A disturbing drama of teen disaffection, Vincent Grashaw’s feature provides an essential and insightful perspective that will resonate with audiences attuned to the challenges of adolescence.

Raso takes Kodachrome (shot entirely on Kodak motion picture film) as a departure point to keenly deconstruct the bonds that hold families together and the betrayals that drive them apart, relying on an unshowy style that emphasizes the actors’ captivating performances.

The picture sometimes briefly achieves that rare feat, of being so terrible it entertains. Sometimes it's genuinely offensive as well. Unfortunately, enough dull stretches interrupt the action that only the most hard-core cinematic dumpster-divers will care.

The film veers between inspired and strained and finally settles into the realm of self-improvement pop psychology.

At first, there's a certain cheesy charm to the Eurotrash '70s aesthetic, with a cast of minimally skilled actors spouting lines like, "Young lady, have you seen anything queer in the area?" But any resemblance to a coherent thesis is purely coincidental.

Little Pink House brings urgency to a fascinating, underexplored theme.

Though less funny than the first, it will play well to those who are in the mood.

Attractive and capably acted but oddly airless, the drama is a downer without offering much reward for our time.

Like a bomb ticking away toward detonation, Glenn Close commands the center of The Wife: still, formidable and impossible to look away from.

Visually atmospheric but tonally all over the place, Hot Summer Nights, a first feature by Elijah Bynum, has much to appreciate but ultimately possesses the sampler-platter vibe of a director’s demo reel.

Ultimately, even if some secondary characters and plotlines are underserved, the strength of the story and the emotional range of the experiences depicted prevail.

Sanchez delivers a couple of very effective twists that change the nature of his tale.

The fact that the director once again displays a true mastery of his craft, from Deffontaines’ exquisite framing to the decision to record all the songs live rather than having them lip-synched (apparently one of the only times this has been done since Straub-Huillet’s 1975 movie Moses and Aron), makes for a transfixing, if sometimes excruciating, cinematic experience.

The movie's pounding heart is the remarkable Ejiofor. Imbuing his role with authority, charisma, mighty strength and wrenching human frailty, he's enough to make believers of all of us.

Kingsley delivers such a riveting performance that it becomes easy to overlook the film's less compelling aspects.

Despite the highly mobile and often arresting work of cinematographer Christina Voros, The Broken Tower is not a heady experience like many of the semi-experimental 1960s films he emulates. Instead, it's mostly a tedious chore, much akin to listening poetry you don't much like.

Less successful as a drama, the out-all-night period piece is overshadowed by many similar coming-of-age tales (the best of which are often made by artists with first-hand knowledge of the period they're depicting). But like its twenty-ish hero, it is well-meaning enough that some viewers will be forgiving.

Providing important historical and sociological context, Hitler's Hollywood emerges as a compelling cinematic essay that should be essential viewing for cinephiles and history buffs alike.

Other than the luminous Dawson, who somehow manages to rise above the hackneyed material, none of the principal players emerge from this cinematic wreckage unscathed. Director Macy emphasizes the comedic aspects of the material in such overly broad fashion that Krystal begins to resemble a demented sitcom that could only have benefited from a laugh track.

Stubby hardly shies away from the tough realities of what was known as the War to End All Wars, and it feels both proficiently documented and generally credible, even if it’s hard to believe that a dog did everything you see happening on screen.

It takes some time for the action sequences to fully engage, but from about the movie’s midpoint, Peyton delivers a succession of staggering set pieces.

The movie not only fails to represent the peak of the young Blumhouse shingle's output (Get Out is not their only inventive film), but gets silly in ways that we've seen on screen for decades.

Through it all, Ellington's performance remains effortlessly subtle and lived-in, bringing unexpected depth to the quiet play of emotion on the character's face and giving this loopy episodic tale its heart.

Foley's cult may never grow as big as his most ardent fans would like. But Hawke and Rosen and Dickey have given the man something better than posthumous record sales.

Built around an impressive performance by relative newcomer Elvire Emanuelle, the drama recalls Karyn Kusama's Girlfight, though in that case the parental dynamics ran the opposite direction.

If Catena has any faults, they're not on display in this documentary. But it hardly matters, considering the importance of the work that he's done and continues to do.

Shifting the film into action mode necessitates several leaps of faith to keep pace with the plot as Powley goes crashing through the forest with near abandon.

The doc's poignant heart is in observing how ACORN's most dedicated members have pushed to continue doing good after it was forced to close its doors.