John DeFore

A tale as generic, and as dull, as its title.

Standup star Jim Gaffigan, who mines domesticity for laughs so successfully onstage, would seem an ideal choice for a man with twice the responsibilities and one big secret to hide. But Bailey and Lakin give him next to nothing to work with, and the result flops where it should crackle.

Sienna Miller offers a beautiful, agile performance that would by itself justify the film's existence.

Both the racial motivations behind the crime and the community's startling reaction make this tragedy especially worth remembering; when it is shown nationwide on the shooting's fourth anniversary, June 17 (with an encore on June 19), it will leave few viewers unmoved.

The picture's mission to shine a light on the expertise of bag-toting sidekicks is admirable, and the story's told in breezy fashion. Just leave your non-golfing loved ones at home for this one.

Oddly, everyone from boat-tour guides to shot-bar patrons find time to ask our hero solicitous personal questions. If only he, or the film, had more interesting answers.

The film prefers to share its protagonists' struggle, not lionizing the risks they take but also never questioning them.

If The Black Godfather has a hard time understanding the man himself — who remains guarded even when interviewed alongside his family or his lifelong buddy Quincy Jones — it does show enough of his legacy to suggest its title is no overstatement.

Though Framing John DeLorean offers a more comprehensive look at a flamboyant subject's life, it doesn't entirely do justice to the tale, and the meta-movie nature of its dramatized scenes does little to help.

To a person, Tarek's beneficiaries come home feeling changed by the experience. Unfortunately, he and Serban aren't so gauche as to ask if they've reevaluated any political stances as a result; the film is content with the unspoken assumption that this expanded awareness of shared humanity will make the world better. If only someone had the budget to send tens of millions of other frightened Westerners on similar trips.

The Proposal has a life of its own, beautiful and provocative. The biggest complaint one can make is that Magid, whose previous works have involved spy agencies and police surveillance, hasn't made similar features while pursuing those projects.

More than anything, the doc lives up to its name as a portrait of the photographer in his old age.

It quickly spins its shaky premise off into an unconvincing study of emotional need and an even harder-to-believe revenge thriller.

Easily the most satisfying of his Hollywood-produced adventures and a respectable cousin to the long string of Japanese ones, the sequel to Gareth Edwards' admirably serious but dullish 2014 film is the first to suggest any promise for what Legendary is calling its "MonsterVerse" — a franchise in which the Japanese kaiju world meshes with that of Hollywood's favorite oversized ape, King Kong.

He (De Palma) has rarely been guilty of dullness, as he is with Domino, a counterterrorism thriller offering just slightly more excitement than the average TV police procedural.

Funny Story (co-written with Steve Greene) proves much more polished than its pedigree might suggest — a warmhearted seriocomedy that, even when not thoroughly convincing, projects a disarming sincerity.

It's much more dry than one might expect, demonstrating the truth of something interviewees suggest more than once: As intriguing a person as Berg was, it was not easy to know him.

Documentarian David Modigliani's straightforward campaign film Running With Beto captures the excitement of that near-victory and celebrates the grassroots work done by passionate volunteers. But mostly it is a tide-me-over for progressives who are heartened by last year's victories and need to maintain that optimism.

Barak Goodman's straightforward Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation plays to this group of nostalgic Baby Boomers, offering a rosy view of the titular event that for many is synonymous with Peace & Love

The picture fares better at finding occasional moments of warmth than at convincing us of its characters' reality.

Though it starts uneventfully, the doc perks up in its second half, highlighting the kind of practical headaches nearly no other artist in the world has to contend with.

While some will embrace the shards as a Shane Carruth-like brain-teaser, the movie is ultimately too reflective of its genetically-engineered subjects — soulless under an entrancing veneer.

A Faulknerian look at domestic violence, self-destructiveness and faith set in a small Louisiana town, its cinematic style owes something to Terrence Malick — though this spare, 77-minute debut has none of the meandering self-indulgence of that auteur's recent work.

It's as stylistically straightforward as concert films get, but should play well to fans in its limited theatrical release as it simultaneously arrives on digital platforms.

An epic of choreographed mayhem that expands the Wickiverse in mostly pleasing ways, it is destined to satisfy fans of this surprise-hit franchise: If its ludicrous aspects bug you, what the hell are you doing here?

Though the 55 year-old plot's bones are sturdy and its new performers gifted, moviegoers hoping for a mercilessly funny post-Weinstein revenge fantasy (its poster declares: "They're giving dirty rotten men a run for their money") will walk away feeling conned.

It simply offers a chance to spend time with engaging people who've enriched our understanding of complex ecosystems, and who assure us that much of what we've done to the planet is reversible — provided we take action before the keystone species in question are still around to be saved.

[A] modest but heartfelt picture. ... Lost Transmissions tells its story without engaging with foolish cliches about creativity and madness.