As haunting and as scary as all of this might turn out to be Personal Shopper is not a horror movie. This is a human drama, plain and simple, one that deconstructs the grief process in ways that have seldom been seen or attempted before. Assayas channels energies that are explosively one-of-a-kind, the languidly methodical nature of the pacing belying the rich emotional density that makes up every step of Maureen’s sojourn to self-actualization and personal growth.

Beauty and the Beast never takes on a life of its own, it’s pulse stranded at middling for almost the entirety of its obscene 129-minute running time, all of which makes the watching of it far more of a frustrating chore than it by any and all rights should have been.

The whole thing feels as if it is stuck in second gear for the majority of the running time, the sheer avalanche of derivative content destroying all the stuff I was impressed with and liked in its belligerently unsympathetic rampage down the cinematic horror hill. The Axe Murders of Villisca never comes alive, and as such no matter how much potential as a filmmaker I think Valenzuela might possess, watching this film proves to be nothing more than a serious waste of time.

As ludicrous and as unfocused as it all might be, Kong: Skull Island kept me amused for practically every second of its two-hour running time. While not a great movie, it’s still an awfully fun one, and as big budget, visually resplendent monster mashes go I’m somewhat eager to give it another look relatively soon.

Moana is bright, beautiful and just a joy to watch. While the story is overly familiar and does little we haven’t seen before, it’s just so gosh darn entertaining that lack of originality isn’t nearly as big a deal as it should be. This is terrific stuff, and watching it brings a sense of joy to my heart and puts a smile on my face, two items that should not be underappreciated.

“This is fantasy come true. But I was so strong about that fantasy that it hasn’t come as a surprise that it has happened. What I can never stop thinking is how lucky I am that I’m the one who got to do it.”

The emotional complexity of her work is stellar, and the way she travels through so many varying dramatic layers as she traverses through the narrative is even more so. Deutch is incredible, and even when Before I Fall comes perilously close to flying off the rails she continually keeps things watchable practically all by herself.

Peele’s ability to entertain and to edify, to produce laughter in the same instance that he slams his satirical points home with an unexpected sledgehammer, it’s all here and more. Get Out is a marvel of ingenuity and inspiration, a horror tale where the most frightening image is the mirror image of the audience realizing they’re the ones being so intimately examined.

In the end, Table 19 is a comedy I was glad I’d made the time for, and as blind dinner dates go this is one I’d go out with again a second time with few reservations whatsoever.