Argento set a standard a lot of moviemakers are desperate to surpass. It's not simply that he's crazy about gore and supernatural hokum. It's that he understands that storytelling is both an art and a craft. His filmmaking carries you along on the illusion of effortlessness; amusement, suspense, a certain elegance follow.

The message is clear, if not original: stray from the herd and you’re dead. What makes Hirayanagi’s iteration of this familiar theme appealing are the quirky characters, the nuanced performances, and the curious cultural topography of Tokyo.

While I enjoyed “Elio,” and I appreciated the animation and Rob Simonsen’s lovely orchestral score, I felt that this film was more tailor-made for adult sci-fi fans rather than their young kids. To be clear, I’m not saying you should leave your kids at home — there’s nothing objectionable here. I’m just saying they might be as bored as you usually are at some of these movies.

The movie is like a daydream, and it's most infectious when the characters are in motion or misbehaving, which is often.

As for Drucker and Ménochet, they vividly embody the roles of abuser and victim but have little else to work with.

A lot of jazz labels have mattered, but none has mattered the way Blue Note did — and, thanks to a proudly hip-hop-inflected present, still does. It’s the gold standard of recorded improvisational music. Sophie Huber’s briskly reverential documentary, Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes, lets us see and hear why.

As usual, Gladstone is excellent, and she doesn’t mind ceding the spotlight to Deroy-Olson. The two craft a convincing family unit, one we don’t want to see broken. And though the film hits familiar plot beats, it loses none of its redemptive power.

His (Hawke) subtle performance also draws attention away from the creaky plot machinery, as does the Spierig brothers’ eye for the seemingly throwaway but pregnant detail.

A story steeped in emotional remoteness manages to command our attention in Thoroughbreds, first-time filmmaker Cory Finley’s darkly satirical portrait of the young and disconnected in old-money Connecticut.

The film is touchingly firm about leveling with children, drawing a careful, crucial line between fantasy and reality, without patronizing or haranguing them.

There are a number of reasons “Covenant” works where “Prometheus” struggled to work. The characters are more incisively drawn this time, and their relationships inherently more dramatic.

Girls Trip is a hilarious reminder that we all need a Flossy Posse to make us laugh until our sides ache and give it to us straight when no one else will. Black girl magic, indeed.

Where Do We Go Now? has a heart and an anger to offset its structural fuzziness. It's refreshingly open-minded about faith, too.

The result is a story that’s awfully scattered thematically, but one with such inventive wit and screwball-quick pacing that issues like spongy motivation hardly seem to matter.

The movie's climactic car chase is as absurdly thrilling as it is innovative. Set almost silently in a blue-gray daytime downpour, it has a tough, improvisatory danger that makes the movie. If John Coltrane went in for action sequences, he'd have dug this one.

A surprisingly effective little horror nightmare.

Despite the fine acting, Rustin is still a standard-issue biopic that traffics in the expected tropes. It’s the film’s perspective that elevates it, as no major movie has witnessed this era through the eyes of a gay man. I did find myself wishing it were a bit grittier; there’s a level of optimism flowing through the film that threatens to dilute some of its darker elements.

In its sneaky, cheeky way, Defamation is a mitzvah, an act of kindness.

Jim Parsons brings his own irrepressible energy to DreamWorks’ 3-D animated Home, segueing from almost-alien misfit Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory” to alien misfit, period.

Lady Macbeth” is thus simple in the telling while leaving us with a lapful of thorns; it’s as sensual as a tryst and as wintry as a grave.

It's a merry deconstructive delight and easily the best party in town.

Movingly recounts a hitherto untold story in the voices of the people who lived it.

Kline's combination of pratfalls and urbanity is funny, but it rubs against the rest of the movie's effortless rustic charm. He's like Errol Flynn on a hayride.

If Plympton is making pastiche, he's also having a laugh at a universal experience that for a lot of people was probably pretty crummy. Apparently, it was a little crummier for him.

Run the game, bow to the movies that did it better and before, keep the dialogue on the line between hard-boiled and hokey, and throw one last curveball before the lights come up. It's a con in itself, but the reward's in the playing.

As generic as its title, but two things enable it to land: the basic likability of Mark Wahlberg as the wannabe protagonist, and the contagious energies in the rock concert sequences.

Despite outstanding performances, the characters lose subtlety as they grow more extreme, and their secrets when spelled out become anticlimactic. Maybe with a little more mystery, the evil would seem less banal.

Eva Vitija’s documentary is lean and lucid and even at 84 minutes never feels hurried.