Charade

Audrey Hepburn finds herself recently widowed in Paris with several scary men following her around looking for something her husband left. They don't know exactly what it is, and she certainly doesn't. Fortunately, mysterious stranger Cary Grant is on hand to help her navigate the treacherous Paris streets. But the mysteries of Grant also pile up. A fun caper/thriller/romance that has just enough tension to keep us engaged throughout. Way to simple for a modern film, but for 1963, it is perfect.
4 stars (out of 5)

Beyond the Lights

Minnie Driver plays a mom who is driven to have her kid get famous. And she does. Noni is the next teen hip hop star and has been featured on a couple of tracks by rappers. She has practically made it before even releasing anything on her own. But navigating the pressure of the business and her mom leads her down a path of destruction. Enter Kaz, young LAPD officer on her after hour security detail who saves her life, and then changes her life. And she changes his too. And in the process, they both change mom. Ah, isn't life grand in this modern fairy tale?
3 stars (out of 5)

Bumblebee

Probably the best character driven Transformer movie made. This was an origin story for Bumblebee (B-127, a soldier in the Autobot resistance), and background on how the autobots came to earth. In practice, it was a coming of age/dealing with grief story for a teenage girl who lost her father... which happened to have a few transformers in it. What I most appreciated is that the story was primary, and the Transformer bits fit into the story (with the exception of the bumbling around the living room scene). In contrast, other transformer movies were a bunch of transformer scenes with some story/dialogue used as connective tissue. I like this better.
4 stars (out of 5)

Pick of the Litter

Documentary following a 5 dog litter of labs born into the Guide Dogs for the Blind program. We follow the five dogs through initial placement and socialization and eventual training. Really a fascinating process both for the dogs and the various trainers/host families in terms of how to bond with a dog and yet not bond too much. Interesting, but not astounding.
3 stars (out of 5)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse

An animated version of Spiderman and parallel universes. A young kid wants to be Spiderman, and looks up to his uncle who is a street smart adult who pays attention to him in all the right ways (his father is the straight arrow cop who never cuts corners). Kingpin and Doc Oc are the adversaries, and are working on building a portal to parallel universes so Kingpin can see his family again (even though they would not be "his" per se). This is a bit of a Fringe storyline. Anyway, things go wrong, and Spider-men are pulled to this universe through a broken portal. They must all work together to get them home before it's too late. The story is strong and quite clever, and the different Spider-men are fantastic characters. And super fun that this is done in animation, since I think a live action version would have been horrible. Nice job Marvel.
4 stars (out of 5)

Aquaman

An origin story for Aquaman, and some history of Atlantis and the sea people and the rift between sea and surface dwellers. Jason Momoa plays the title character and is the mixed race (surface/sea) immortal heir to the throne of Atlantis. And of course, a reluctant leader. But when his half brother begins a military buildup, desperation sets it. It is quite interesting to have a hero who is primarily interested in avoiding war, an entire plot based on the surface dwellers pollution of the sea, and all of that effectively getting lost in the action. It was formulaic in many ways, with the sole purpose of the Mantis character to set up future films. And the curiosity of plasma weapons that work under water? That clearly needs a backstory of its own. Overall, pretty good, mindless fun.
3 stars (out of 5)