The movie is, arguably, too long and overladen with ideas. Klotz and Perceval are particularly keen on nailing the use and abuse of language in formatting human behavior.

Land Ho! is appealing for not going the route of easy gags and dumbed-down humor.

The balance of humanistic and ethnographic filmmaking with poignant, often seemingly unscripted drama has many rewards.

Considering that there seems to be no end in sight of the country's involvement in the Middle East, the film proves timely and affecting.

Imperium traffics in familiar undercover cop thriller conventions while gaining resonance from its disturbing, timely milieu.

In their wonderful documentary Other Music, Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller come to both celebrate a place and lament its passing.

Let the Canary Sing is slight but competent, a “Cyndi by Cyndi” opportunity for the singer and a choice group of her family, friends and collaborators to nostalgically recount her biography.

Language Lessons, which comes from the Duplass Brothers indie production stable, is a small-scale debut but one graced with charm and genuine heart.

The basic story has been told many times before, but it’s intriguingly retold by screenwriter Philip Gelatt and director Sebastian Cordero in this low-budget, bare-bones rendering of a familiar theme.

The issues it addresses are of massive importance.

The doc is less interested in analyzing Ledger's acting technique than in impressing viewers with his overall creative drive.

An endlessly intriguing documentary.

There's a lot going on in The Willoughbys, yet if you can get on board with its manic energy and accelerated plotting, the Netflix animated family comedy-adventure has an oddball charm that works surprisingly well.

Though it drags in spots and doesn’t convince on all fronts, Bliss is nonetheless a worthy minor addition to a canon of homefront films.

With so many ingredients to stir into this overflowing pot, you have to hand it to the two experienced teams of Marvel collaborators who had a feel for how to pull this magnum opus off.

A Vigilante offers some grim, imaginary satisfactions in support of real survivors who need whatever help we can give.

Cronenberg assumes a distinctly clinical approach to the emotional, social and business shenanigans on display here, a perspective that has brilliantly served some of his overtly psychological, horror and sci-fi pieces but gives this one a brittle and airless feel.

If at times the dramatic balance feels off, or the passion exasperating in particularly Gallic ways (l’amour!), Desplechin and his superb cast convincingly bring the angsty emotions to a place of unexpected brightness and clarity.

Admittedly, the storyline weaves all over the place, but no matter — Chase's performance and a plethora of daft and witty situations carry it past some structural rough spots.

A tough sell theatrically despite its merits, the film will rely on Jones' name to reach viewers via home-video outlets.

Of course, there are some unrealistic elements in F1, moments that might have sticklers raising an eyebrow, but the film doesn’t feel any less dramatic than the real thing.

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.

The movie, in which Shenk and Cohen (makers of the standout eco-doc The Island President) take the reins ably from Davis Guggenheim, hardly can hope to create the sensation of its Oscar-winning predecessor. But it finds plenty to add, both in cementing the urgency of Gore's message and in finding cause for hope.

Despite the familiarity of this setup, Way Back is a charmer, putting refreshingly little emphasis on Duncan's romantic needs and allowing family melodrama to erupt and simmer down without pat resolution.

The spareness of both the physical and emotional landscapes yields something quite delicate in a film with the grace and economy of a satisfying short story.

Sometimes I Think About Dying, then, is a graceful treatise on how challenging — but liberating — it can be to make connections.

The easygoing comedy keeps a familiar story going despite minor plot hiccups.

In retelling the still-astonishing story of the political career of Eliot Spitzer, a shooting star whose spectacular crash might forever obscure his accomplishments, Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney has all the ingredients for a potboiler: greed, corruption, sex, power, overweening ambition and jaw-dropping hubris.