Writer-directors Calori and Testut have selected a significant challenge for their first feature, which succeeds more on its charm and determination than the classic attributes of movie musicals.

Salty, sweet and fun to chew over — sort of like taffy, but not so hard on the dental work — Fun Mom Dinner is a palatable addition to that growing subgenre of bawdy, female-centric comedies.

Barbet Schroeder offers up a touching look at unrequited love and neglected memory with the simpatico two-hander, Amnesia.

What distinguishes Bushwick from your standard-issue, boneheaded video game is its cheeky cerebral wit.

Many rough edges are smoothed by the strong acting and well-done tech work.

Sussman ultimately portrays Hayes as a man with a good heart who did not necessarily realize how his own story would wreak collateral damage upon an entire people, while the filmmakers — especially Parker — are shown to be less remorseful about the whole experience.

A neatly contained crime whodunit with a nifty setup and an expert lead performance from Samuel L. Jackson.

Bracing and well paced, it may occasionally stretch too far for an attention-getting quirk, but Lowlife feels fresher than it has any right to be, given its ingredients.

The question mark at the end of the title becomes the most salient issue that the film considers, but don’t expect the Dalai Lama to provide a simplistic resolution. Although as warm and compassionate as ever, his quiet wisdom reminds us that there are still some mysteries that most of us remain unprepared to contemplate.

Brad's Status is good enough to make you wish it were even better: tighter, bolder, sharper. But it's a droll, affecting movie — and, in its exploration of a man's fantasies of success and fears of failure, his trudge through the weeds of pessimism toward optimism, a distinctly American one.

The painstaking work done by Kobiela and Welchman to turn some of the artist’s most prized canvases into animated scenes can be impressive to behold.

It's virtually all Hemsworth's show and he's entirely up to the task of carrying the film on his broad shoulders: He's charismatic, fearless, confident, jokey and a good old Kentucky boy who just wants to get the job done and return home to his wife and daughter.

Four Days in France is certainly not a character- or narrative-driven drama, an impression reinforced by understated acting of the cast. What the film does offer is gorgeous shots of the French countryside and an idea of how different gay men navigate present-day life in France, especially away from large urban centers.

Movies like Company Town are most useful when they can be shown to the unconvinced and cut through the arguments of self-interested parties.

Even if the air fizzles out a bit during the denouement, the film still accomplishes what it set out to do, with both Kahn and Bejo aptly shouldering all the narrative weight until the final scene.

Kamiyama, a vet of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, brings plenty of sci-fi genre ingredients to what at times might look like a Miyazaki coming-of-age adventure. Though occasionally lopsided, the mix works well.

It's refreshing to see a portrayal of socially engaged Americans who think not according to the divide between red and blue, but rather in terms of what's good for their families, their long-range livelihoods and the natural world on which they depend.

Though somewhat slow out of the starting blocks, this finally caustic drama, set in early 1980s Bratislava (then in Czechoslovakia), accumulates power and insight as it builds over the course of a tense parents-teachers conference, punctuated with the necessary flashbacks.

While general audiences may wish for a bit more technical information about how Turner keeps track of cards without being able to see them, Korem understandably seizes on the emotional arc before him, following Turner's late-middle-age crisis through to its happy resolution.

Often shown in dark, flat and agitated closeups, Goic and Duran are both compelling performers.

Infusing her portrayal with equal measures of steeliness, vulnerability, sexiness and sly humor, Dhavernas bares herself both physically and soulfully in a magnetic performance that anchors the film.

While Brawl in Cell Block 99 remains gripping and unpredictable throughout, the two-and-a-quarter-hour running time does feel a tad bloated, and the movie might benefit from being trimmed by 20 minutes or so into a tauter edit.

The movie's concerns are obvious, not subtle, and while intellectual energy abounds, laying in subtext, building underlying tension physical and creating visual dynamism are not Schrader's strong suits.

The movie's reason for being is the chemistry between Gleeson — mop-headed and awkward, an idealistic milquetoast wearing a pajama top as a shirt — and Church, mustachioed and oozing testosterone, but coolly incisive despite the dumb misogyny of Grady's lines.

A Very Sordid Wedding offers some undeniably entertaining moments, and its talented ensemble, clearly encouraged to pull out all the stops, delivers their comic shtick with admirable gusto.

Recounting his attempt to learn more about his great-grandfather's killing of a black man in 1946, Wilkerson is a compelling enough guide that it may be some time before the audience starts to wonder if the central mystery is a red herring.

This doc seeks the vulnerability in subjects who live in pursuit of iron-man ideals many of us find ridiculous.

Jaunty but thought-provoking.