Johnny Oleksinski

What Yankovic and director and co-writer Eric Appel have done, brilliantly in spots, is parody Yankovic’s own life while sending up the whole biopic genre. In a messed-up way, the maneuver is kinda poetic. And so very funny.

Cool though the skirmishes are, director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film could use some more visual panache, given the unique historical backgrounds of her characters. The look, by and large, is rudimentary action flick. Still, it’s good fun and has more than a few winning one-liners.

The well-known story beats are also given renewed vitality by the young actors, whom director Christopher Zalla expertly steers away from being typical overemoting movie kids.

I was surprised to find “Cameron Post” a sweet indie film in the tradition of John Hughes. Calmly directed by Desiree Akhavan, the movie doesn’t get tangled in the weeds of politics, but instead focuses intensely on its lovely characters.

Freddie Mercury may have had the better voice, but it’s Elton John who gets the better movie. Rocketman, director Dexter Fletcher’s trippy new biopic about the flamboyant rocker is braver, deeper and more enlightening than last year’s slobbering piece of Queen propaganda “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which he also partly directed).

The transition from the DreamWorks CGI version from 2010, one of the best family flicks in years, to real human actors is thankfully smoother and not as off-putting as most of Disney’s recent, pitiful princess efforts.

The gory-as-hell movie is as campy and fun as any chapter in producer Sam Raimi’s four-decade-old horror series. But trapping kids in an apartment — as opposed to college-age friends in a cabin — raises the stakes and brings on legitimate scares. And some hearty laughs, too.

Blockers is the latest example of the millennium’s most dispiriting film trend: Stupid drunk people making stupid drunk decisions for two stupid hours.

The lighthearted drama, about a road trip by two men — one white, one black — is unflinchingly optimistic.

Boy Erased is the second gay conversion therapy movie of the year, after “The Miseducation of Cameron Post.” Both are worthwhile. Where “Cameron” was an intimate charmer focused on the importance of camaraderie to get through hard times, the more dramatic Boy Erased is about accepting our family for who they are, in whatever condition they arrive in.

Reijn’s film, which was written by Sarah DeLappe and Kristen Roupenian, succeeds in making a young basement horror movie for today. And, as least year’s “Scream” reboot showed us, it’s a genre that’s been stuck for far too long in 1996.

Trying to understand the story can make you feel like you’re sitting on a stool in a dunce cap.

You can see director Jon Watts and the filmmakers struggling to replicate the magic of their first film. But its charm came not from an overabundance of jokes, but from turning Spidey into a school hallway hero whose biggest challenge was girls. Jetting off to Venice, Prague and London and busting up landmarks brings it more in line with the rest of the overly dense Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When a movie wades into the vast pool of World War II and Holocaust titles, the viewer expects a splash. One Life is, at best, a spritz. It delivers a lot of what we’ve already seen before, but on a less-than-cinematic scale. Yet spending some time with Hopkins and exploring a speck of light in one of the world’s darkest chapters is just satisfying enough.

Leonard takes advantage of one of Rylance’s greatest strengths — the ability to instantly switch from weak to strong. Behind every tiny smile is ferocity.

Dismiss “Cha Cha” as yet another heartwarming comedy at your peril because every single person in it has layers upon layers of complexity.

Although the film is about Paige’s unlikely rise to TV stardom, what grabs us most is the eclectic Knight family running a scrappy professional wrestling gym on a shoestring. It might be the biggest missed reality-TV show opportunity ever.

Some heightened plot lines in writer-director Jared Frieder’s film don’t land as well as the tender moments do. The romance is admirably never overplayed for sentiment.

Decent movie, same old Borat.

A funny-but-tortured femme-fatale performance from Florence Pugh as Russian assassin Yelena Belova, brutal and tactile fights and a merciful lack of confusing backstory makes for the most enjoyable MCU entry in a while.

We learn very few specific details about this somewhat monotonous guy, and yet that vagueness makes him and his quest more relatable.

Off-screen, Oyelowo moves the camera elegantly, and he creates a few cool moments in the woods.

Is “F1” too long? Absolutely. But not once did I say, “Are we there yet?”

Cary Joji Fukunaga was the right choice to direct “No Time To Die,” even if he wasn’t the first in this rocky road of a production. His Bond feels reverential and classic, but not campy, and he makes bold choices.

Director Shawn Levy’s laugh-a-second movie is easily the best Marvel has delivered since 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and provides similarly nostalgic pleasures in its whiplash-inducing number of retro cameos — none of which I’ll spoil, for fear of my own life.

For a change of pace, you leave the entertaining “Superman” not confused or clobbered, but feeling good.

At Crimes, you gag a lot more than you giggle.

It might sound like a gimmick, but it’s as good as any action-comedy you’re likely to see. Cage heightens his already big personality just the right amount to ensure that the film rises above a skit. We care a great deal about fictional Nicolas Cage.