What makes "Lucy and Desi" so compelling is that we can feel, all the way through, that Poehler enjoys telling their story just as much as we enjoy watching it.

Timoner uses a stripped-down, totally straightforward method. She sets up a camera in her parent’s living room, where her father is resting in a hospital bed and her mother is silently worrying on the couch. And then she begins counting down the days.

The film takes a situation that could be milked for wrenching drama and outrage, an elderly woman whose daughter tries to sell her mother’s longtime home out from under her, and treats it with lightness and charm.

Hoppers' isn’t just James Cameron’s Avatar if it had feelings, it’s also James Cameron’s Avatar if it was good.

Montana Story remains a worthwhile exercise, largely because it puts two stellar actors through a monumental emotional gauntlet, and they pass with flying colors.

All in all, this electrifying and thought-provoking ride works as it chooses the searing over the subtle, a tough call when approaching a subject that warrants in-your-face urgency.

The film’s best scenes are, in a way, the flip side to its weaker ones: the closeness between Castro and her subjects lessens their objectivity but strengthens their intimacy.

Director Clint Eastwood‘s focus on Kyle is so tight that no other character, including wife Taya (Sienna Miller), comes through as a person, and the scope so narrow that the film engages only superficially with the many moral issues surrounding the Iraq War.

It’s a fascinating story of endurance, shaky scientific methods, and solidarity that’s been given a thoughtful resurrection thanks to the writings of Genovés himself – acted in voiceover by “Zama” star Daniel Giménez Cacho – and the recollections of seven participants.

Riley, proving himself to be a romantic just as he is a believer in revolution, clearly not only loves these boosters with hearts of gold, but anyone that is trying to make it all work for themselves and those around them.

Owen Kline’s darkly hilarious directorial debut Funny Pages is a coming-of-age tale that finds the sublime in the grotesque, and the profound in an absurd search for meaning in the basement apartments and comic book shops of Trenton, New Jersey.

Bourgeois-Tacquet’s script is loaded with witty bon mots and carefully-constructed insights.

Unsettling and bizarrely humorous, The Clan is the sort of film that ups the ante of any movie that dares open with those dreaded five words: “Based on a true story.”

The result is a “Spider-Man” that feels a little more punchy, laugh-filled, and exciting than one might expect from a property that’s already been given plenty of chances to succeed.

Puss in Boots isn’t on a rousing adventure; he’s performing the fairy-tale equivalent of grasping at miracle cures while he’s dying from a terminal illness. And although the film is funny in fits and starts, and exciting in fits and starts, the ultimate takeaway is weirdly sobering.

To tell someone else’s life story — especially when it’s being told with such brutal honesty — is impressive. To do so with with warmth, intellect, and vulnerability is a Herculean feat.

If The Killer is chilly-to-the-touch and anchored by a quiet and intensely physical performance by Fassbender, the filmmakers nevertheless wring an awful lot of wit from this frigid world.

Graham, Robinson, and Barantini’s thematic concerns about how restaurants work are strong enough ingredients. It’s too bad they’ve been subjected to the one-note flavoring of a single-take movie.

My Name Is Pauli Murray more than rests its case on Murray’s brilliance and important contributions.

It’s a wealth of information The Ivory Game vitally offers, and action it means to incite. That may well be enough to get audiences involved.

This documentary may indeed stir outrage and encourage victims to report such crimes. But it’s still a song we’ve heard before.

As filmmakers, Covino and Marvin are singularly committed to each bit, pushing all premises to the comic extreme. Their characters, however, are less than steadfast and true.

Bujalski’s script does boast lots of smart, sad observations about how both money and self-improvement can lead to isolation. But the characters, while far from broad, aren’t very focused, either.

Unabashedly truthful and restlessly intelligent, Akhavan’s remarkable, near-perfect debut has wit and charisma to spare. Miss it at your own risk.

Though there are a few clunky or obvious monologues in the script (perhaps the hazard of adapting a memoir), the emotion and intention behind the story, as well as McNairy’s career-best performance, make “Fairyland” an astonishingly moving film and touching remembrance.

The film is structured so we come away with two competing, and yet complementary, impressions. First, that our political system has become infected with a rampant and deadly corruption that has spread out of control. And second, that there is a communal cure.

Ultimately, the filmmakers’ intention isn’t to throw us off but to invite us in, to encourage us to wonder: Is it really so strange for one woman to have two reactions to life?

It should come with little surprise that Ferrari astounds when Mann’s focus narrows to pure gear-head reverie; unfortunately, in between the film’s narrative engine often sputters and stalls.