Bill Goodykoontz

Between the galloping pace of the action and the percussive soundtrack and sound editing, you remain tense the entire time. Garland just won’t let you relax.

It’s not trying to make a grand statement about the world, at least not any more than movies like this do... But it is trying to scare you, and it does.

If the purpose of Girls State is to give high-school students a taste of how government works in real life, “Girls State” makes a case that it does its job only too well.

No one is going to mistake “Road House” for a masterpiece, but it succeeds far better at being what the original film set out to be.

Immaculate goes all in on the yuck, but leaves the rest high and dry.

The whole thing runs through Stewart, and she’s great — just one of those movie stars you can’t take your eyes off.

Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba’s film is a lot of things, almost all of them good. It’s a vibrant, colorful, animated movie. It’s a serious documentary about political oppression and violence. It’s a loving exploration of Brazilian bossa nova. The soundtrack is incredible.

Granted, a trip to Jupiter is a long way to go to find yourself, and if this were the Sandler we see in movies like “Grown Ups,” it would be interminable. But with this version of Sandler, it’s a worthwhile trip.

While Drive-Away Dolls is a literal journey, it doesn’t have the sense of reaching its destination in the same way…It’s not a road to nowhere — it’s better than that. But it’s also not the joy ride it could have been.

It shouldn’t work, honestly. There’s too much going on in too many directions at the same time. But Villeneuve brings it all together somehow. We’re more than five hours in between the two films (this one is 2 hours and 46 minutes), and while the lack of a sequel wouldn’t be as infuriating as it was last time around, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m ready for more.

Red Right Hand wants to be a kudzu-covered, Southern-fried crime story, a morality tale set in the “hills” as rich as pig knuckles from a jar in a juke joint. Mostly it’s just a dopey mob movie with Southern accents of varying quality — predictable and cliched.

Even at less than an hour and a half, the film is, shall we say, patient in unfolding its story. Part of this is set up, lulling the audience for the shocks to come.

We’re left with some fun, funny and occasionally scary set pieces, but the slices don’t add up to a whole pizza, as it were.

When Argylle is fun, it is really fun. Watching Rockwell and Howard run around the world is entertaining, for a time, but not forever. “Because these things will change,” as Swift sings in “Change.”... Maybe she should have written the movie.

The Zone of Interest, then, serves as a horror story about the past, and a cautionary tale for the present.

I noticed about halfway through it that between laughs I’d been smiling the whole time. “Mean Girls” may not be totally fetch, but it’s still a good time at the movies.

All of Us Strangers, defies easy categorization in the usual fashion. But it’s also easy to place it in one category: that of really, really good movies.

It’s a messy story, but with Mann’s structural rigor imposed upon it. That is a powerful combination, and one that makes “Ferrari” a bizarrely compelling entry in the Mann canon.

The genius in Wright’s performance and Jefferson’s direction lies in how they don’t succumb to the temptation to overplay anything. Wright gets Monk’s rage just right — it’s internal, though at some point a pressure cooker has to blow.

It’s delightful to see filmmakers and actors take such big swings. It’s even more delightful when they connect, and in Poor Things, they do.

There is so much beauty in Monster, and so much sadness.

Eileen is indeed a weird little movie, but it leaves a big impact.

Murray occasionally shows flashes of his comic genius, but only flashes.

It’s exciting filmmaking, and Cooper rarely lets up.

To watch Cage ride this rollercoaster of popular culture is a pure delight. It’s also agonizing and will make you squirm.

I’m not sure there’s a lot more going on here than a) the ultrarich are clueless dolts and b) everyone else will do just about anything to become part of the clueless ultrarich. And it’s all so over the top, that’s all it really needs.

It’s not going to make you forget “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” or “Bambi” or “Frozen” or “Tangled,” but elements of it might remind you of them. Which is by design.

Napoleon isn’t a failure on anyone’s part. But it’s not a rousing success, either. It’s not really a rousing anything, which is the problem. Maybe Scott should have gone in even more on Phoenix’s quirks and mannerisms, which are the most purely entertaining things about the film. Whatever the case, it doesn’t quite measure up.

To say The Marvels is all over the place is to imply that there is an anchor to it somewhere. There’s not.

If one definition of art is seeing what everyone else does, only in a different way, The Holdovers fits that bill. It’s a delight.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a full-on cinematic experience. It’s rare that a movie that you should see is also one you want to see. This is one.

The Exorcist: Believer is the first film in a planned trilogy. Better luck next time.

Shipka is both funny and gritty as the wry observer unwillingly drawn into the action, the kind of role at which she excels.

A feel-good romance, it’s not. A feel-bad one, more like. But Domont has loftier ideas in mind, and in Fair Play, she effectively gets them across.

It takes shortcuts to do it, but ultimately Flora and Son will make you happy. And what’s wrong with that?

The Creator isn’t a masterpiece of the AI genre, if there's such a thing yet, but it's a good start.

Dumb Money isn’t a documentary, and it’s not a go-to guide for beginning investors. It’s not trying to be. It’s trying to be something a little less weighty and a lot more fun than that, and it succeeds.

Overall, it's exactly as absurd as it sounds, but in the best way.

Credit Joris-Peyrafitte for creating the dark, grungy world of the movie, and for making it compelling enough that you don’t want to flee it immediately. You may not want to revisit it — this is not the sort of movie that demands repeat viewings — but “The Good Mother” is a perfectly fine film.

The incongruity is shocking at first but wears off after a while, making Strays a good and funny bet for stumbling over while channel-surfing (or whatever the streaming version of that is), but not a lot more.

“Pleasant” is probably the word best used to describe the whole film. Mostly Jules is just an excuse to spend some time with Kingsley, Harris and Curtin doing things we don’t always see them do.

Rogowski carries the film, and it is quite the performance — one whose appeal is difficult to work out in your head, which makes it all the better.

Randall Park, the actor (“Fresh Off the Boat”) making his feature-directing debut with a script Adrian Tomine adapted from his graphic novel, displays a confidence here that is infectious.

The elements of a good story are here, and the talent to tell it is more than willing. The movie just never quite gets there.

It’s a horror movie that is actually scary; it’s got a good idea that feels both relevant and contemporary; and it’s really gross. (That’s a plus — it is a horror movie, after all. Sometimes they skimp.) I just wish I understood its logic a little better.

It’s powerful, a technically dazzling achievement; so audacious is Nolan’s filmmaking that if it didn’t serve the story you’d think at times he was just showing off. He’s not.

It's Gerwig’s movie, Gerwig’s take on childhood and the patriarchy and feminism and love and death — boy, death — all wrapped in a package that continually surprises. So yeah, it’s not what you think it is. It’s better.

But it’s Atwell who steps up the most. Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” her motives are fluid, which makes her more fun.

The Lesson is a quiet little film with surprisingly sharp teeth.

It’s heartbreaking at times, but it’s also uplifting — the three subjects are fierce advocates and activists, and Cohen’s empathetic storytelling makes it a personal journey. It’s also often entertaining, because the three are so expressive and engaging.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is ultimately an OK entry in a legendary franchise. It’s fun enough, but why bother?

It unfolds in ways both comic and affecting.

Not every bit lands and the social commentary is not always exactly incisive. Sometimes it is, though. When a character says they should call the police and everyone breaks out into simultaneous guffaws, the point is made — fittingly, with laughter.

Emotionally engaging from the start, bolstered by brilliant performances and held together by Song’s understated direction that weaves timelines together flawlessly, it’s more than just good.

Logic devolves, cameos abound — there are two that are truly inspired, one of which involves legendary recasting — and lessons are learned.

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is a horror movie, no doubt. It’s also an intelligent one, with the courage to challenge its audience, to make it see the horrors not just in the monster, but in the societal inequities that ultimately created him. Thankfully, Story isn’t afraid to rework a classic.

What the movie needs is a more coherent story. While keeping an audience off-kilter and disoriented is a worthy goal, particularly in a horror film, it’s got to add up to something. In this case it’s more like meandering.

About My Father isn’t horrible. It’s not great. It just sort of exists as a passion project for Maniscalco, an OK gig for most of the rest of the cast and another curious line on De Niro’s resume.

It’s not a warts-and-all treatment because, at least in this telling, there are no warts. It’s more about securing Berra among a new generation of fans as one of the greatest players who ever lived. And on that front, it more than succeeds.

In many ways BlackBerry is the standard-fare cautionary tale of tech start-ups. Insert your Icarus metaphors here. But there is a kind of sweetness to the film that makes it more compelling than the typical rise, crash and burn movie.

All of this is interesting, in varying degrees. But watching and listening to Fox talk is magnetic.

It’s not a disaster, and it doesn’t lack for ambition. But it’s wildly uneven and kind of blah, if that can be said of a movie with nonstop, often incoherent action, self-aware needle drops and not nearly enough smart-aleck quips from a cast we’ve seen deliver plenty of them in the past.

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret is a delightful film, just lovely.

The violence is gory enough to make the audience squirm, and just cartoonish enough to give it permission to laugh. Like the “John Wick” movies, it’s really one brutal set piece after another, though the choreography is not as poetic here.

Aster, who also directed the excellent “Hereditary” and the somewhat less excellent “Midsommar,” has the audience where he wants it — off-kilter, uncomfortable, bewildered. It’s his comfort zone, but not ours. Whether you enjoy this kind of manipulation will go a long way toward deciding how much you like the film.

Of its many brilliant aspects, the film does illuminate the numbing grind of real life when you’re trying to make art.

Using the horror genre to tell a faith-based story is an interesting idea, even if it doesn’t really work in the end. And then Beck shows up, and that’s the scariest thing of all.

The actors are having fun here and, for a while, so will the audience. But the payoff just isn’t there. It’s not-a-stake-through-the-heart disappointment, but the only eternal life Renfield will enjoy is in late-night channel surfing.

Paint is one of those good ideas that doesn’t quite make a good movie. Until it does.

Air isn’t a documentary, it's better — a brilliantly acted, fascinating true story.

It makes for an entertaining movie, one you can tell is glossing over some details and minutiae. That's probably a good thing overall, but that, and an inability to nail down a consistent tone, leaves it feeling a little incomplete.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is not a great piece of cinema, exactly, but it delivers on what it promises, time and again.

Moving On, a dark comedy written and directed by Paul Weitz, isn’t a great movie by any means, but it’s a pretty good one. It’s also a relief to see Fonda and Tomlin play women whose age is not discounted, but is also not disqualifying.

Without an actor like Dafoe at its center (and margins and everywhere else), it would be unwatchable torture. With him, it’s more like watchable torture, easier to admire than enjoy.

Scream VI is a decent film with a transitional feel, a signal that you can take the show on the road and it still works. But it doesn’t leave you screaming for more.

Creed III is definitely a people movie. And Jordan has trained his lens on the right subjects. He’s once again convincing as a man trying to fight his way through internal conflict, not just opponents in the ring.

Director Jamie Payne keeps things moving, certainly, and the action is appropriately gruesome. But you can see where a little more time to tell the story would have helped.

It’s stupid by design, but it’s not stupid enough. … It plays like an idea in search of a film. Desperately in search of, and never quite finding it.

The storytelling in Linoleum isn’t simple, but the joys of its discoveries are. It’ll make you think, and ultimately it will make you smile.

You’d think a move about the potential for the destruction of universes would feel pretty high stakes, but this one doesn’t. Nor does it connect on the family drawn together through adversity front.

To pretend that the film’s pleasures are more than modest is just that — pretending.

The film is a mad whirl of influencer phoniness, paranoia, imposter syndrome and parenting nightmares.

There are a few examples that illustrate what makes “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb” such an exciting documentary. Yes, seriously, exciting.

It’s not just that the jokes aren’t funny, or that they’re given to genius comic actors like Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus to deliver — which has to be some kind of pop-culture crime — the bigger issue is that there's not a single instance of recognizable human behavior in the entire film.

I was only able to figure out the answer to about a third of the mysteries. But the rest left a thrilling impression that made “Missing” a genuinely fun ride.

There’s a lot going on here, not much of it all that interesting. Although you do get to see Rob Lowe clomp around in the woods. And that's something.

If Sick isn’t a great COVID-inspired horror film, at least it’s a start.

If you’re a student of history or a Wikipedia devotee, some aspects of the film, particularly its conclusion, might bother you. But they shouldn’t. Watch a documentary if you want straight facts. Watch what Kreutzer and Krieps have come up with here for something more.

Despite the specificity of the setting and the performances, there is a universality to the story.

Most of all I enjoyed watching Bale and Melling together. Poe wants to impress Landor, who after all is a famous detective, but he just can’t help himself.

It’s not the best movie you’ll see this year, but it’s the most movie by a long shot.

It’s not like the first film was some sort of idiot-comedy version of “Citizen Kane” or something. But that film played like a good buzz. The Binge 2: It’s a Wonderful Binge plays more like the hangover that comes after.

It’s still more of a spectacle than a movie. But as spectacles go, it’s a big one. And with more elements of an actual film creeping in here and there, who knows? By the time we get to the fifth one, we might have some actual cinema on our hands.

Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua’s well-meaning and graphic depiction of an enslaved man who escapes in search of Lincoln’s army and freedom for himself and his family, is a mostly affecting, no-holds-barred look at degradation, inhumanity and, ultimately, inspiration. But at times — too many times — Emancipation also plays like an action-adventure movie.

To say Violent Night isn’t for everyone overstates the obvious. But if you’re looking for a bracing antidote to Hallmark Christmas movie treacle overload, it’s a holiday treat.

The Eternal Daughter doesn’t scare you in the traditional sense as much as it moves you, and that’s every bit as powerful an achievement.

If nothing else it’ll dazzle your senses, even on a small screen.

The enormously appealing thing about Glass Onion is watching the cast have an obviously good time with their characters and with each other.