Bill Goodykoontz

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.