Let it be known that The Way Back – in which Ben Affleck plays a drunk who once walked away from basketball glory and is offered a chance at redemption when his old coach has a heart attack – is possibly the most melancholy sports movie ever made.

Mary Poppins Returns is a rare treat. It’s an old fashioned movie musical with an old-fashioned message that works perfectly in the modern world.

Much like the nature of the park which Mickey calls home, the film is a glossed-over and superficial history.

I’ll admit it: It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to the Seventh Earl of Grantham, his extended family and friends, and his retinue of below-stairs staff. But fortunately, the two-plus hours that is Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale provides many an opportunity for them to say goodbye to us, and to remind each other — and viewers — that history continues to march forward, and things must change.

Atmosphere will only take you so far, and it soon becomes apparent that Starve Acre is 10 liters of helium in a 20-liter balloon. The result is limp and never fully takes flight.

If the Miranda musical touches are getting familiar, they’re still a lot fresher than the script here, yet another story of a pet animal on a mission and its special bond with a lonely child.

The Toxic Avenger (Toxie to his friends) returns, not as a cheap shock-off of the cult sludge from which it emerged, but as a formidable companion piece to Lloyd Kaufman’s gloriously grungy original.

None of this adds up to a deep or compelling examination of the papacy. Think of it more like a wave from the motorcade on the way by.

It may not sound like a big deal, but it’s actually very satisfying to see game-changing historical women having their stories told on a major platform and having them told well, with emotional intelligence.

I’m a fan of Wright’s work, so I’m disappointed that Last Night in Soho doesn’t hold up on both halves. But the parts that work, work terrifically.

As an ersatz arthouse pastiche, Tigertail is crafted with care. Nigel Buck’s cinematography effectively registers the different time periods and locations, and Michael Brooks’ plaintive score balances Pin-Jui’s taciturnity. On the negative side, the film’s hopscotching flashbacks can be confusing and there’s a lot of stylistic spin for what amounts to a prosaic family drama.

Like the characters it portrays, Mine 9 simply does its job as best it can with the resources at hand.

Billed misleadingly as a “romantic thriller,” the film is neither romantic nor especially thrilling. The characters are enigmatic to the point of superficiality, the relationships largely transactional, and the action toggles between languid and frazzled over two-and-a-quarter-hours. But with some reflective distance, away from the snap judgment of festivals, Stars at Noon proves a pretty interesting film, if a sometimes confusing one.

Frankie Freako isn’t the film you’re going to rave about to friends. It will, however, be an excellent subject for conversation about how much films got away with in 1986. If you can watch this film through that lens, it’s definitely a freaky film you can appreciate.

While sticking close to the tried-and-true talking head documentary format, Harry Chapin: When In Doubt, Do Something — the title inspired by Chapin’s maxim in life and oft-uttered motto — succeeds in celebrating a life truly worth celebrating.

Fans of the novels of Jane Austen or the Netflix series Bridgerton will swoon with delight at Mr. Malcolm's List, a romance-slash-drama also set in early 19th century London that, like the beforementioned titles, is filled to bursting with dashing bachelors, scheming social climbers, fancy balls, innumerable frocks with empire waists, and pointed commentary on the British class system.

I’ve never been a fan of time travel as a premise for a science fiction story but Relax, I’m From the Future puts a more… well, relaxed spin on the well-worn sci-fi trope.

Even I found the film’s 90-minute running time draining, its story needlessly, maddeningly convoluted. I also lamented missed opportunities for in-jokes, sly sub-references, even guerilla fourth-wall demolition hijinks.

What gives Hearts Beat Loud its life is the father-daughter interaction and chemistry between Offerman and Clemons. Their original jam session makes the audience sit up and take notice.

Drunk Bus has some pros and cons. At its best, it evokes the freewheeling style and emotional pangs of Greg Mottola’s 2009 film, Adventureland.

Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez and screenwriter John Griffin’s Crater is a sweet story about friendship lasting a lifetime but set in the year 2257. Kinda like Stand by Me, but nicer… and in space.

Vengeance is a movie whose dry humour carries its message well and even has its sweet moments. The desolate desert location hangs over everything, sometimes suggesting another planet peopled by humans. But given the movie’s suggestion of the emptiness of city life, it may also suggest just another kind of desert.

It’s a fast-paced joyride, enlivened by great talent in even the smaller roles.

I'm all for the drama. Unfortunately, the drama in Glasshouse comes as an intrusion on the promise of a different story—a better story camouflaged behind the one being told.

Somehow, within this roiling pot of fancy costumes, class hatred, vicious misogyny and official corruption, we are supposed to discern the poisonous seeds of the violence that would wrack Europe. The connections are somewhat fuzzy.

It works as a buddy road movie (as is Patrick’s argument) and as a hero’s quest (as SpongeBob argues). Either way, there is not a lot of twists and turns complicating matters, save for one outrageous side-trip.

Sure, we’ve seen variations on this story and theme before but few better.

Women, men, relationships, the patriarchy feminism, nature, and body-horror merge in writer/director Alex Garland’s creepy, allegorical art-house horror thriller Men.