The film’s 92 minutes pass by so quickly it’s all over almost as soon as it begins, everything building to a smashing conclusion that had me wanting to leap from my seat and give Stillman, his production team and his entire cast one long, rousing, vigorous cheer. Love & Friendship is magnificent, and anyone saying otherwise is in my eyes one gouty attack away from objectionable ignominy.

The Ones Below is a creepy, elegantly paced thriller that recalls the searing psychological terrors of films like Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, Knife in the Water and Cul-De-Sac or Claude Chabrol’s L’Enfer and La Cérémonie. It is a dreamy little bit of pulp fiction, and even if writer/director David Farr (Hanna) plays his hand full of secret twists and turns a bit earlier than I’d have liked him to, the actual climax still packs a major wallop.

X-Men: Apocalypse is the boldest, most audacious entry in this series to date, descending into places of despair, tragedy and chaos the likes of which are often spellbinding. Even if all of it doesn’t work, enough of it did to keep me engaged, everything building to a powerful conclusion of sacrifice and courage that speak to the larger themes at play nicely.

Featuring crackerjack action sequences and bursting with an infectious sense of humor that’s laugh-out-loud hilarious, The Nice Guys is a major blast, Crowe and Gosling having the time of their lives bringing all this madcap, blood-splattered lunacy to life.

It’s the kind of thing Lumet would have applauded, a devious device that makes the audience a voyeuristic enabler who has allowed all of this bedlam to transpire as if it were a piece of superficial Kardashian-esque reality television content to wallow in nothing less than its own vapid self-absorbed excess. That Money Monster doesn’t live up to these aspirations is admittedly disappointing. That it attempted to go there in the first place is worthy of vociferous applause.

I loved this movie. I was blown away by Medina’s performance, shell-shocked by the level of intimacy that Breathnach is able to create as things work their way towards their redemptive conclusion. A story of self, gender, identity and family, Viva is an absolute gem worthy of raucous celebration.

Captain America: Civil War is fun; it’s too well made, acted and scripted for it to be anything less. But it’s also much ado about nothing, the fact of which is annoying me more and more as time goes by.

Submerged had a ton of potential, and director Steven C. Miller is undeniably talented, but for whatever reason things just didn’t come together as far as this project is concerned, the movie nothing short of a nicely cast disappointment that’s frustratingly difficult to watch all the way through until the end.

Sacrifice (2016), while far from a waste of time, just isn’t interesting enough to bother with, the only mystery being why anyone thought it was strong enough to garner a theatrical release in the first place.