Unlike “Obvious Child,” Landline plays like a series of semi-successful comic and dramatic scenes, haphazardly arranged into something resembling a story.

[Morgan's] observations about Hollywood’s image-consciousness and the transactional nature of L.A. relationships are nothing new. But there’s a specificity and a liveliness to her jokes that makes them feel almost fresh — or, at the least, relevant.

A Ghost Story has the structure and rhythm of a musical suite, with Lowry working variations on the same themes, the same characters, and the same location. The result can be lyrical and poetic, or more naturalistic and minimalist. In both cases, A Ghost Story is absolutely mesmerizing, with an anything-goes quality that’s endlessly fascinating.

The movie lives and dies, however, on Ingrid herself and, remarkably, Plaza finds a way for you to root for her even when she crosses line after line after line.

Unlike McDowell and Lader’s underrated 2014 comedic thriller “The One I Love” the most disappointing aspect of The Discovery is that it’s something of a bore. And when you find out what “The Discovery” really is you simply don’t care anymore.

There’s a certain flat indie artlessness to “The Big Sick,” but it’d be shortsighted to discount how well-written and well-acted it is. This is a very funny movie, yet always plausibly so—never throwing in jokes just for the sake of a laugh.

There’s something fresh in Detour, but it’s buried underneath a largely unremarkable movie.

One should applaud Diesel and Caruso for breathing unexpected energy into what could’ve been another lame, uninspired continuation. It’s wild, loud and totally out of control, and that’s periodically a pretty good thing.

What Blair is trying to do is quite ambitious for his first feature. He alternates moments of high comedy with serious tension and a touch of magic realism for kicks. For the most part, the tone works.

The Red Turtle is poetry made cinema, an exquisite existential allegory that says everything without having to say anything at all.

It ends up feeling like going to a festival headlining date by a reunited Britpop band. It’s great to see them back together, they look pretty good for their age, and there are transcendent moments when they play the hits. But the set goes on a bit long, and the new material’s a bit forgettable, and they’re sloppier than they used to be, and in the end, you start to wonder if it had been better if you’d been left with your memories from back in the day.

They Call Us Monsters is restrained, sensitive and quietly heartbreaking.

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

The Founder certainly does not reinvent the meal, but as a bite sized, consumable snack (that feels like 90 minutes though is actually much longer), its lively and entertaining spirit does often hit the spot. And surprisingly, though traditionally told, the narrative does unwrap a deceptive bite along the way.

Gould and Zwann’s film runs along perhaps too familiar formal lines to have many tricks up its sleeve.... Yet that does not rob the inevitable meeting of its simple, sweet power, and the gentle revelations, mellowed with time, that punctuate the excited chatter are truly moving.

The subtlety of [Tatiana Huezo‘s] approach interlaces ideas, resonances and emotions in ever-shifting, eternally edifying ways. And it ultimately promotes the film from human interest journalism to a grand work of socio-political critique and a quietly radical remodeling of familiar documentary formats.

There is always something of value in the sincere recreation of ordinary heroism. And Perez’ film does sincere if ordinary justice to the idea that where there is a will for it, resistance can find a way, be it so small as to be postcard-sized.

The Bye Bye Man just skirts so-bad-it’s-good territory, unintentionally making the audience laugh more than they gasp.

Ocean Waves is a deeply charming and resonant look at the tug of longing that so often comes with memory, the utter mess of youth, and the beautiful delirium of love.

It knows of its B-movie roots, its tired plot and well-worn archetypes, and beneath the burden of the sorely unoriginal, it does manage to be occasionally funny, occasionally surprising, and occasionally the bloody and bombastic genre cliche it set out to be.

Labelling Live By Night a disaster is a little uncharitable; the baggy drama is perhaps more painfully mediocre than full-blown folly, but it’s close.

It’s all window-dressing for an ending that reveals this alternately goofy and self-serious big-budget Hollywood product to be little more than a two-hour prelude to a potential future franchise.

If immaculately realized, Silence is also an increasingly monotonous, patience-testing slow-burner, with characters repeatedly voicing their fears about God’s silence (often in voiceover), debating the merits of apostatizing in service of a compassionate cause, and suffering in quiet.

The Bad Kids falters due to a lack of focus.

The movie is propulsive and, if you aren’t nauseated by the ethics, quite engaging.

Manipulative and over-engineered, starring high-profile actors doing all they can elicit deep compassion, Collateral Beauty fails to make an impression, and contains not nearly enough authentic beauty to make it worthwhile.

Rogue One is a very good “Star Wars” film, frustratingly though, it falls short of being a truly great one.

Bakker and Koevorden have made a sleek and captivating documentary, and the rhythm of Bob and Marcel’s interaction and the pain in which they continue to just go on, is shot with distinctive style and makes for an impressive film.