Bill Goodykoontz

More curiosity than movie, “Michael,” a biopic so reverential towards its subject, Michael Jackson, that it borders on worshipful, can’t seem to figure out what it is.

When it comes to dumb fun, generally speaking you want a pretty good balance between the two elements. “Normal” ignores this notion, gleefully so.

When you can sell a movie in which you spend a large chunk of time talking to a rock and still manage to be magnetic, you're doing something right. And in "Project Hail Mary," Gosling definitely is.

It’s creepy as all get out and features a great performance from Nina Kiri, on-screen alone for most of the film, as a podcast host who has moved back to her childhood home to take care of her dying mother (Michèle Duquet). Things get weird.

I admire what Gyllenhaal attempts in The Bride! I was less satisfied with the execution.

What’s most remarkable about the film, which was shot in Iraq, are the performances. The cast members are not actors. They’re non-professionals, at least, acting for the first time. Yet their performances feel so genuine, so lived-in.

In the end, How to Make a Killing is fine, fun, a nice diversion starring, if no longer the flavor of the month, then a good actor elevating the material around him.

All I can say is, no matter who made it, no matter who paid for it, no matter who it's about, "Melania" is a singularly bad movie.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a biographical film about a real person, though one about whom a great number of details aren’t known. It runs up against some rough patches during the telling of the story, but overall it is immensely enjoyable, an unflinching (and nonjudgmental) look at faith, no matter how bizarrely we may think it’s practiced.

Skarsgård makes the character a little sad, a lot delusional but never a joke. And he makes “Dead Man’s Wire” an underrated gem not to sleep on.

Marty Supreme is breakneck, it’s nerve wracking and it is above all entertaining as all get out. It makes you eager to see what Chalamet’s going to do next.

Avatar: Fire and Ash will doubtless join its predecessors in the billion-dollar club. It can't miss. It follows the formula of the previous two films — stunning advancements in film technology coupled with mind-numbing plot, evidently a lucrative combo. Don't get me wrong, these movies look great, genuinely so. They're just so dumb.

It’s fun, it’s smart and yes, it actually does have something to say. Delivered in this way, I think people are more inclined to listen.

It is devastating and magnetic and most of all brilliant. Don’t miss it.

Grande and Erivo bring that relationship to life, making “Wicked: For Good” more emotional than you’d expect. These are two really good actors whose investments in what could have been let’s-put-on-a-show theater-kid performances go much deeper.

Lawrence takes up that challenge and then some, with a performance that could have been rendered in broad strokes, and sometimes is, but also relies on small moments, a look in her eyes, a quick movement, to draw us in and keep us there.

Every image feels intentional, with nothing left to chance. (This results in some amazing images, many of them involving Stone’s face.) Along with the precision of the performances, this makes Bugonia one of the more enjoyably weird times at the movies in recent memory.

Bigelow brilliantly builds tension, to the extent that the third version we see is every bit as nerve-wracking as the first if not more so. This is nail-biting stuff, agonizing to sit through.

The whole movie is amazing.

It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever, a couple of not-so-wise men said a long time ago — and in a better movie.

My interpretation is that it’s a scary, funny film with a lot beneath the surface. And it’s certainly preferable to watching the news.

Butler keeps you hooked and keeps you hoping. It’s a really good performance in a good movie, and proof of Aronofsky’s versatility. There’s some virtuosity in there somewhere, too.

It isn’t the kind of movie where you nitpick the details. It’s the kind of movie where you float along from one scene to the next, buoyed by catchy hits like “Golden” and “Soda Pop.” They don’t just serve the story, but drive it.

This is a crazy movie, in the best possible way. Body horror films have to be willing to get nuts to really work ― “The Substance” knew this, for instance. And Franco and Brie, along with Shanks, fully commit to this.

It’s a jumbled, intriguing, inconsistent mess — and yes, it is uncomfortable by design.

Truth, justice and the American way” mean far different things than they did when Donner made his “Superman” film. Except they don’t. Some people have just tried to hijack them for their own political purposes. “Superman” is Gunn’s attempt to take them back. Let’s hope it works.

A fun and thrilling film which at times plays like a car race somebody stuck a movie into the middle of.

It’s a horror-movie coming-of-age story, absolutely bonkers and gory and at its heart an art film about finding your own way in a world that has never made any sense since you’ve been in it, which is probably what the world feels like to any kid growing up, only most kids don’t have to protect themselves from zombies who want to devour them.