It’s every kids dream to fight monsters, and in some ways The Monster Squad helps us live out that fantasy. And it’s a damn good film chalk full of horror movie references, and nods to classic films that only the discernible eye can catch.

The movie blends true-crime realism with the sensationalistic macho-opera of a gangster film, complete with unspoken blood oaths and damnation arcs that play on a loop.

Saltburn just goes too far, and its startling images shocked me out of the story altogether.

With basically a single set and a limited cast, the producers get the most of their limited budget, particular with a couple of spectacular death scenes.

If you’re in the market for a handsome acting biopic, Mr. Burton is a fantastic selection. The travails of a lower-class Welsh kid aspiring to become a classical actor is great and heady drama. This is the sort of thing the British excel at.

A touching and almost ridiculously inspirational story for all of us.

The mafia murder images are stomach turning, viewers take note. Letizia talks about her life at great length and some of it is redundant, but she is always charming and inspirational, living as a strong, independent woman in a crushing patriarchy.

The Pod Generation is a science-fiction film with something to say and forces us to confront our future by asking questions. Just because we can screw around with biology, should we? Sophie Barthes’ futuristic tale is worth watching just for the conversation that’s bound to happen afterward.

Birds of Prey: and the Emancipation of one Harley Quinn is a fast-paced action movie with fantastic stunts and set pieces. We’re just not given any good reason to care about Harley Quinn, or her female compatriots needed to be emotionally invested in their ultimate victory or demise.

While there are flaws in some of the segments, it is overall a fantastic production that manages to be creepy as hell. For fans of anthologies, these directors, and horror in general, this is a great ride.

Despite struggling with a thematic focus, the film presents a woman who is well worth getting to know.

Perhaps Simmons is the man Apatow fears he will become. If so, with Sandler's help the filmmaker's fashioned a solid work of self reflection. There's plenty to love and laugh along with here.

The festival's audience is as integral a part of the proceedings as the music, and we get a rich portrait of the wide variety of pranksters, iconoclasts, and freaks that descend upon the West Country of England in the hundreds of thousands every year. Glastonbury offers an exhaustive look at what remains the largest event of its kind.

The film’s rapid speed and its surplus of memorable supporting players helped to make sense of the absurd story. And if Benny was not ideally suited for the Bob Hope-level of bumbling misadventures or the Harold Lloyd-worthy climax involving a drop from a hotel rooftop, he gamely pushed ahead to keep the comedy at its patently ridiculous level.

The Becomers may not have the largest budget, but it has the largest heart.

While the first act is slow but promising, the second and third acts don’t move any faster.

This film barely gets a recommendation only because it finally gets interesting at the end.

The problem is, the main conspiracy of the show is so vast, you have to walk around it a couple of times before you can see what it is.

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is just plain HOT in this film and other than that...we got ourselves a stinker.

Spins in its own orbit and dares the audience to come into its weirdly one-of-a-kind environment. This is a delightful work of humor which is worthy of Spielberg-level praise.

With a clumsy hip-hop score permeating every free inch of the soundtrack and ugly 16mm cinematography that would never be allowed out of Film School 101, the audio-visual experience is a wreck. The quality of Quality of Life is non-existent.

This little drama serves as the perfect alternative to the big studio dreck, plus no subtitles! Simple and sweet!

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a wild rollercoaster ride and reminds me of the days when I actively collected comic books.

House of Cardin is a solid, encyclopedic documentary of one of the greatest designers of our time. He deserves to be celebrated, no question there. But this doc wants to inform rather than reveal, to celebrate rather than investigate. C’est la vie.

Freakier Friday is perfect for the mother/daughter set and offers a lot that we haven’t seen from Disney in a while: solid cast, strange plot, and a heartfelt message about family.

A stripped-down, small town "COPS" without the flashy editing and hip-hop soundtrack.

The story is lively, and the mixing of music, skateboarding, interviews, and footage of the past is amazing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a “hip hop head,” a skater, or a stockbroker. You’ll be engaged from beginning to end.

The nine characters aren’t machines, exactly, but they aren’t people or animals either. They’re little cloth pouches that can move, communicate, and make facial expressions that range from ornery to cute. At some point during the movie I began mentally referring to them as the Owlish Beanbags.

Filmmakers Rossi and Novak have done a wonderful job of making all of this entertaining, not just for those interested in the business, but to us ordinary joes as well.

Garofalo is amazing, as always, and the film is almost about her as much as the leads. The recreation of the casts' high school years is wickedly funny and dead on.

Its complicated story, hero, and visual style are a great reminder of the beautiful thrillers birthed during the Golden Age of Hollywood, albeit with the help of modern technology to pull it off with a modest indie budget.

As effortless as Clooney and Pitt’s screen charisma is, one can’t help but wish for a more polished scenario to complement it.

As austere as the unflappable Mr. Redford, The Clearing is an enterprising but ultimately unsatisfying exercise that promises quite a lot, but delivers very little.

Regardless of how someone might feel about what she’s done, XY Chelsea will definitely give you some insight into why she did it and maybe will help inform a better understanding of what’s going on behind the scenes in these long, awful wars that America keeps getting into.

A bit too somber and detached for its own good, Human Factors nevertheless marks another strong entry from a filmmaker who – after several shorts, a documentary, and one other feature – is just getting started.

Everyone loves a good underdog story, and Bank of Dave fits that mold, despite needing to be tighter.

Overall, experimental cinema is, as always, an acquired taste. Eremita (Anthologies) may not be the perfect starting point in the genre, but it is still a good point to visit.

Returning in Lightyear is the trademark Pixar sense of humor. Like every film, all jokes are meticulously crafted in a way that will make children laugh and adults laugh harder.

For all its claims to be rebellious, Good Boys is surprisingly tame by today’s standards.

Not the greatest thriller of recent years, but far better than most.

Absent the actual music, Notorious would be a lot worse.

I haven’t seen a crime thriller this good since L.A. Confidential.

The cast’s commitment throughout The Whale allows Aronofsky to create a tearful experience.

Scodelario carries the film with an energetic, no-holds-barred performance. She’s in almost every shot, planning out escapes and outwitting the reptiles, and she gives it her all.

This is a truly strange love story that definitely grew on me as it ran its course, or perhaps it was just that infectious song sinking its hooks into me.

It's charmingly bad and an excellent date film.

This is a fantastic film. Imagine any John Hughes film as a drug-fueled drama.

Powell and Loy try gamely to work their magic and wit, but it’s no use anymore.

The Nowhere Inn deeply explores the dynamic between performer and audience and performer with self. It does so in a way I’ve never seen before. It has so many layers that at some point, you get lost in the thick of it, but in a good way.

Despite its overused plotline, the film works. It exudes charm. It makes you laugh at the silliest things, and it tries hard to make you cry.

Wonder Woman is not a horrible film and gets a very mediocre good from me. I liked it for what it is, but the expectation of something bigger and better was not met, and honestly, what I prefer in big-budget movies. I think this will be the general reaction to the film, and this is probably why, especially if you were expecting something as spectacular as the first Wonder Woman.

There is an interesting set-up here for something great but Battle In Heaven never lives up to the expectations.

Ophelia is an amazing movie that puts a positive feminist spin on a very familiar story. I’d love to see more classic stories retold from a female perspective like this one, written by women and directed by women.

The American Meme works best when it reveals the subtle pain behind much of the manufactured fantasy.

Bad Times At The El Royale is creepy and mysterious in all the right ways. The tension builds as the non-sequential story allows the pieces to fall into place in mesmerizing fashion.

A film about a family billed as "bizarrely dysfunctional" – is a pleasant enough experience. However, it probably could have used a little more of the bizarre or dysfunctional to spice things up.

For you guys out there stuck with a lady-friend looking for that "Beaches" replacement, here it is.

Commercial director Sandra Goldbacher's first feature is beautifully filmed and covers interesting thematic ground. Unfortunately, it also suffers from a somewhat incredible and melodramatic story.

The film boasts a sizeable effects budget too for some nice explosions, blood squirts, and bullet ballet. Sit back, disconnect, and have fun. Even with the lack of an A-List star, Triple Threat finds a way to stand on its own.

This one deserves to go back in the refrigerator – preferably to the very back of the refrigerator!

The film explores themes of free will, destiny, and the tales that we consume while also revealing how they become part of us as we pass them down to future audiences. Ultimately, however, Three Thousand Years of Longing is about bearing the weight of pure love with no one willing to ease the burden — yet resolving to give it away freely nonetheless.

Takes a personal, kinder-gentler Michael Moore/Nick Broomfield approach to exposing anti-Semitism.

Cash’s film is reflective and accomplished, showing the world through the eyes of a young woman challenged by a painful childhood and by the culture of her times, finding her own way through the chaos around her to a functional adult life.

While I can understand and accept poor writing, it is deeply offensive to me that Wittock brushed under the rug the extensive abuse that Jeanne faces from Margarette and Marc. It normalizes non-consensual sexual behavior and parental abuse, both prevalent and very traumatic experiences. Therefore, despite all the good present in Jumbo, it would be immoral of me to recommend it.

Harrowing, heroic, and occasionally gripping.

Roman Polanski’s J’Accuse, released internationally as An Officer and a Spy, is a brilliant exercise in controlled storytelling, visual discipline, and moral searching.

Unfortunately, the script is a light romantic comedy and unwilling to go the extra distance to really make it stick.

Works on so many levels that it must be reckoned with. It certainly feels unique, and sets itself apart from most American gangster films in its stark refusal to paint the lead gangster as likable or indeed anything other than the vicious socio-psychopath he is.

The movie crosses the line between offering mindless entertainment and insulting our intelligence.

Analyze This plays "The Godfather" bit, fast and funny, it just picked a framework it should have refused.

Vice is Broke isn’t the ‘hit piece’ of its maker assets. It’s a valentine to the youth and the exuberance with which movements, literary or otherwise, ascend, make their mark, and then are heard from nevermore.

The Columnist is that rare mix of comedy and horror that isn’t too cheesy or over the top.

The only downside to this delectable third course? The regrettable likelihood that Lecter fans will have to make do without dessert.

As always, Don Cheadle is fantastic, but the film belongs to Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

If anything, this documentary stands as a warning to us all. The warning tells us to pay attention to these groups, no matter how small or innocent they seem, for it is all merely window-dressing, from something that only takes and never gives—the winning of hearts, minds, and money at the expense of people’s lives.

Rarely interesting, always confounding.

There’s something missing in this concoction: self-aware humor, a courage of its convictions, a driving force that propels the plot forward . . . Perhaps it was all just too steep a hill to climb.

Hobbs & Shaw is an action film in every sense of the word. You’re meant to check your brain at the door, shove your face with popcorn, and have a good time. Why would you expect more? This isn’t Shakespeare!

Leave the Visine and wrapping papers at home for A/K/A Tommy Chong, a surprisingly clear-eyed, sober account of what it’s liked to be embraced by a culture, while loathed by the Powers That Be.

With all the talk of how wonderful Christmas pantomimes are in the script, the whole movie seems to shrink away from any tradition that may have made this pitiful excuse of a Santa sneeze enjoyable.

The action-comedy could have easily been a delightful romp thanks to its A-list cast and well-written script, but poor editing causes Bandits to be just another hum-ho movie.

Has more than enough charm to make it memorable. Hurt shows a gentleness and subtlety that's interesting to watch in this phase of his career.

Jared Leto's performance as Maurizio’s cousin, Paolo Gucci, is so over-the-top that it bursts right through the top and swallows up the film whole. Unrecognizable under layers of make-up, speaking in high-pitched, heavily-accented intonations, he’s a live-wire but also a caricature that borders on nasty stereotyping. He out-gagas Gaga (who’s at least partially of Italian ancestry), which is no small feat.

I should be complaining about how bloated Being The Ricardos is, but I can’t. There’s a lot going on, but I wouldn’t cut a single word or scene. Like Lucy herself, the film is funny, deadly serious, and heartwarming all in one package.

Tony Scott steers the movie like a rocket and it never slows down.

As Sawyer, Hermione Corfield is probably the most famous of the film’s cast. She is the film’s solid foundation and carries it to the finale. She’s believable, strong, and sympathetic.

There are visually stunning scenes throughout, but the acting and writing are the pièce de résistance of Sibyl and should be exactly why you put this film on your radar as one to watch from 2019. It’s certainly going on my end of year favorite list.

The bright spot of Paul W.S. Anderson’s film is the villains.

One of the year's best films. An extraordinary work of intellectual maturity and emotional depth.

This film has so many chances to spice up the screen....and passes, I was wondering if I were watching an info-mercial for some kind of "K-Tel Classics- Revisted" album.

Is he (Rock) the next big thing? After seeing The Rundown, one of the most joyfully silly genre films in recent history, he has my vote.

Despite being a little cliché, Ping Pong is a hell of a lot of fun.

Certainly, modern interpretations should add their own spin to an ancient tale, but in the hands of director Robert Zemeckis, Beowulf becomes... silly.

Davenport is a blind actor who gives the proceedings some added depth because she’s able to convey a dramatic, manufactured scenario with some truth. See for Me, for its familiarity, offers enough thrills to merit seeking out.