Moira Macdonald

There’s room for improvement in the “Fantastic Beasts” universe; perhaps we’ll see it in the next installment or two. Meanwhile — even if you, like me, are a bit Pottered out and wish Rowling would devote herself instead to her marvelous Cormoran Strike detective-novel series (magic comes in many forms) — it’s still a pleasure to revisit the author’s world.

Mary Poppins Returns, made with palpable love for its predecessor, is glorious and gorgeous, and I adored it.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is as good as it needs to be, though like the other movies it’s probably a complete puzzlement to anyone not already familiar with the franchise, and creator/writer Julian Fellowes can’t resist having someone earnestly intone something about Things Change And We Must Change With Them every two minutes.

The chemistry between the two actors is a pleasure.

Though Wright can’t quite sustain the tension through the final half-hour, Last Night in Soho is full of dark pleasures.

The movie is full of tiny moments of delight.

The film, directed by Paul McGuigan, is basically a weepie, and it doesn’t do quite enough to show contemporary audiences why Grahame was special. But its performances make it a pleasure to watch.

Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner is so crowded with characters and overlapping conversations and crammed-full rooms that it’s easy to miss the quiet at its center: the enigma that is Gary Hart.

Feig, who’s made a specialty of stories featuring unlikely female duos, knows exactly what he’s doing here in the classy-B-movie genre, and “The Housemaid” ticks along like oatmeal-toned clockwork — a little scary, a little silly and very popcorn-appropriate.

This Beauty and the Beast had me leaving the theater feeling utterly happy; like I’d spent time with old friends who’d grown and changed, and yet remained the same at heart.

It’s an unfinished story, which leaves Dancer slightly unsatisfying, as if we’re abandoning a book mid-chapter. But what a pleasure to wallow in the talent of a ballet rock star — and to watch a troubled young man find peace in a split-second of perfection.

It’s a bunch of plastic blocks that have an adventure, and it’s basically insane; not quite as pleasantly so as the first movie (the element of astonished surprise isn’t there), but hey, that’s a high bar. Everything is … oh, damn it, there I go again.

What shines through is the beauty of Guy Godfree’s cinematography — the light has a lovely, soft stillness to it, like a painting — and a remarkable performance by Hawkins, whose impossibly wide smile seems to bring the sun.

As a summer disaster movie, Twisters works well enough, though other than Powell it lacks the enjoyable goofiness of its predecessor.

Mann, as he showed two years ago in "The Insider," is a wonderfully idiosyncratic storyteller, sketching out a plot line with quick scenes, jumping into the middle of a story and letting us figure out who's who.

Drop gets the job done, and even throws in an excellent cocktail-piano rendition of “Baby Shark.” Go see it on a first date, if you’re brave.

Filmed in harsh grays and cruel light, interspersed with warm home movies of the family in a happier time, it’s a terribly sad and often mesmerizing story.

Great acting is a con game, of the highest order, and it’s a pleasure to be Moore’s mark.

In other words: yes, it’s fun.

The film is over quickly, before I’d seen quite enough of Westwood’s fanciful clothing, or heard quite enough of her voice.

Ultimately, the film’s unwillingness to go deeper makes it fall flat.

You don’t really watch Suspiria, you endure it.

Every dog in this sweetly earnest movie seems to have a strong sense of responsibility.

Perhaps Downsizing needed to be downsized a bit; as it is, it’s an intriguing concept that slips away.

It’s a feel-good film about dreams, about obsession, about believing in yourself when nobody else seems to be doing it for you, and Hawkins carries it with effortless ease.

Florid but warmhearted — much like the man at its center — The Happy Prince is a haunting portrait of the aftermath of betrayal; of how the master of comedy became a tragedy.

Byrne, a recent Oscar nominee for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” holds it together.

This isn’t really a movie, but a delicious wallow, and regular movie rules don’t apply.