By the time Tarantino played fast and loose with history and ramped up his masculine Los Angeles fairy tale to bloodily gruesome new heights, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood had pretty much lost me, and I suddenly realized this was one bit of loopy pulp fiction I could have done without.

None of it mattered to me, and while I wanted to shrug my shoulders and whisper inaudibly, “Hakuna Matata,” as the end credits began their scrawl, the truth of the matter is that I felt no love for this The Lion King remake, it’s overall storytelling mediocrity a circle of never-ending disappointment I couldn’t wait to be finished with.

Stuber is a fun little trip into the ridiculous, and while I’m not about to give this cinematic rideshare a five-star rating, it seems to me three out of four should be more than adequate.

The fun of Spider-Man: Far from Home is watching the younger members of its cast agreeably interact with one another, and if the actual heroic parts of the tale could have generated maybe a third of that same intoxicating ebullience maybe I’d have found this latest MCU effort to be a bit more memorable.

At almost two full hours, Men in Black: International trudges along with almost no interest in getting to its destination with anything approaching haste.

This latest effort to carry the Shaft name isn’t unwatchable but it equally isn’t worthy of a look, either, all of which makes shutting my mouth about its various missteps and shortcomings impossible to do.

It’s moderately exasperating how things eventually play themselves out, and while I appreciate the risks Kinberg and his team are taking with Dark Phoenix, and while I was rooting for the film’s success even when I could see it falling annoying off the rails, this climactic journey of the X-Men just didn’t do it for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed director Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It made me smile.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is a highflying ballet of bloodshed and carnage that’s altogether remarkable, the adrenaline rush I got while watching it a euphoric high I wish I could bottle and sell at the neighborhood store.