In the end, as proven by that mixed emotional chord, any director this far along in developing an assured visual style truly is a director to watch.

A more honest script might’ve supported Reda Kateb’s laid-back, medium-effective portrayal of Reinhardt more fully. As is, he’s depicted as an artist man floating through his awful times, living for the music.

It fascinates both as film history and as a sobering reminder of how little credit a woman like Lamarr received, even at the peak of her popularity.

The story is resolved a bit too easily, but that works for the world of the film, which is sanded down, buffed out, a bucolic, "Steel Magnolias"-inspired fantasy land of wide front porches, charming flower shops and the mega-famous rock stars that wander into them.

Mom and Dad may be a blood-soaked lark of uneven quality, but it has the good sense to use Reagan Youth’s punk anthem “Anytown” as an accompaniment to Cage’s parental … change of heart, let’s call it.

It’s a sidewinding but often effective L.A. crime thriller saddled with the wrong leading man.

12 Strong sticks to the basics, without much interest in the differentiating specifics of the men involved, or anything on a geopolitical scale beyond the impulse these Special Forces veterans shared in the wake of 9/11. It seems to me a qualified, limited success.

The script is just so-so, but Ball’s directorial eye, clear in the first “Maze Runner” film though largely AWOL in the second, saves the third and final adventure from its own bloat.

The movie, directed by Paul McGuigan, may be a bit tame and well-behaved for its subjects. But it’s a valentine, not a psychodrama.

Turns out to be every bit as deft, witty and, yes, moving as the first one.

The movie feels both expansive and confining, depending on the story chapter. Anderson’s visual facility by now has become so intuitive, so fluid and effortlessly right, if you’re at all susceptible to the allure of a moving camera you’ll fall headlong into Phantom Thread.

One of those movies with good things going in one direction, and cheesy things going in the other. The ever-valuable Farmiga is a faceless voice after her sole on-screen appearance, and director Collet-Serra’s frantic, hand-held technique ensures that every supporting player looks as guilty as possible.

It’s Blocker’s story, and Bale’s very good. But for Hostiles to fully make sense of its introductory on-screen D.H. Lawrence quotation — “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted” — we’d need a tougher, less comforting ending than the one Cooper provides.

The Post has a lot going for it, alongside a certain amount of hokum.

The best of Molly’s Game, however, is more on the “Social Network” level, edgy and rhythmic. This is Sorkin’s feature directorial debut, and I’m happy to say it doesn’t look that way.

Father Figures is a movie, ostensibly. I'm pretty sure it is. Moving images were projected, along with recorded sound, which indicates it is a movie, but the effect was so listless, low-energy and profoundly unentertaining that I jotted down in my notes "what even IS this?" It would be more accurate to describe the experience as a nearly two-hour borderline hostage situation, with torture involving bad, offensive and unfunny "comedy."

Pitch Perfect 3 is so breezy it's completely weightless, but it manages to deliver just enough of the goods.

As for Janney: Hers is a performance of such astute, subtle and compulsively watchable hamming, it’s guaranteed to win a supporting actress Oscar nomination.

Scott’s production works on the level of classy, confident yarn-spinning.

Chalamet is excellent, saving his purest acting for the killer final shot several minutes in length, when we finally see what these weeks with Oliver have meant to him.

With a lovely voice performance from Cena, the spirit of Ferdinand does shine through. But the rest of the story filler is mostly forgettable.

Much will be resolved by the final chapter of the trilogy, to be directed by Abrams. As much as I enjoy his brand of canny populism, I prefer Rian Johnson’s wilder, generous, far-flung imagination.

A sexy, violent, preposterous, beautiful fantasy, co-writer and director Guillermo del Toro’s most vivid and fully formed achievement since “Pan’s Labyrinth” 11 years ago.

Darkest Hour pulls from both extremes of Oldman’s prodigious but often unexploited skill set, the subtlety as well as the flamboyance.

In code, Wonder Wheel dances along the edge of the writer-director’s off-screen life, namely the allegations by Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter, of sexual molestation, and Allen’s controversial marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Allen’s then-partner Mia Farrow.

Fans of “The Room” — they’re everywhere — will get something out of it, though I’d argue not enough; director Franco’s camera sense is neither quite in synch with Wiseau’s (thank God) or quite distinct enough in its own style.

Even when the movie loses its way narratively, Washington’s in there, slugging, building a living, breathing character out of Gilroy’s knight-errant.

Too often Coco mistakes chaos and calamity for comedy, and it’s a little perverse to prevent this particular story from becoming a full-on animated musical.