This is a really fun movie. Good, too. Not great, but old-school in its approach to scares and, even better, in its approach to the relationships between kids, outsiders who band together to try to take down a monstrous evil. And maybe flirt a little while they’re at it.

In the end, “Tuesday” is all about learning how to say goodbye. It’s masterfully done. This movie will remain in my top three films of the year.

Overall, kids will enjoy the story's humorous moments punctuated by a couple barf jokes — always popular with the under-12 crowd. Meanwhile, their Gen-X and Millennial parents may find the story of the struggles of parenting familiar. They might also have flashbacks to their own childhoods through a soundtrack featuring artists like REO Speedwagon and Whitesnake.

Were there some oversights and cop-outs in this documentary? You bet. But they don’t get in the way of enjoying it. Child was not one to dwell on the difficult parts of life; she was far too interested in seeking out the delicious moments. In that way, the filmmakers made her proud.

As the filmmakers trace the troubles of his later life -- psychological, financial, marital -- they flesh out a portrait of a reluctant guru whose human imperfections make him all the more inspiring.

There’s nothing self-serious about it. Blockers has all the brashness and irreverence that any comedy fan of the Apatow era could ask for, even as it represents a more gender-balanced future for Hollywood.

Green Book is not unthoughtful in its crowd-pleasing. It’s just that such crowd-pleasing feels inappropriately quaint for 2018.

To be fair, both Anton and Green do a fair job of giving Kol and Adam believability. But do we really need another tragic period gay love story? How about yes, but do it better.

Directors Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori’s film Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me looks at the band’s rise, such as it was, and its inevitable crumbling, as well as the influence its recorded legacy had on popular music. And it’s terrific.

More than simply a look at the conversion therapy, the film examines the bonds between parents and children.

In spite of the compelling raw material in the lives of its ostensible subjects, it strikes out as an act of storytelling.

The real hero here is Joss Whedon, who directs the film with a fanboy's enthusiasm and a thorough knowledge of the genre.

The performances are certainly compelling.

Beirut is inoffensive in its familiarity, a handsome enough thriller to pass the time. What it’s lacking are stakes.

It’s weird, sometimes challenging and surprisingly engaging, thanks in large part to Terajima, who is outstanding.

Lavie, who directs and wrote the film, actually has more in mind than a comedy of errors. But the dramatic bits don't quite gel, and the film never quite takes off the way she apparently would like it to. Yet it's the kind of movie that offers small rewards along the way.

In an era where horror films are attempting to get smarter (a nod to you, “A Quiet Place,”) this just makes everyone dumber.

It’s a withering satire and a horror movie. Maddin, working with co-directors Galen and Evan Johnson, makes a good point, and he makes it over and over. But he makes it with his trademark absurdist humor, and the cast is so talented that it takes what are intentional stereotypes and runs with them.

Chronicle plays like an extended episode of "The X-Files" might; DeHaan in particular comes off like one of the series' more-memorable characters. That's a compliment. It isn't a great movie, but one could imagine -- and hope -- that it becomes a cult favorite, outlasting other films of its ilk.

The real draw of Arthur Christmas is simpler: It's really funny.

The cast is top-notch, the story is satisfyingly dark, the performances are fun and, of course, the songs are terrific.

A delicately balanced, mature drama, What They Had portrays a family devastated by Alzheimer’s with accuracy, empathy and respect, capturing both the heartache and unexpected tenderness of caring for a loved one coming slowly undone and the familial bonds that are tested and forged in the process.

Does it all add up? Maybe, if you follow the letter of narrative law. It's certainly imaginative, with high-minded ideas, but Hawke and Snook are what keep it grounded in truth.

Isn't the happiest movie about a band you'll ever see, but it is one of the more entertaining, and thanks to directors Lev Anderson and Christ Metzler, one of the most original.

Climax is actually two movies, one in which you hang out at a party with young dancers who are as wearisome as they are flexible, and the other with the same group on acid. Neither is the least bit interesting.

It's Douglas' movie - and you've got a fine movie.

The power dynamics between two peoples locked in “asymmetrical conflict” — not to mention two sets of gender codes — set the stage for Alayan’s thriller. In storytelling terms, they are the rules by which the tightly wound plot unspools. But the film’s great strength, in addition to the usual quality-control things, is its care to humanize, not demonize, the characters who are playing by those rules.

It’s a complicated movie about a complex man that courts controversy, both intentional and not. If that doesn’t make it a great movie, it makes it a necessary one, now more than ever.