If the writing too seldom measures up to the astonishing visual impact, the affinity the director feels for his showman subject is both contagious and exhausting. Luhrmann’s taste for poperatic spectacle is evident all the way, resulting in a movie that exults in moments of high melodrama as much as in theatrical artifice and vigorously entertaining performance.

Fans of queer cinema, "A League of Their Own" or just good old-fashioned love stories will find much to celebrate in A Secret Love, including a profound wedding scene that rivals any of the nuptials in cinematic history. As it turns out, there is crying in baseball.

Mayor is a study in politics both micro and macro, showing what happens when the two come fatefully crashing together.

Transformania remains sufficiently goofy-sweet to please its target demo; those who find the humor toothless should at least appreciate the distinctive animation, which can be as energetically wacky as classic Looney Tunes.

Blissful, whacked-out, inspired, juvenile, dementedly inventive, hyper-energized — all of this and more apply to music video and advertising whiz Makoto Nagahisa's first feature We Are Little Zombies.

The film's timing is fortuitous, as a worldwide calamity might conceivably make governments more receptive to Piketty's proposals for redistribution and reform. But it leaves one wishing for a longer-form project.

Without being revelatory, the documentary shows the events that made her, points to the things that inspire her and leaves viewers hanging as to where we're likely to see Michelle Obama next — or if that's even the question we're supposed to ask.

Writer and director Richard Tanne (Southside With You, about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date) takes what sounds like a terrible idea and transforms it into a sleek, well-played romance that largely makes the cliches believable.

McHale has been shrewd in declining to offer a definitive verdict on the movie, instead giving equal time to both negative and positive responses.

Irrepressibly inventive and often impulsively unrestrained, Emily Cohn’s CRSHD guilelessly celebrates digital youth culture and its sometimes messy inconsistency with abundant energy and attitude.

Rocky roads to romance, self-realization and adulthood are quirkily mapped in Take Me Somewhere Nice, a distinctive and ultimately quite promising debut by Bosnian-born Dutch writer-director Ena Sendijarevic.

The film is an optimistic yet affecting exploration of how fatherhood has evolved over the years and how far it still needs to go.

An American Pickle is neither the most substantial nor the most sophisticated comedy, but its soulful sweetness outweighs its flaws.

Yakin and his terpsichorean cast take exhilarating chances of the sort all too seldom seen on screens these days.

And in these troubled, terrifying times, as many of us are stuck at home simultaneously glued to, and existentially exhausted by, the news, Spelling the Dream is the kind of lighthearted but smart escapism you don't have to feel guilty about.

The result is a deeply intimate and revealing family portrait that proves admirable in its objectivity if occasionally frustrating in its sprawling sketchiness.

Delivering plenty of suspense in its taut 81 minutes, this is the sort of pretension-free film that in earlier days would have been directed by the likes of Edgar J. Ulmer or Joseph H. Lewis. Like those B-movies, Hammer lacks a big-name star. But it more than makes up for it by providing a rare leading-man opportunity for veteran character actor Will Patton, who delivers a superb, riveting turn.

Pablo Schreiber and Jena Malone hustle to overcome movie-ish dialogue and clichéd story dynamics, investing their life-bruised characters with authentic feeling. They're enough to make you care about the film — and the people in it — even at its clumsiest.

Despite its relatively unusual setting, Crystal Swan is a largely conventional fish-out-of-water story at heart. But it is elevated above the routine by its excellent cast, especially Nassibulina, and plenty of visual flair.

While lacking the technical virtuosity of Sam Mendes' "1917," for example, the movie nevertheless does full justice to its stirring true-life tale of the 2009 Battle of Kamdesh — despite an obviously low budget.

Sober but accessible, it's a fine primer for those unaware of bees' crucial role in our food system.

The easygoing drama points its ensemble toward domesticity, watching as each character flirts with nostalgia and questions the wisdom of settled-down relationships.

Pairing professional and untrained actors to very good effect, the film rises above miserable subject matter largely through the sense of mystery it builds around its complicated protagonist, played brilliantly by Sriram.

A no-nonsense, soft-spoken chronicler of conflict, especially from the point of view of the victims, Fisk is the centerpiece of a film that can sometimes feel more laudatory than necessary, but provides a comprehensive portrait of a man who has become essential reading.

Jolie, who also serves as producer along with Brigham Taylor and the late Allison Shearmur, invests her fragile pachyderm with a gentle, world-weary wisdom, while Cranston makes you feel his world crumbling beneath him in a performance that could have easily flirted with cartoon villainy in less accomplished hands.

Lee's interest in Jackson goes beyond an appreciation of his music to acknowledge what an important figure the performer remains in black culture, bridging the divide that continued to separate many black artists from mainstream acceptance.

This isn’t Hiroshima Mon Amour. It’s more like Need for Speed Mon Amour done on a modest scale, with an effectively simple plot and nonstop action scenes that find a daunting number of ways to wreck and destroy cars.

Denise Ho — Becoming the Song presents a thoughtful, if surprisingly reserved portrait, of Hong Kong-born, Montreal-reared singer Denise Ho, the first Cantopop superstar to come out publicly as gay.