Author:   Justin Souther

The Story: An alien from a suffocating culture ends up in England at the beginning of punk's explosion. The Lowdown: An endlessly playful piece of science fiction that's rewarding if you have the patience for its romanticized nature.

The Story: After killing a white man in self-defense, an aboriginal man flees into the Australian outback. The Lowdown: A stark, often brutal movie that doesn't rely on shock and ugliness, but humanity instead.

The Story: A portrait of model, actress and musician Grace Jones. The Lowdown: Despite some entertaining musical performances, the film suffers from a lack of focus and real cinematic artistry.

The Story: After the death of her boss, a personal assistant goes on the run in an attempt to solve the murder. The Lowdown: A dreadfully dull, wholly uninspiring attempt at a thriller.

The Story: A writer sits down to have his portrait painted, with promises that it will only take a few hours quickly broken. The Lowdown: A pleasant, small film that focuses on the creative process, but with little dramatic thrust to make it anything special.

The Story: Three parents discover their teenage daughters plan to lose their virginity on prom night and decide to stop them. The Lowdown: While not as puritanical as its premise might sound, any sense of progressiveness is lost in various gross-out gags, and there's nothing truly novel about the whole thing.

The Story: After his church is burned down, a reverend must go to court to secure its remaining on a hostile college campus. The Lowdown: While a bit more measured and professional-looking than previous installments, this third time around is still incredibly inert and dull.

The Story: After a series of disappearances in the world of garden ornaments, the world's most famous gnome detective is called in to crack the case. The Lowdown: A drab retread of an animated film that wastes a talented cast.

The Story: A reissued, remastered version of the 2002 concert celebrating the life of George Harrison. The Lowdown: A star-studded concert film that suffers a bit due to unevenness and being strictly for fans.

The Story: Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels march toward the creation of their Communist Manifesto. The Lowdown: A generally stuffy biopic that's strangely structured like too many biopics, leading to a movie that's surprisingly unsurprising.

The Story: An upper-class family must deal with a series of tragic and stressful events. The Lowdown: A humorless, detached film with no fun nor joy, and even less, style that screams "art" without really ever saying anything of note.

The Story: A Russian spy trained in seduction is assigned to target a CIA agent. The Lowdown: A brutal, grim and sometimes shocking spy yarn that's just not fun or trashy enough to really be enjoyable.

The Story: A normal, monotonous game night goes haywire when a kidnapping occurs. The Lowdown: A solid, twisty comedy that focuses on plot and character while avoiding too much raunch and childishness.

The Story: After the death of her son and husband, a woman must deal with the aftermath. The Lowdown: An occasionally arresting film with an excellent central performance from Diane Kruger that's harmed by an unfocused and ill-fitting final act.

The Story: The based-on-a-true-story tale of the American servicemen who stopped a terrorist attack on a French train. The Lowdown: Besides the curio of casting the actual men involved in stopping the attack, the film they're in is clumsy and often cringeworthy.

The Story: A shady cop must take down a team of crackpot bank robbers before they take down the Federal Reserve. The Lowdown: A mind-numbingly long, dumb and noisy heist movie with nearly nothing to recommend about itself.

The Story: A man on a commuter train gets entangled in a mysterious criminal plot that he must unravel. The Lowdown: A watchable, somewhat entertaining thriller with few thrills and nothing exciting about it.

The Story: A overview of the worldwide refugee crisis that travels the globe, attempting to show the true scope and the horror of the situation. The Lowdown: A truly exhausting and massive documentary that attempts to remind us of the human lives behind conflict and politics which, despite some flaws, succeeds.

The Story: The "true life" story of P.T. Barnum and the origins of his famous circus. The Lowdown: A gaudy, garrish musical with nary a memorable tune and a flimsy plot.

The Story: A failed actress in a loveless marriage finds excitement in a summer fling, something that's complicated with the arrival of her husband's daughter. The Lowdown: An aggressively melodramatic picture that's watchable, but mostly only for Woody Allen die-hards.

The Story: Set in the '60s during the time of Vatican II's reforms of the Catholic Church, a young woman surprises her mother by deciding to become a nun. The Lowdown: With a good cast and an interesting eye for composition, what's generally a strong film is brought down a bit by an unfocused plot and…