attempt to expand his turf so late in life, the doc's narrow scope and aesthetic limitations make it a fans-only affair, certainly not a full-bodied account of this man's towering career.

It offers some bits of fact and argument that may have gone underexposed, and it is more stylish than some earlier journalistic outings. But its potential to make change is hindered, as the film itself notes near its conclusion, by the fact that the already-stoked fear and rage of American citizens is neutered by those we've elected to make laws — many of whom have been taking checks from this deep-pocketed industry for years.

Last Letter walks a fine line between bittersweet and saccharine, and too often topples onto the wrong side of that divide.

In the end, the whole clean-up project is as shrug-worthy as most of the "Unrated Director's Cut!" edits that go the other direction on home video, promising more nudity and gore but changing little of consequence.

Less cranky and inciting than Gran Torino but persuasively expressive in conveying an old man's regrets along with his desire to improve himself even in late age, The Mule shows that Eastwood's still got it, both as a director and actor.

Sticking close to the enduring classic's template while injecting plenty of freshness to give the follow-up its own distinct repro vitality, this lovingly crafted production delivers both nostalgia and novelty.

One is grateful to have Momoa for company. Unlike some strutters who can't hide how delighted they are to show off their trainer-honed bods, Momoa wears his superb physique casually and his take-it-or-leave-it, devil-may-care attitude makes the narrative's long haul much easier to bear than would otherwise have been the case.

The selection of Oscar-nominated animated feature film director Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) to helm the prequel turns out to be spot-on, as he exhibits an instinctual sense for the film’s requisite action quotient while attentively crafting the central characters’ emotional arcs.

Such an utterly routine, formulaic and forgettable example of its genre that watching it becomes an exercise in endurance. Even the always welcome presence of veteran actor William Fichtner, terrific as usual, isn't enough to save it.

Hospitality is the sort of film that looks like a thriller, feels like a thriller and essentially plays out like a thriller. The only thing it forgets to do is provide any actual thrills.

Director Anne Fletcher has made better rom-coms, like The Proposal, but they had better scripts. Written by producer Kristin Hahn, Dumplin’ clings timidly to its YA roots, which are firmly on the unsophisticated side of the spectrum.

The film has significant problems in the writing and direction, but the first challenge lies in the casting.

While its quirky storytelling style draws viewers in, many will tire of the subplots long before it reaches the two-hour mark.

The story's resolution is formulaic, but deeply enough felt that few will resent the film's manipulations.

Nothing in the proceedings rings remotely true unless you've been weaned on a steady diet of soulful hit men movies. But the film works to some degree anyway thanks to the terrific performance by Perlman, who infuses the title character with a compelling, world-weary gravitas.