Prehistoric Low Camp. The archetypal Hero’s Journey, at its earliest starting point: the outcast of a mountain clan, who appear to wear bird droppings on their faces, wending his way past woolly mammoths, giant man-eating gobblers, a saber-toothed tiger, across the Sea of Sand to the Head of the Snake …

Russian revision of Twelve Angry Men, slightly “opened up” to no benefit (the makeshift jury room is a gymnasium), still stagy, wordy, overacted, mired in lengthy monologues, spun out in excess of two and a half hours. With Sergey Makovetsky, Sergey Garmash, Sergey Gazarov, Valentin Gaft, Alexey Petrenko, Yuri Stoyanov, …

Takeoff from a true story, presumably far, far off, about a team of MIT math whizzes who, drilled by a Mephistophelean mentor on the faculty, visit Vegas on weekends to beat the house at blackjack. The film is not able to make the frowned-upon practice of “card counting” comprehensible, much …

Girly fairy tale to do with the proverbial always-a-bridesmaid, twenty-seven times by actual count, with a closetful of once-worn gowns to prove it, who stands mutely by as her slutty younger sister returns home and steals her dreamy boss right out from under her nose. Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and …

102 minutes minus closing credits. A famous forensic psychiatrist (a puffy-haired Al Pacino), on the scheduled day of execution of a sadistic killer against whom he testified, receives a distorted-voice cellphone threat, “You have 88 minutes to live.” Once the countdown begins, not a single minute is remotely credible. How …

An Atom Egoyan study in anguish — an Atom Egoyan specialty — and a symposium on terrorism, race, religion, other things, the fictional framework of which is too rickety to give support. Hair-raising camera angle on a fatal car accident, an outstanding few seconds. With Devon Bostick, Arsinée Khanjian, Scott …

A slice of sociology. Documentarian Nanette Burstein follows four principals through the stresses of senior year in Warsaw, Indiana: the Jock, the Princess, the Nerd, and the Rebel, all quite touching in different ways and degrees. Despite some stabs at MTV commercialism (animated fantasy sequences in contrasting styles), it’s in …

Informal, rambling, personalized documentary by Darryl Roberts (director, producer, narrator, and on-screen presence) on America’s presumed “obsession” with beauty, a wide-ranging skim over interesting waters: the fashion industry (specifically an underage model named Gerren Taylor), dieting, eating disorders, beauty products, cosmetic surgery, the whole ball of wax. The slovenly film …

Career-spanning clips of the big-band, bebop, and blues vocalist — “The Jezebel of Jazz” for her well-publicized drug habit — in performance and in interviews (David Frost, Dick Cavett, Tom Snyder, Harry Reasoner, Bryant Gumbel, Terry Gross), right up to her death in 2006. The visual and audio quality is …

Unpretentious, un-epic Western, adapted from a novel by the hard-boiled mystery writer Robert B. Parker. It bears more than a passing resemblance to a pseudonymous variation on the Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday legend, the 1959 Warlock, without itself qualifying as a variation on that legend. We have again the two-man …

Spruced-up reissue of the 1994 Wong Kar-wai film of the same name minus the Redux. The changes consist principally of a new musical score showcasing the plangent, pensive cello of Yo-Yo Ma. They have not, however, amended the confusion and disappointment in an arty, abstract, almost actionless martial-arts period piece …

Nearly three million square miles of tripe. A Ferber-esque epic of a “delicate English rose” who takes over her late husband’s cattle ranch in rugged northern Australia on the eve of World War II, a Cimarron Down Under, with a sprinkle of Aboriginal magic, and a thick coat of high-gloss …

Futuristic thriller wherein a world-weary mercenary escorts an angelic nymph of indeterminate powers, and for unknown purposes, from a Mongolian convent to New York City. The hyperkinetic camera and overinflated action create the wrong climate for the apocalyptic solemnity. With Vin Diesel, Melanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh, Gerard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling, …

SNL alumnae Tina Fey and Amy Poehler form a babymaking pact across the class divide, the barren career woman and the fertile prole. Broad, predictable, and pallidly photographed, yet an agile and energetic playing of the angles. Strong supporting part for Steve Martin, plus ponytail, as a self-mythologizing health-food tycoon: …

An ex-lawyer schemes with a few former clients to distribute a new designer drug. Directed by Rick Jacobson.