Jeannette Catsoulis

A jolly sex comedy that plays out in frisky conversations and gumball colors (no pasty flesh tones here), the movie offers sadomasochism as a road to self-confidence and emotional maturity.

Baffling and at times perversely beautiful, Her Private Hell revisits some of the obsessions — murdered daughters, amputation, problematic parenting — of Refn’s wildly superior 2013 revenge tale, “Only God Forgives.” A dazzlingly gifted filmmaker, Refn will always have a place in my heart for his unwavering commitment to his scarlet-soaked visions, critics and audiences be damned. Now, though, he may simply be repeating himself.

The long tail of Fellini can be sensed wagging through every quirky character and unwaveringly deadpan exchange.

“Gail Daughtry” is a cheerfully corny, sometimes surreal caper with a whiff of cynicism beneath the buffoonery.

Nothing can stop this overlong and disastrously ill-judged project from flying off the rails.

Reveling in misdirection and a teasing duality . . . Hokum profits from Colm Hogan’s insinuating camera as it noses through gloomy corridors and a terrifying dumbwaiter shaft, hinting at what lurks on the other side of the frame.

Despite a plot (by Ben Hopkins) bursting with double- and triple- crosses, the movie feels programmatic, its characters bland cogs in a Rube Goldberg machine.

Normal — which heralds, according to the press notes, the birth of yet another franchise — navigates its cartoonish excesses with expected competence. As for Odenkirk, he’s golden; as mythology nerds will recall, Ulysses was also known as the Master of Cunning.

Bunnylovr, the first feature from Katarina Zhu, touches on various themes, none of which feels fully realized. Yet there is such a sweet symbiosis between Zhu’s intimate, easy directing style and her unselfconscious performance in the lead role — beautifully illuminated by Daisy Zhou’s gentle cinematography — that the movie’s aimlessness rarely grates.

Existential ennui is not exactly fun to watch (or, one assumes, easy to perform), yet a meaningless life has rarely looked this beautiful.