If it presents an accurate picture of this reality, then it feels like it’s a reality that is unstable, so far cut off from the mainstream of life that it has begun to fray into the surreal and the magic at the edges.

There’s tremendous social and moral texture throughout the drama, but the socio-economic commentary of the movie is fabric, not heavy handed accessory. And the provocative ethical breaches—savage and scathing in the latter half—give the movie its delectable and wicked bite.

It's a shame Reitman goes down such a dull and tired road with his movie, because the cast give some really nice turns.

An uninspired narrative and disengaged performances ultimately keep persuasive deep feeling and captivation at a far distance.

Love & Mercy isn't a standard celebration nor a traditional music biopic. Instead, it's a survival story.

Though LaGravenese's faithfulness to the songbook is perhaps admirable, the results don't quite work cinematically.

Some intriguing dialogue, and a closet full of fantastic frocks, can’t help an impressive ensemble cast save A Little Chaos from being a lackadaisical picture, far removed from anything remotely exciting as chaos.

The Keeping Room attempts a blend of sexual curiosity, home invasion horror and elegiac drama, that doesn't quite work, but whose ambitions are nonetheless compelling.

Jackie & Ryan is supposedly all about learning how to git where ya gotta go, but none of the characters start or end in particularly interesting places.

With a unique blend of style and content, an escalating discomfort in atmosphere, a score that sounds like it was spawned from the nether regions of hell, and three ferocious performances, Hungry Hearts is this year’s most unique horror film.

Niccol’s film takes a somber, nuanced and compelling look at the War on Terror as it is waged by U.S. drone pilots, right up until a final five minutes that, in a shower of pat resolutions and conclusions, delivers something of a surgical strike on the its credibility.

It is simply a great, traditional Western: the language and cultural details may be different, but the sparse elegance and moral conundrums are familiar and as resonant as ever.

Whatever fascination the film holds belongs solely to Del Toro and his vanity-free impression of Escobar as a titan whose potbelly and gym shorts do not put the slightest dent in a charisma that hypnotizes a nation.

This isn’t a story of success and fortune, but a slice of life with a personal rhythm and a universal beat.

A work of immense and intense emotional vigor, sprinkled with fun-loving traits and intellectually stimulating prowess, The Duke of Burgundy is the stuff dreams are made of.

The story is bloated and episodic (the film's 2h 18m length doesn't help the pacing), and remarkably unengaging for what should be emotionally epic.

While the idea is original, it's also ridiculous, and the story is not close to clever enough to put it into any kind of context that is compelling, interesting or believable.

There are moments when the fabrication behind Claire’s arc breaks to reveal a real person, and the filmmaker’s have Aniston to thank for this, because it’s certainly not the bland dialogue or unremarkable events.

A hard film to hate, but an even harder one to defend, Joe Dante’s throwback zombie comedy Burying the Ex is a completely unreconstructed B-movie that is perfectly happy to breeze by on charm, nostalgia and the attractiveness of its leads.

Woefully misguided, Black And White is at times painfully quaint and obtuse about contemporary issues surrounding race and class.

Felony isn't a federal case of a bad film, but it's certainly a serious misdemeanor, one whose crime is running away from the challenge the story sets up, to settle on something cheap and conventional.

The Good Lie is so manufactured around a particular dramatic blueprint that any sense of spontaneity, surprise and engagement are sucked right out of the picture.

At it’s best, Tusk is outlandishly unforgettable.

Unremarkable but occasionally enjoyable, Levy’s dramedy is pleasant enough, but it grows tired, losing focus by the end.

Though Horovitz's directing is workmanlike solid, and while the movie has a certain charm that makes it easy to walk in the door, it gives you little reason to stay.

Not particularly sophisticated, the searing intensity of revenge in The Equalizer is still occasionally arresting (and even entertaining) in its stylish hard-R violence.

Formulaic, and at times a bit Sundance-by-numbers, it's still hard to deny that the charms of St. Vincent work even if you clearly can see the narrative machinery moving.

An uninspired movie, The Drop would be utterly forgettable if it weren't for the fact that you’re left wondering how all this talent created something so unexceptional.

Michael Almereyda’s Cymbeline works best as a cautionary tale concerning the dangers of of believing that everything written by The Bard is “timeless.”

A missed opportunity that squanders the talents of a pretty stacked cast and jeopardizes the audience’s patience and care for its spoiled characters for too long.

The Judge has the curious ability of straining too hard while managing to say nothing dramatically.

Frustratingly uneven, Kelly & Cal is too glib and prosaic to truly be insightful or impacting.

Wetlands is more than just a film that shares far more about anal fissures than you ever wanted to know; it’s a surprisingly sweet coming-of-age comedy brimming with punk-rock energy and an impressive performance from Swiss actress Carla Juri.

Wild never really earns its hard-fought struggle for redemption and personal reinvention.

There are jokes that land, and every time Kathryn Hahn steps on screen the film threatens to tilt on its axis and point toward a truer north.

99 Homes is by no means a perfect film, but it can achieve something more precious, and rarer than glossy perfection: it can take you by the shoulders and shake the apathy and complacency away.

The Imitation Game is entertaining and well-crafted, but one still can’t help but wish the drama had a bit more bite and nerve throughout.

For filmmaker and actor, even on those occasions when Manglehorn’s risks do not pay off, we have to credit the courage and confidence it took to attempt them; but more often than not they pay dividends and the result gently dazzles.

It offers a handful of effective moments and some characters that are fun to watch squirm through muck and bones, but not much more than that, especially when the films spins out of control towards its conclusion.

For better or worse, torture-themed films don’t get too much easier to take than this one.

The film does not stab as deeply in laying bare the schizoid moral hypocrisy of the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide as its peerless predecessor, but instead offers an extraordinarily poignant, desperately upsetting meditation on the legacy of those killings, and on the bravery required to seek any kind of truth about them.

It’s borderline miraculous.

Miller's documentary skills seem solid enough, but this particular story needed more objectivity, and a lot more rigor, to be worth telling in this manner.

While it features characters making unrelatable decisions, this 77-minute film is nonetheless compelling and beautifully constructed.

Gibney never quite finds Fela, and the quest isn’t always remarkable either, but such is the spirited brio of the seminal subject that some of his dynamic essence still shines through.

For a first time feature outing, Coldwater is a fine effort from Grashaw, and the setting feels fresh and new. It's an original take on a coming of age, young masculinity tale, but ultimately, it doesn't quite live up to all of its potential.

As far as the spy genre goes, Pierce Brosnan’s The November Man is more filler than thriller.

It's a remarkably gorgeous piece of work.

Moretz is great here, able to rise above the voiceover and dialogue she’s given. And thank goodness, because she's in almost every frame.

While the story lags and suffers in its attempt to adapt such a complicated internal narrative and personal struggle, the Smith brothers have created a truly beautiful and unique film that deserves to be seen; a creative accomplishment not only of filmmaking but of capturing this world.

If you’re not looking for reinvention and loved the first "Sin City," then you'll probably love this one too. It's a gorgeous-to-look-at, brain-splattered case of "more of the same."

In the new documentary To Be Takei, it becomes clear that Takei is a man who defies expectations and subverts stereotypes at virtually every turn. It’s just a shame the movie wasn’t as progressive as its subject.

The theories in Level Five simultaneously thrive in realms of computer science, ethnography, and cognitive psychology, while the picture remains cloaked by the emotional weight of a historical tragedy that marked an entire nation.

Metro Manila is a horror story in its own unflinching way.

It’s an ambitious and strong first start for Macy’s filmmaking career as he’s clearly taken a note or two from some of the great filmmakers he’s worked for. Don’t let the title of this film fool you—Rudderless is solid.

“No No” is a jazzy, joyful exploration of a man that, if he wasn’t able to actually change the system, was at least happy with giving it the middle finger.

Overstuffed yet trite and empty, Fort McCoy attempts to mix heavy drama, slapstick comedy and romance all in the wrappings of a coming of age tale set in the summer of 1944, but flounders on all fronts, resulting in a picture that offers a rather naive and simplistic view of the murky territory between good and evil.

So the story is relentlessly rudimentary and it’s directed in an expected, uncomplicated, formulaic manner.

There have been some reports that this is the last entry in the series, but it feels like the franchise is (finally) just getting started. "The Expendables 4" anyone?

By the time the curtains draw to a bittersweet close, you’ll walk out feeling rejuvenated, satisfied, well replenished in humor and culture, and already planning your own trip to Italy.

Let's Be Cops is a fine example of what happens when filmmakers rely too heavily on the potential chemistry of the cast, rather than giving actors something decent on the page to work with.

Even within the spinning cylinder of mediocrity that is Into The Storm, there are some minor pleasures to be had. Those are mostly found in Walsh, who is probably best known for comedic supporting turns, but makes the most with what is nearly a leading man part here.

It’s a finely tuned and tenderly detailed love story of two people told on a cosmic scale.

It is very much a first film, albeit one of rare ambition, and there's every reason to think that Benson will nail it next time around. The film's absolutely worth watching for the performances alone... But in and of itself, the "Them" version of The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts.

As the moving, sad, riotously humorous documentary The Dog explains, the film only captured traces of Wojtowicz’s personality, and only told bits of his story.

Always thoroughly pleasant, and that's entirely due to the cast, who all turn in breezy performances.

Much of the credit must go towards the makeup crew. It's a Fangoria funhouse up in here: Cabin Fever: Patient Zero has some of the most disturbing, disgusting gore effects of all-time. This is a movie made by people who have studied some of the worst injuries known to man.

This is advertisement masquerading as a story, pretending to be a movie, but at the very least, it’s for a good cause.

It can't be overstated what kind of a marvel these Turtles are onscreen, however. As crude and unpleasant their design might be, they feel like living, breathing things, not special effects.

[A] fascinating depiction of another kind of wolf of Wall Street, one whose endless hunger is only matched by his vile soullessness. [Unrated Version]

It’s a crowd pleaser of a film, whose powerful musical moments can overshadow any smaller issues within the film.

This kind of vérité surrealism doesn’t come along very often, and the glorious oddness that Zurcher manages to infuse into even the most routinely domestic activities is really the gift the film keeps on giving.

Elusively told to the point of irritation, joyless and shot in chilly incarcerating rooms, War Story has the look and feel of an exhausted ashtray and borders on the pretentiously unclear.

It's mythmaking for dummies, a Hercules with no poetry, only incompetent brute strength.

Alive Inside contains a tiny revolution within its message, and will likely end up being one of the most important documentaries of the year.

The Kill Team doesn't saint Winfield at all, instead, smartly casting responsible, impartial questions as to what his options could have been.

Gunn’s careful to keep the focus on the central five, but certainly proves himself capable of the bigger canvas. The film really pops visually, with an admirably bright color palette (DP Ben Davis doing excellent work), and though there are occasionally some geography issues, the action is mostly satisfying.

It's basically the perfect summer movie, because it's designed to be.

Made in America proves that the American dream is undeniably powerful, even to those who have accomplished so much that they have to appreciate it in a form that borders on the abstract.

Tired, lazy, incongruous, shocking and hilarious in all the wrong places, Rage is destined for the graveyard television slot, squeezed between infomercials for mops.

You wish Evelyn Purcell's action thriller just had a bit more character, and not a budget-cutting location that looked great in front of a camera.

Magic In The Moonlight is good in many regards, and mostly enjoyable for most of its 97 minute running time. But it’s also admittedly uneven in spots, familiar and ultimately a bit slight.

This one veers further from actual horror into an action picture. “The Purge” tries to unsettle. The Purge: Anarchy wants you to cheer.

At 100-minutes, the movie drags and drags until finally losing steam in the last act and then collapses into a pile of worn out platitudes, limp gross out gags and gooey sentiment.

The actions and events are naked to our eyes, not couched in reasons and justifications, not softened by explanations, by words.

The Batterered Bastards of Baseball is an entertaining celebration of the independent spirit and the love of the game.

The film is generally undramatic. However, that’s hardly a criticism — while Closed Curtain digs deep into the psyche of an artist, it also is full of the ordinary, organic life moments that have populated Panahi's work since the beginning.

In truth, the deeply absorbing and thematically rich ‘Apes’ sequel is more akin to a drama than an action film, but it's one that still satisfies the desires and demands of big, blockbuster filmmaking.

A minor effort at best, and disappointingly lacking a sense of energy or intent, Me And You is Bertolucci exercising his filmmaking muscles, but not flexing them.

The specificity of the documentary, staying within the walls of the boot camp for virtually the entire movie, is one of its biggest strengths since it is able to place you right alongside these kids.

Planes: Fire and Rescue serves as a dramatic improvement over the original, introducing thrilling action sequences backed by actual stakes and an unexpected emotional dimension, all on top of upgraded animation and a greater emphasis on character.

What it lacks in cinematic girth, it makes up for in factual appeal.

It's all fist-pumping anti-thought, consisting of baseless revisionist history and idle contrarianism.

All in all, Earth to Echo is passable family entertainment, neither unforgettable nor particularly bad.

In Bana and Ramirez, who share a palpable bro-mantic, odd-couple quality, the film finds its most charismatic element... but shoves it aside to deliver a movie that will dully meet the barest of expectations instead of trying to exceed them.

Tammy is a boring, unfunny road movie that limps along idly, consisting of a string of nonsensical set pieces and halfhearted stabs at character development that come across as off-putting and odd.

The ensemble is perfectly cast (a rarity for this genre) which helps to make the first half a delightful slow burn instead of a check-your-watch-until-the-carnage-starts.