Old-school western fans won’t find a lot of originality here, but if you’re looking for a well-executed, straight genre exercise, give it a shot.

It’s exciting as a raw, provocative, and vividly realized cinema of sensation. Wood doesn’t invite us to observe White Girl so much as she invites us to involve ourselves in its drama.

The documentary struggles to remain relevant throughout its short run time, and wobbles between glorification and reflection until it completely tilts over.

As well-handled as the set pieces are, the connective tissue doesn’t pull you along, and then collapses completely in a messy, unsatisfying final act.

Structured as a low-key chase movie, unfolding with the dark urgency of a conspiracy thriller, living mostly not in your heart or even your mind but in the hairs on the back of your neck, "Midnight Special" actually emerges most resonantly as an almost mournful ode, or maybe a psalm, to the primal instincts of fatherhood.

Crafted as a kaleidoscope of color and nightclub sparkle, The Lure's glitter does not distract from the fact that this is a technically confident and often quite accomplished piece of filmmaking, with a rare ability to dance intuitively between linear plotting and phantasmagoric fantasy.

Unlike its protagonists, Touched with Fire never reaches either impressive highs or awful lows. It’s a film that is capably made in most respects, particularly in its acting and visuals, but it’s not truly successful.

Though How to Be Single marks progress from the standard genre narrative and gives Alice in particular a chance to be herself, it’s not a clean win. But I certainly had fun getting dirty with it.

Collette delivers one of the best performances of her already impressive career in Glassland.

Zoolander 2 is no disaster, but it’s almost worse; a tedious jag that barely works as a disposable and mild, if-its-on-cable-TV, diversion.

Diamond Tongues is refreshing because it isn't an indictment of a demographic, or even of Edith, but is a portrait of a young woman whose ambition has curdled into something more nasty along the way.

It’s a film that desperately wants to upend the tropes of the comic book movie, but perhaps more shocking than anything that comes out of the mouth of its often obnoxious titular hero, is how blandly the picture sticks to the origin story playbook.

It is shriekingly loud but never surprising; goofy, but rarely funny.

Identifying the method behind the Coens’ madness takes some work, as the film moves at such a rat-a-tat-tat screwball speed that following along often feels like clinging for dear life to the side of a speeding train.

Swiss Army Man is a big swing — there's no denying the risk in putting two well-known actors in a film where one plays a barely-mobile corpse — but also a big whiff that rarely connects its characters and situations to humor or empathy.

Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers is a flabby, goofy, comically inert cartoon.

What saves the movie is Solondz’s sensibility, which is still one-of-a-kind.

Heder's direction shines, shaping the film around the cast as each woman plays out their own specific nuances of loss and insecurity, and, occasionally, optimism. Tallulah is an impressive feature debut, and a welcome showcase for the talents of Page, Janney, and Blanchard.

The movie holds to a steady but too-straight rhythm, hitting all the expected romantic-drama beats, right down to the occasional argument that threatens to stop the date cold. But Southside With You is also winningly sweet and earnest, and refreshingly frank about the problems that minorities face when they try to get ahead in a culture dominated by white males.

What makes Sing Street such a joyously entertaining film (besides the songs) is that it thinks the best of its characters, and it presents them the way they’d like to think of themselves.

The end result is awfully sketchy, more a collection of ideas and memories than a proper film.

This film is an important historical record, and an important reminder of an event in American history that could have changed everything, that should have changed everything. There’s no reason why it still can’t. Newtown is a crucial reminder of that.

Focused on fetishizing rather than intimately depicting, director Chad Hartigan has produced a warm-hearted yarn that treats its two African-American leading men like props in his white-washed game of chess.

The tale of Choi and Shin is a true stranger-than-fiction one, as good a piece of material as a filmmaker could help for. It’s just a shame that, for the most part, The Lovers And The Despot feels like it’s giving you the Cliff Notes version of the story.

Beckinsale’s performance is so funny in fact that it sucks a lot of the air out the room for her co-stars. Whenever she’s in a scene, she delivers so many pithy putdowns per second that it’s hard to pay attention to anyone else. And whenever she’s not around, the movie dims.

The beauty of Little Men — and of the director’s work in general — is that it displays a rare understanding of how the world works.

There's a tangible sensitivity to Kate Plays Christine that is constantly present as the project explores two personas and a gamut of topics (gender politics, gun control, and depression among them).

The Intervention may not offer many new experiences, but its combination of tart and sweet is satisfying.