Bread and Chocolate (1974)
Although fairly distinguished for its time -- and it was esteemed with various international honors -- the social themes that would give it weight are exaggerated more for the commedia all'italiana (the sawed-off furniture in a chicken coop; the drag act in a labor camp à la La grande illusion; a soccer match as irresistible trigger for expression of national identity). Nino Manfredi's lead performance gives decency to measure the madcap, but director Franco Brusati stretches out the bewildered reactions.

A Different Man (2024)
This has a great idea about reversing perspective and approach to living in your own skin, and provides good roles for Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson. But there's an unevenness to it, which seems to come more from the direction, but is somewhat in the script as well. It's like a hesitation between registers, neither quite realistic, nor quite comedic, nor quite surreal, which makes it just seem hesitant overall, timorous, at times. Renate Reinsve straddles these the best, showing how to play the mix in a way that's more impressive than even her big lead in The Worst Person in the World.

The Ice Harvest (2005)
The best things about this are the way it portrays pretense, foibles and bullshitting without making that the complete character, and the little gad about town, mostly barhopping, on Christmas Eve for that stray dog holiday feel. As much as that of Christmas movies, it avoids some commonplaces of capers, the way the script, by Richard Russo and Robert Benton, concentrates on character and director Harold Ramis follows suit with cozy little gossip airs. And with a bit more to the roles, there are good performances from John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton and Oliver Platt.

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
I don't know about Nikos Kazantzakis's book, but at movie length, the problems with compression only open it up more to the problems with the source material for both. There are three main movements: Jesus before accepting his role as messiah, thus in conflict between man and god; Jesus accepting his role as messiah; then the last temptation. The first part is so rushed it makes the dialogue sound like it's trying to be profound, but lurching, groping, reaching. It's as if the confusion of grasping neophytes were the frame itself. Then comes the realization of Jesus's role, but this is only a retelling of the story of the gospels, and as much as Kazantzakis or Martin Scorsese might be giving us another approach, it's going over familiar ground. When we get to the titular subject, the presentation is eliptical, dreamlike, with a solemnity that, if it's at all distinct, is still anchored by the preceding. I just couldn't shake the feeling of too many reverent religious dramas, let alone divine attributes for kenosis.

Ask the Dust (2006)
It's understandable that Robert Towne, who wrote one of the greatest screenplays about Los Angeles, Chinatown, would want to honor John Fante. But he's not the director he is screenwriter, doesn't compose the way, for example, Roman Polanski did for that previous movie to match the way Fante does in writing. As Charles Dickens demonstrates the problem: so many attempts to distill literature to merely plot when Dickens's writing does so many other things that are more cinematic. Here it's not even so much that Towne doesn't compose with scenes or sequences, doesn't create any distinct tone or mood or voice, let alone Fante's, as what he does with the acting. Farcical cute rascal business gives way to melodramatic seriousness, and it's all some key of staginess that lets in no air of candor.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)
Settling into the act means knocking the highs and lows off, but those are kind of the same thing when it comes to hyperactive pandering pop with CG. It may be a matter of staleness or numbness, but at least it's not as loud, showy, cloying. This works well for Jim Carrey, too. Calm down the hyperbolic mugging and there's actually room to see a character or some acting.