In addition to its fathers-and-sons focus, “Resurrecting the Champ” explores other provocative themes, particularly the fleeting glories of sport — and the symbiotic relationship between sports and the media types who cover it, celebrating the winners, then moving on to the next round of winners without so much as a backward glance at yesterday’s winners-turned-losers. Read more

Inspired by Los Angeles Magazine’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated article by J.R. Moehringer about a homeless man who claimed to be a once-famous boxer, Rod Lurie’s film never fully reconciles the story about newsroom ethics with the sentimental drama about bad dads and bereft sons. Read more

The film takes place in eternal moral twilight, dark enough to make faces look photogenically poignant, light enough to see the white lies. Read more

Produced by John Singleton for writer-director Franc. Reyes, this preposterous tale of crime-family values should be far more entertaining than it is. Read more

Director Justin Theroux’s aim is to make an unconventional rom-com that deals with troubled people and varying degrees of sanity, but it’s a lot less original and clever than he’d like to believe. Read more

Actor-turned-filmmaker Ethan Hawke’s second feature, an adaptation of his own novel about youthful heartbreak, is hobbled by its singularly unappealing lead characters. Read more

Art director Chris Gorak’s feature-writing/directing debut is a small-scale apocalyptic thriller that unfolds in the aftermath of a dirty-bomb attack on Los Angeles, which separates a married couple as the city devolves into chaos and cruelly conflicting advice. Read more

Like the humble legume from which he takes his name, Rowan Atkinson’s disaster-prone Mr. Bean is an acquired taste — and best appreciated in small portions. Read more

Highlighting films made by women Read more

There’s something mildly inspired in having this set-piece tease the conflict many critics thought author Jack Finney was addressing in his 1955 sci-fi novel, “The Body Snatchers,” in the first place - the Cold War. Read more