Burshtein has devoted most of the last 20 years teaching and making film in that world, but here makes her international feature debut with a curious comedy-drama that has its strengths, but ultimately proves somewhat disappointing.

Inside Llewyn Davis isn't about someone trying to make it big, but someone just trying to make it, and the Coens celebrate the hard road that can inspire great art.

While those looking for a few midnight movie scares will find themselves very disappointed, the film is funny, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

V/H/S/2 is a whole lot of fun.

Fruitvale Station is impressive for a debut, and displays the unimpeachable intent to involve us all in the human story behind a headline. And it certainly displays great promise from its director and accomplished performances from its cast.

It's the picture's lack of focus that eventually diminishes whatever little The Bling Ring has to say.

Black Rock isn't going to become the sort of classic that "Deliverance" was, but if you like your scares smart, and like them to happen to people you actually care about, then Aselton's island of friendship and fury is a nice place to visit.

While there's a lot of fun to be had, Furious 6 doesn't quite hit the insane heights of "Fast Five," but we're sure it'll delight franchise fans who mostly want to see bald people butt heads, and moving vehicles crash into other moving vehicles.

I Give It a Year groans on, with unmemorable scene after unmemorable scene, each one more contingent on coincidence and happenstance than by the actual, gear-filled mechanics of drama or comedy.

Almost coming off like an academic blueprint of what a serial killer movie should look like, rather than anything with a distinct voice or authorial hand, "No One Lives" shocks by virtue of being completely uninteresting.

Thankfully, as the movie goes along, he tempers his bloodlust, instead engaging in sequences that up the suspense and terror while not exclusively luxuriating in the bloodshed.

Though given two committed turns by a tremendously sexy and vicious Arterton and a solid-as-always Ronan, Byzantium often feels as gray and lifeless as the corpses in the film.

Strickland' command of tone, aided by Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" editor Chris Dickens and, of course, sonic wizards Joakim Sundstrom and Steve Haywood, is masterful, jarring and discombobulating the viewer as Gilderoy's mind unravels.

The project seems compromised by a meager budget and limited scale.

Venus and Serena wins points for sharing an intimate, not-always-flattering view of the sisters that isn’t PR-friendly.

What’s obnoxious is that it’s never in doubt where Assault On Wall Street is headed, and it seems to believe there’s a certain poetry to taking its time turning Baxford into a non-verbal Travis Bickle.

The cast alone deserves to be recognized more than the notes of “Speak It, Don’t Leak It.” And yet, here I am, humming it.

With the sound off, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby surely looks as radiant and extraordinary as some of the most dazzling movies ever committed to celluloid, but with the sound up and the experience on full volume, the movie is mostly a cacophony of style, excess and noise that makes you want to turn it all down a notch...or three...

Star Trek Into Darkness is a long, long way from a disaster, but it's hard not to feel that Abrams' mystery box turned out to be a bit empty this time out.

There’s a ton of truth and ugliness to You Will Be My Son, and the minor digressions into soapy territory keep threatening to derail. It never does thanks to Arstrup, a force of nature who grabs his scenes by the throat and never lets go.

The cumulative effect is dramatically effective to the point of being soul-crushing.

Dead Man’s Burden (the directorial debut of Jared Moshé) demonstrates just why film is important, simply by being beautiful. But beyond that, it’s also a moody, violent, classic, yet modern Western.

It’s never a painful watch, more of a faintly dull, seen-it-all-before one. If nothing else, it’s evidence that these days, being based on a true story isn’t enough to elevate a film in a well-worn genre ahead of the pack.

Challenging, complex and frequently ugly, Paradise: Love is a ruthless exploration of how unlike our everyday selves we can behave when we’re "on holiday," and how much that illuminates who we really are.

As a documentary and a love story, Cutie and the Boxer is nothing short of breathtaking.

The East is definitely a movie that's going to divide people but it'll be a conversation worth having.

Mezmerizing in fits and starts, Graceland doesn't coalesce into the "important" thriller it seeks to be.

Pain & Gain fails at being an entertaining and ridiculously fun Michael Bay movie and curdles into something much more tone deaf and obnoxious.

It’s an interesting hybrid of the relationship movie, mumbly indie and dark murder film, and the combination works here, for the most part.

While the film is hysterical, its real strength lies in the way it is able to deal with an issue like sexism in the industry and work it out in a funny, honest and very real way.

For all the film's flaws, Black brings enough to the table that it's far from a chore, and if this level of ingenuity and surprise can be maintained, there'll be no need for Tony to hang up his Iron Man helmet any time soon.

Credit Swanberg who served as both director and editor for making a film that feels loose without ever being ponderous or phony.

Kiefer Sutherland feels somewhat miscast as the mentor, but nowhere near as badly as Hudson is as the love interest. In all fairness, it’s a nightmare of a part, an artist (whose art is, as it turns out, is terrible) haunted by the recent death of her boyfriend, and seemingly unable to read basic human feelings and emotion. But Hudson doesn’t really help things, coming across more often than not as unintentionally funny.

De Palma’s heart ultimately doesn’t feel fully in this film. What Passion is lacking is, ironically, some passion.

This is not the stuff of stirring humanist drama, but rather a bland scenario about boring people that want to mature but have no idea how.

Oconomowoc seems like a cartoon pilot that IFC doesn’t pick up, only to be turned into a film.

Unwieldy and unkempt but both moving and dizzying to experience, Laurence Anyways is Dolan's grandest statement yet.

The latest from the prolific helmer is not so much slight as is it light, charming and funny by equal turns, with a pretty terrific performance by Huppert who seems to be having a lot of fun with the part(s).

A wonderfully eccentric examination of unlikely friendships that illuminates the absurd and lovely corners of life, Prince Avalanche is a deeply enjoyable, wondrous delight.

The Lords of Salem is a product of Zombie’s better creative impulses, so it’s ok that it also features several of his worse indulgences, too.

Post Tenebras Lux is certainly unique, but Reygadas is often intensely more interested in provoking his audience than actually fleshing out his heady ideas.

With a conclusion that arrives as an open-ended gut punch, you're not just left lingering with unanswered questions, but the sensation that James Marsh has delivered something truly special.

The film contains some memorable moments, and a pair of fine performances, but it’s hard not to feel that it would have proved more successful if it had stayed on the path it was heading down for the first forty minutes or so.

Ultimately, This Ain't California is a movie powered by nostalgia, a propulsive kind of dreamy reflection to a time and place that may not have existed with events that might not have actually happened, but have all the reality of a life that was truly lived.

A beguiling romantic comedy with a heart, soul and pulse that will pleasure you for a full 90 minutes with hardly breaking a sweat.

Short Term 12 is a roller coaster of every emotion, managing to be both heartwarming and heartrending at once.

42 is excessively retro, neglecting the urge to pepper scenes with comic relief or oppressing, flashy conflict.

It is overlong, and familiar, and never quite hits top gear -- it's never especially bad, but neither is it especially excellent, beyond the visual wow factor. But there's still a lot to admire in the film, not least that it's engaging from the first moment to the last.

One of the most satisfying things about Crystal Fairy is that even though the lead character prefers to keep an ironic distance from things, the film itself is completely sincere. It’s about being good to people even when they’re kind of ridiculous.

There's no doubt Austen fans will find things to admire, but like the protagonist, you can’t help but leave Austenland feeling a bit unfulfilled.

Sightseers homicidal holiday isn't just a pitch-black comedy made with skill, will and brains; it's also another demonstration that Wheatley is, to use an all-too-appropriate phrase, going places.

Most of Tomorrow You’re Gone moves incredibly slow for a ninety minute movie.

The film's got one of the cleverest, and most satisfying ambiguous endings of any film all year.

Erased starts out strong...but for the rest of the running time, we are watching Ben catch up with us, and that makes for uninteresting cinema no matter how kinetic the action.

It's exactly the oddball and crooked tale you'd want and expect from a Cronenberg with all the gratuitous blood, pus, bone and multiple closeups of needles piercing skin you could ask for. Dad would be proud.

No matter how it shakes out, 'Mad Man' will never be more than an interesting curio that provides a basic overview of why Stern matters. But for the rest of us, the images themselves will be the greatest evidence on their own of Stern's innovation in photography, fashion and advertising.

On both a political and a personal level, the film is pessimistic, yes, but it feels truthful, and never lapses into easy cynicism.

Confidently constructed, and aided by an assured focus, Free Angela & All Political Prisoners is a solid tribute a woman who was one of many vital pieces of the civil rights movement, and an insightful study of a time when the American identity -- both politically and socially -- was being drastically reshaped.

Down The Shore at least deserves credit for its strong performances.

It's a very competent black comedy, one that should please audiences looking for something with some bite.

There is no doubt that Greetings From Tim Buckley is respectful, and thanks to Badgley and Rosenfield, does justice to both singers. But the film never quite connects father and son as each sharing the common bond of extraordinary talent or even similar personal woes.

There is little more to Kon-Tiki than a fun, handsomely-mounted, old-style adventure story. And as impressive a feat as that is to achieve, especially outside of Hollywood, which kind of specialises in this sort of thing, those looking for something with more depth from this category may come away a little disappointed.

Regardless of whether this is a film you can handle, it’s a perfect example of the kind of bold new vision that cinephiles should be championing.

Barrett and Wingard are clever filmmakers, but unlike many modern day horror directors, their cleverness never gets in the way. There's an earnestness to the entertainment in You're Next that is truly admirable, and at the end of the day it's a super enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half.

You don’t need to know the resume of Maribel Verdú to know that the “Y Tu Mama Tambien” star is this film’s meal ticket. With an equal division of screentime with her co-star, Verdú’s ferocious sexuality projects that she was meant to become the fairest of them all by sheer force of will.

The more dramatic moments feel unanchored to the more farcical, and the humor ranges erratically from scatological to tender/heartwarming and back to cheap shots at slightly uncomfortable stereotypes. "Uneven" would be the kind way of putting it, but "messy" is probably nearer to the truth.

Retaliation is no masterpiece, but it’s a movie whose fun doesn’t feel like a four-letter word -- popcorn entertainment that not only rivals what you see during summer, but surpasses what you see from Sommers.

Tedious effort.

Eden may be unpleasant, but it's not as grim as you'd imagine, and always compulsively watchable. If only all issue movies were this entertaining.

The film's not merely content with being a twisty psycho-thriller. Boyle and Hodge expertly tweak and tinker with your sympathies, and the characters you initially peg as heroes and villains may not be in the same place by the time things wrap up.

While it hardly reinvents the genre, it’s smart, sharp entertainment that meets expectations dead on, and provides a nifty little story told with just enough spark to make the familiar feel fresh.

The movie is so apolitical; there could have been a nice slant to the movie, about how both sides of the aisle could get together to kick out these Korean terrorists. Instead, it remains totally void.

As every sub plot, reveal and character… err, caricature that is, gets stacked on top of each other, the more inevitable it is that the whole thing will come tumbling down. And while Love is All You Need is by no means a disaster, it simply can’t support all that weight.

It’s as if Weitz knows he’s got a corpse of a film on his hands -- never trust a movie when it feels as though you can see the director clasping the defibrillator.

Pablo Trapero’s White Elephant is a smartly acted, beautifully scored, often bracingly directed film of good intentions and big ambition. Yet it can only be called a modest success, and, in light of how strong some of its individual elements are, even a slight disappointment.

The film isn’t a white knuckle ride, and the pacing can be slow at times, but this is one of those cases where that’s sort of the point, and you certainly don’t begrudge it. A Hijacking is an absorbing, highly moving film.

Presenting a terrifying view of a hidden holocaust and a moral apocalypse in which the most basic humanities have become twisted beyond recognition, The Act of Killing is a towering achievement in filmmaking, documentary or otherwise.

Though it's impressive in many technical and surface ways, The Croods lets us down on the essentials of character and story, and no amount of late-stage father/daughter bonding or vertiginous 3D cliffside tumbling can make up for that.

Gimme The Loot involves drug-dealing, constant foul language and vandalism, but Hickson and Washington, both attractive and charismatic enough to be stars, carry the film with an air of lightweight pleasure, keeping it light and bouncy.

The results are a disturbing mixture of paranormal ghost story and psychological unease.

While it's great to look at, Reality is an empty shell. A feature length examination on the artifice of reality programming, Garrone's film itself is superficial and lacking the same depth of artistry and ideas he finds absent on TV.

There’s so much to like about the film, and it’s a mark of Assayas’ skill that it's a hugely engaging watch despite the blankness of the characters.

It'll get your blood pumping, before it starts spilling down your forehead.

Sturgess and Dunst are two actors who have the potential to excel; “Heartless” and “Melancholia” both hold notable performances from them that serve the story and its themes well. Here though, Solanas does the pair no favors.

If Kiss of the Damned has one thing, it's an identifiable groove, one that is sustained and very, very infectious.

Even with so many talented actors involved, there’s nothing really galvanizing or particularly provocative about Redford’s latest.

For most of the run-time, Welcome To The Punch is thrillingly cinematic, beautifully made, smarter and funnier than you'd expect, and a phenomenal showcase for Creevy and his team.

While the premise of the film is outlandish, the feelings are all real...Director Vogt-Roberts and screenwriter Chris Galletta are in perfect unison on this film, harmonizing to create what feels like a fresh comic voice.

Featuring truly shocking levels of violence but none of the wit or fun of the original, the new Evil Dead is mostly a dud.

It's a comedy so out of touch that jokes disappear before they're even delivered, as if by magic.

As emblematic of the film’s general indifference as anything is Driver’s central, perfectly fine performance.

Its off-the-cuff nature makes for a film that is not flawless – the music is a bit daft, and some of the acting a little too “large” for the intimate setting – but is, from beginning to end, delightful.

Fans of Polley’s work to date will be delighted by a documentary that serves simultaneously as a gripping mystery, a moving record of a family and a fascinating investigation into the nature of truth, memory, and the documentary form itself.

Oplev composes shots with grace and an understanding of where everything is geographically and how scenes relate to each other in the multi-threaded plot. Like everything else in Dead Man Down, his direction is beautiful and brutal at the same time. Whoever thought that this movie would be as entertaining as it is existential is either lying or psychic.

Lowery is the real deal and understands filmmaking, and this is abundantly clear in this searing, romantic crime drama and love story.

The end result provides a range of quality, from the inspired and creative to the lazy and insipid, but one that horror fans will certainly devour.

The movie is never without forward momentum, it's just too bad when just when it's ready to go to interesting places, we jump back to Bonner and Aya's pedestrian romance.

Muddled, muffled and mixing empty comedy with empty dramatics, The We and the I is an abject failure.