Banks succeeds in mining a few laughs from the otherwise strained, contrived proceedings.

Although unlikely to make any new converts, The M Word should well satisfy the filmmaker’s small legion of devoted fans.

The film will leave viewers feeling emasculated in more ways than one.

Advocacy filmmaking that also manages to succeed in pulling heartstrings.

Credit a rock solid turn by lead Jon Hamm that doesn’t shy away from revealing a darker underbelly to his underdog character, as well as a keenly-observed script by Tom McCarthy and deft direction by Craig Gillespie for the rewarding changeup.

A sharp-looking and enjoyable doc that celebrates the writer's legacy but, in its willfully obscure structure, seems a bit too bent on echoing his famous nonconformity.

With its splashy paintbox palette and jaunty pop soundtrack, All Cheerleaders Die just about hangs together as a cheerfully goofy romp.

Frame by frame, Ida looks resplendently bleak, its stunning monochromes combining with the inevitable gloomy Polish weather and communist-era deprivations to create a harsh, unforgiving environment.

Thomas Haden Church hits the exact balance of desperation and resignation demanded by the peculiar story.

Duplass and Moss are put to the test to carry the film entirely on their shoulders and unquestionably carry it off... On the other hand, viewers will have widely disparate reactions to spending 90 uninterrupted minutes with these characters.

Rose-tinted as the film’s perspective may be, Ping Pong Summer is still a lingering, entertaining glance back at an era that Americans just can’t seem to get enough of, whether in music or movies.

Motivated by an earnest need to inspire, Schmidt's debut suffers from stiffness but improves as it goes, the tension of its plot overcoming many dramatic failings.

The film lucks out by having an intrinsically compelling story, likeable underdog protagonists, and an exotic South Pacific location.

Pretty in a decaying-opulence sort of way and well cast, the film is more superficial than its nods to highbrow culture would suggest.

Although the situation seems to have thankfully been resolved several years ago due to the pressure applied by governments and international organizations, Desert Riders nonetheless serves as a bracing cautionary tale.

Acutely nailing the dysfunctional stand-up milieu both on- and off-stage, the micro-budgeted film is more a wryly-etched character sketch than an involvingly-plotted proposition, but it still manages to leave an impression thanks to Joshua Burge’s convincingly-inhabited lead performance.

The rock-solid bond between the film’s two drifting 17-year-olds... is the film’s undeniable highlight but the true depth of their friendship crystallizes quite late and is too often obscured by a subplot involving minor characters caught up in a cross-border drug running operation.

The movie contributes nothing new to the genre, but disbelief is suspended willingly enough once the action gets up to speed.

A female solidarity adultery comedy that's three parts embarrassing farce to one part genuinely comic discharge.

Taking an approach that's as unassuming as its almost instantly lovable subject, the film neither plays up the novelty of teens obsessed with Bible trivia nor attempts to gin up fake intrigue.

While the set-up of Megan Griffiths’ mellow comedy-drama is a little labored, the performances are so engaging and the characters so pleasurable to be around that it’s easy to forget the script’s flaws.

The story-telling is a little too pat to deliver the surprise moments that reveal character or sweep audiences up emotionally. The film remains a creepy story with a lot of morbid fascination, set off by the captivating young Florencia Bado in her first screen role.

After building up a narrative head of steam, the film relaxes too much back into expository documentary form. What might have been thrilling is merely entirely engrossing.

Despite a slightly grating tendency to resist any kind of subtlety, the honest and convincingly played central romance does finally linger.

The drama and intensity that are [Haggis's] signatures are mostly missing from these vividly dramatized but uninvolving romantic crises, none of which are particularly believable.

The film only intermittently displays the snap, precision and stylistic smarts a mixed-tone project like this requires; a half-good effort is not enough where buoyancy and a sly-to-mean spiritedness are required at all times.

The outcome is usually fairly tiresome, but on occasion reaches levels of moderate originality.

Lacking sufficient self-parody to entertain as a campy monster-movie spoof, or the budget to thrill as action adventure or sci-fi, much like the creature it depicts, Poseidon Rex represents a throwback that even its own distributor can't really get behind.