Jim Slotek

If you expect the best from everyone involved, prepare for disappointment. But without giving anything away, it’s fair to say Power Ballad is a mix of feel-good, then feel-bad, then mostly feel good again. That’s a recipe for a pretty good popcorn movie, even if you can’t dance to it.

Tuner is a distinctly urban romantic fable and tragedy, with a final act that is half-full or half-empty depending on your expectations of how a movie should finish. What’s clear is that Niki is an atypical protagonist, played by an actor who is up to the challenge.

While it’s a welcome change of pace to have the psycho in a big-screen off-road horror story not turn out to be a local yokel, Passenger doesn’t replace that trope with anything convincing, or even scary.

It would have been a nice touch to have Switzer, Watt-Cloutier, and Farmer meet and interact. If nothing else, it might have given Tough Old Broads a connectivity beyond three fascinating stories, separately told.

If Lorne really is “the most boring” doc of the Oscar-winning Neville’s career, it’s only because his career bar is high. As it is, Lorne is a terrific backgrounder for devout fans of Saturday Night Live. Fairweather fans, on the other hand, might find it like an overlong sketch.

A sweet and uplifting documentary twist on the horror genre, Silver Screamers is, as they say in Yiddish, a “mitzvah” on the part of director Sean Cisterna, and a gift that keeps on giving.

For a movie that lazily spins its wheels, Fantasy Life is oddly amiable. The only wholly dislikable character is David, and he’s so great at being dislikable, you almost like him for it.

Unfortunately, in Cold Storage, the first act sets too high a bar to maintain, and the rest, though watchable, is busy-ness punctuated by green splatter.

With its dark palette and atmosphere, Honey Bunch could have been a simpler, more disturbing and pointed story. There’s enough there to suggest as much.

It’s a new apocalyptic pallet to paint upon, and I look forward to where it goes next.