Jackie is what happens when two distinct sensibilities — the Goliath of the Hollywood prestige pic and the David of Pablo Larraín’s playful, idiosyncratic intelligence — throw down.

Cedar’s smart dialogue and direction lift Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (hereby just referred to as ‘Norman’) above expectations.

It’s an admirably well-crafted misfire, created by two of the finest filmmaking duos working together today. But perhaps that demonstrates just how singular the original remains, even to this day.

Bridget Jones’s Baby is not a game-changer, but that’s not what it sets out to be. It’s a goodnatured, accessible, persistently endearing matinee, and sometimes it’s nice to be won over by simple sincerity and commercial likeability.

Very well-made, very sweet-natured and very, very familiar: how strange that Philippe Falardeau‘s The Bleeder, a based-in-truth film about pretty much the definition of a confrontational sport —boxing— should feel cosy as a down comforter from beginning to end.

Outside of the Berg’s incredible depiction of the Deepwater’s destruction and the escape of a majority of its crew, the picture also benefits from two fantastic performances by Wahlberg and Rodriguez.

There’s something widely relatable about the way Barry tries to find somewhere to fit in, and preferably in a place where he can be himself and not somebody else’s symbol.

All of “Pastoral’s” problems could have been slightly forgiven if McGregor showed a hint of inspiration behind the camera.

The Age of Shadows has no pretensions to being a particularly deep or politically resonant piece of filmmaking. Its more that Kim Jee-woon has found in this era and this milieu the perfect inspiration for a blisteringly entertaining and exquisite genre exercise, one that may not be recognised as such only because we we have never expected genre films to be this good.

Take away Forster’s hard-working visual style, and what All I See Is You essentially presents is a standard relationship drama, with two generic, privileged people at its heart who don’t become any more striking even as the tensions between the two gradually reach a breaking point.

Walter Hill’s legacy of pushing the edges of genre conventions made the prospect of (Re)Assignment, at least on paper, potentially dangerous. But the filmmaker’s touch is completely lost here, and the only danger the film winds up posing is to the time spent by those who choose to watch it.

When the big show finally happens at the end of the picture? You can’t help but smile.

Tipping’s bold and meditative drama with its reflective moods and streetwise grime has delivered one of the best feature-length debuts of 2016 and one of the best films of the year, period.

As a piece of filmed entertainment Snowden is certainly a watchable endeavor, but Stone and screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald’s script is often an odd mix of hero worship, conspiratorial thriller and cringe worthy dialogue.

This beautifully structured fable may be focused on the specific pain, of a specific child, during a specific moment in time, but it blows up every fragment of its premise into heart-stirring universal appeal.

Author: The JT Leroy Story, a documentary from Jeff Feuerzeig,is as truthful as it gets. Yet its content is so wildly absurd, that it plays like a work of fiction.

With “Free Fire,” Wheatley wants to push his own limits of onscreen mayhem, taking things right to the line where most directors would pull back, and pushing everything right over. And what the director winds up doing is making a big, magnificent noise, one that will certainly see more than his core fanbase sitting up and paying attention.

It would be too easy to say The Magnificent Seven isn’t magnificent. It’s definitely not, but the film has an even more egregious quality: it’s uninspired. There’s no risk, no real attempts to subvert expectations, and no desire to truly give the audience something, if not entirely new, then at least surprising.

Stone and his crew get the audience hooked on the mystery of this charismatic crank, and then take their time before they answer some of the bigger questions.

Floyd Norman: An Animated Life is as joyful as its subject, and is heartily recommended to every artist who might have lost their way and are looking for some inspiration.

It’s a ponderous work in every meaning of the term.

Poorly written and haphazardly shot, not even Sarandon is enough to convince that Ace the Case was a mystery ever worth writing, much less solving.

Too often the mechanisms of plot can be felt, the beats of the story seen, and the obvious intentions of the story heard in a line of dialogue. So, while at times it’s easy to see the great film that Tunnel could have been, that never stops it from being perfectly watchable thriller that it is.

Wannabe shock comedies toe boundaries of decorum but don’t have the stones to cross them, which in a way is more off-putting than the alternative. For Hvam, Christensen, and Klown Forever, boundaries aren’t a problem, only substance, but if you’re looking for a moral or a message, then you’re looking at the wrong film.

There is an interesting film buried in Zoom, and it’s one to seek out if you’re a fan of more daring visual choices in film. It’s just a shame that the script couldn’t have matched the direction and visuals in its intriguing approach to world building.

The very beauty of the pictures, and the exhausting knowledge of how much effort and care went into each peculiar creature, each liquidly expanding nebula, each belching mud spring, contributes to a kind of wonder fatigue, and soon it feels a little like you’ve slipped into a lukewarm bath of imagery. It’s soothing, comfortable, blood-temperature and it doesn’t quicken your pulse one iota or inspire a single thought in your mind that you haven’t had a hundred times before.

The perils of the broader-canvas follow-up to the sleek and economical indie debut are writ large: this is “Difficult Second Album: The Movie.”

This is a virtuosic piece of filmmaking art that also happens to be almost unbearably moving. Actually, there is no “almost.”