Creative Control has a lot to say, and style to spare, but stronger performances and better-drawn characters could have made its message even more effective and enjoyable.

It’s [Trachtenberg's] measured hand with tone that's really noteworthy, never over-reaching with each twist of the plot, keeping the tension on a simmer, and even when things boil over, “10 Cloverfield Lane” gets feverishly exciting but not hysterical.

At 127 minutes, Giannoli’s script feels overlong and a bit repetitive in its heroine’s disastrous performances. Lucien, the critic who helps propel Marguerite and her story forward, disappears for a large chunk of the film, only to randomly appear toward the end. Other than these missteps, Marguerite is worth watching with a well-earned grimace, largely for Frot’s pitch-perfect performance.

A low-budget, slow-burning film, Thelin and cinematographer Luca Del Puppo develop a relatable universe that never really gets too frightening, but it certainly digs into your conscience, and will make you think twice before letting a stranger into your house.

While slight, the film’s genuine feeling and overall comedic consistency has enough breezy charm to make it go down easy and pleasurably.

Hong’s two-part structure in Right Now, Wrong Then, instead of just being a cute formal trick, reveals a character’s troubled inner life in fiendishly clever ways.

Fey's work is strong, yet it's difficult to squash the impression that this could be a more powerful movie, and an even more significant showcase for Tina Fey.

Brash, brutal, and simplistic in equal measure, it’s a retrograde work that, for better and worse, delivers its old-school mayhem with punishing precision and unrepentant glee.

Beautifully shot and edited, with incredible archival footage throughout, and compellingly scored, The Last Man On The Moon is, more than anything else, an engaging look back at one of the most exciting times in American history.

A story that’s specific, but universal in many ways, of family complication and connection, A Country Called Home, bolstered by the excellent score by Bingham, and Poots’ delicate performance, is worth the time.

It’s a spectacular mess that’s shameless in its desire to entertain through sheer, misbegotten excess.

Unfortunately, it proves to be as disposable as the snack it revolves around.

With Only Yesterday, Takahata not only succeeds in transmitting how years can flash by, but also the way that passage of time makes clearer the moments that define our character, and go on to influence how we choose to live later.

It's an overwrought, stagey muddle that suggests that Davies, ever a-quiver on the extreme high end of the sensitivity meter anyway, has quivered right off it and plunged into the depths of bathos.

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.