Night School has a lot to learn about how to live up to its potential, but it squeaks out a passing grade in the end.

Beyond its eye-opening archival material, the flawed but rich mix of personal history and showbiz annals is an illuminating reminder of how quickly the first (or best-promoted) story becomes the official story, and how easily biographers' career-boosting conjectures are calcified into "fact."

Pairing some of the spirit of schlocky Nazisploitation fare with a top-flight young cast and better-than-solid filmmaking, the movie is more mainstream that the midnight fare it sounds like on paper, if only by a bit. Horror fans should cheer.

Alert not just to shifts in the critical zeitgeist but to accompanying changes in social mores, the fascinating film speaks to the most sophisticated students of fine-art photography without alienating casual buffs.

An engaging performance by veteran Argentine actor Miguel Angel Sola is the main selling point here, helping put across some, but not all, of the story's more dubious developments.

While The Storyteller hardly breaks any new ground in its Peter Pan-inspired tale, it boasts an undeniable sweetness that proves appealing amidst so many frenetic kids movies.

Handling its complex issues and complicated plot developments with forceful clarity, the film proves simultaneously heartbreaking and inspirational.

Featuring appearances by a dizzying assemblage of well-known and estimable performers, A Happening of Monumental Proportions is a perfect example of a bad movie happening to good actors. The problem doesn't stem so much from Greer's helming but rather the painfully unfunny script by Gary Lundy.

Despite a fine cast featuring numerous screen veterans, this is a cliché-ridden effort that quickly runs out of gas.

Even with the interesting historical and individual stories, the doc would have benefited from a more expansive focus. It feels limited at times, both in its small number of personal profiles and the sketchiness with which it delivers the necessary context. There's no denying, however, its passion and conviction.

While it only occasionally rises to the clever levels of its inspired jump-off point, Smallfoot, an animated romp about a civilization of Yetis who make the discovery that the legendary pint-size human isn’t a mythological creature after all, carries sufficient charm and a bit of unexpected depth to justify its breezy existence.

As a family film in that vein it largely succeeds, buoyed by Black’s typical exuberance, Blanchett’s typical slyness and a richly evocative rendering of a Rockwellian suburb sprinkled with goofer dust. Less interesting, as is the way with many audience-avatar YA protagonists (sorry, Harry), is the main character, and Vaccaro’s rather hyper-articulated performance doesn’t help.

This making-of-a-star drama is old-fashioned and corny, and not in a good way.

This is in many ways a frustrating film, its commitment admirable but its execution chaotic.

Honoring the journalist's sense of mission but never shying away from the hard living and psychological damage that went with it, A Private War relies on the believability of star Rosamund Pike, who commits to this take on the character even when Heineman risks pushing off-the-battlefield drama too far.

It’s Wang’s eye for social realities, brought to life by her cast, that gives her film its edge.

A film that’s pleasurable to engage with, even if the latter stretch doesn’t come close to realizing some of the early promise.

Throughout the proceedings there are hints of the film that might have been, but every time it seems on the verge of being arresting, it pulls back, as if from fear of offending.

Rodents of Unusual Size proves enjoyably quirky and informative.

A lively but meandering doc that is more seduced by the scene than some viewers might like.

The director ratchets up the tension slowly but assuredly, making excellent use of the atmospheric locations including London and Cairo and assuredly evoking the early '70s time frame.

Stuffed with drama, both climbing-related and not.

Bautista has the low-key charisma, natural appeal and formidable physicality necessary for an action star, and he makes Final Score worth watching (at home while eating pizza and drinking beer, preferably) despite its endlessly derivative elements.

The movie delivers an inspiring message about the power of faith and forgiveness, which is its obvious raison d'etre. But it does so in the sort of formulaic, cliched and simplistic manner that afflicts so many inspirational films.

The mystery surrounding the Slones and their missing child is much less interesting than Core's burgeoning friendship with the local sheriff, Donald Marium (James Badge Dale), who assists with the investigation.

The familiar suburban terrain is enriched by Holofcener's knack for turning offhand moments into piercing ones and, especially, by a magnificently off-center Ben Mendelsohn.

The real star of the show here is the strikingly gorgeous, often almost bi-chrome visual universe, inspired by the tai chi diagram — more commonly known in the West as yin-and-yang symbol — and traditional ink-brush painting, with its distinct combination of rich blacks and fluid shades of gray.

Quincy is an unapologetically partisan insider's portrait. The material is rich and the cast list starry, but the overall package veers a little too close to gushing vanity project in places.