Overloaded with too many ideas, it does scant justice to the more interesting ones that crop up, while regularly diverting from any sort of central narrative to follow tenuous and ill-explained threads that end up in a foggy limbo. But just when it threatens to wholly frustrate, someone cracks an enjoyable inside-baseball meta movie-making joke and we're back on side for a bit.

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.

Peabody creates a briskly paced doc that cleverly uses interviews and archive footage in order to distill this complex subject into an easily digestible viewing experience.

Even its weakest pieces are still entertaining, and the good stuff is exceptionally so.

The film’s inherent problems, however, are two fold. First, the third of the picture is an absolute slog. The Zellner’s may have though this was a creative choice to make the comedic scenes funnier when they finally hit, but it simply doesn’t work. Second, the funny bits simply aren’t as funny as they should be.

This is the director at his tenderest.

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.

While The Ones Below doesn’t make it over the finish line, Farr shows good instincts, and has an ease for creating tension without overt manipulation, while keeping everything engaging enough that you’re willing to overlook questions that nag after the credits roll.

Just as many sports movies before have done, and many more will after, Borg/McEnroe shines a light on the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. It’s just a shame that the movie itself doesn’t have the same ambition

Finding ways to cope with any significant tragedy is hardly new, but in the hands of Foy and Lowthrope, it is.

It ultimately crashes into a heap due to a host of rambling non-connective ideas and tonally grating dialogue.

Topicality is not mandatory, and it’s clear the agenda here is for salacious genre thrills rather than anything deeper or more profound, but when the film’s form is such an embrace of modernity, it feels like cognitive dissonance to have the story skew so old-fashioned.

Midnight movie programmers of the future will undoubtedly give it a long life years after it’s gone from first-run theaters.

The actors are game, but their connection is more cutesy than romantic.

Villains is wacky off the walls fun and it constructs a solid sandbox for its actors to play in and deliver four colorfully captivating performances about the shades and degrees of human wickedness.

Save for an overdependence on neon lighting, a general misunderstanding of how entertainment journalism works, and perhaps more alcohol consumption than is responsible for a film sure to be watched by teen girls and young women, Someone Great is a heartfelt and hilarious first feature with ample female talent.

Stowaway is surprisingly decent despite the drag near the finale.

In the past, Östlund has shown a deft facility in sending up meaty topics, applying granular attention to male ego in “Force Majeure” and art-world pretensions with “The Square.” Here, however, he stoops to the broadness ascribed to his work by its harshest critics, now more parody of himself than parodist.

Algorithms is a completely unique film, unlike any other documentary you might see this year, both for its content and its form.

One of the film’s successes is its ability to subvert expectations.

The film can be engaging, well-made, and even a touch more interesting than it has much right to be. But it's also far from a satisfying work as a whole.

By creating — and persisting — on this on-the-nose parallel between the tragedy of opera and the one of Callas’s life, the duo sees this woman solely through the tragic value of her woes, denying her talent and her craft from the light that is true human connection, built not only through shared griefs but the deep understanding of one another that only great art can promote.

Bring Them Down is Chris Andrews’ debut feature as a writer and director after working in the camera department of several productions. He has a nice feel for the story’s setting and shows some facility filming action. A tighter handle on dramatic construction and character development would enhance his feature filmmaking ventures.

[Shyamalan] still knows how to manipulate an audience with an original story, and with “Split,” we don’t mind him pulling the strings again.

If you can imagine a firearm kill, an explosion, or a knife-fight, chances are that Wheathely has packed into Normal— so bountiful are the action confrontations with various configurations of characters.

The film gives the audience the feeling of being trapped in a tight and confined space. And that feeling is as thrillingly unpleasant as it is a sweaty-palmed nightmare.

This Land often feels like a simplified (but not unwelcome) plea for sentimentality— its observational approach essentially diffuses any political reading. It’s odd to watch a film so invested in the rhythms of politics that is also strangely apolitical.

Even as an homage The Hole in the Ground feels like business as usual rather imbuing the genre with a much-needed modern edge or new context.