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It's films like this that remind me why going to the movie theater is special and memorable. Based on the 2004 historical fiction novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, this film starts out zany and spirited following a 10-year-old boy named Jojo eagerly attending a training camp to join the Nazi army in 1940s Germany. Watching the world through the overzealous eyes of a child gives the film an elevated sense of comedy and innocence which then begin to transform when Jojo discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home.

It's an awfully tall order to create a sequel to the iconic horror film, The Shining (1980), but first a little history.

Although this film was first screened in 2017, it has been refined and re-edited since then by its director to create this new director's cut. And it has finally gained wider distribution to now be shown throughout Utah. And in this case, good things come to those who wait. Historical dramas like The Current War: Director's Cut are often revered because they offer immersive portraits of history, and The Current War: Director's Cut does that wonderfully. But it also gives viewers a glimpse into the minds of some amazing people who created the foundations of modern life. 

I know the official title of this sequel is Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, but I think a more appropriate title could be Maleficent: Everything but the Kitchen Sink. This film has so many sub-plots, so many characters to keep track of, and so many powers to explain within the realm of magical creatures, I was exhausted trying to keep track of everything. 

You know you've either seen a great film or a terrible film when you're at a loss for words upon leaving the theater. While not a brilliant entry in the canon of horror comedies, Zombieland: Double Tap is not a tragic piece of garbage either. 

What's up, everyone?! My name is Will Smith, and I can still do it all. I can even play two characters at once! That's the main message I came away with after watching this technological action thriller. 

Oscar-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix (The Sisters Brothers, 2018) gives his naturally idiosyncratic edge to the title role in this film offering a psychologically twisted and disarming origin story of Batman's greatest arch enemy. Phoenix plays an ordinary man working as a party clown with an unusual sense of humor and zero friends in a dirty, graffiti-covered, 1970s Gotham city. The continuous violence, loneliness, and aloof neglect surrounding him gradually push him into an eternal carnival ride of madness that is shaky, dangerous, revolutionary, and bloody. 

It's films like this that make me grateful for unique international voices who offer independent and genuine stories outside U.S. borders. Asian American writer-director Lulu Wang (Posthumous, 2014) entered this film in Sundance where it gained wider distribution and opened in limited release in July this year. 

Something about space often entices filmmakers to pair the eternal vastness of the universe with the comparatively tiny insignificance of human life and relationships. Kind of like how my poor insignificant body always seems to be paired with the endless supply of pizza and nachos that are slowly destroying me. Past films that explore this dichotomy of small mankind with infinite space include Interstellar (2014) and Contact (1997). Ad Astra, a Latin phrase meaning "to the stars", is another epic space adventure with a consistent emotional trajectory. 

I've seen one of my favorite films of the year so far, and I hope more people go to the theater soon to watch this beautifully honest story. 

Co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (V/H/S, 2012) have another entry in the canon of the horror/thriller genre that is one half Agatha Christie mystery and one half bloody hunting contest. An innocent bride marries into a super-rich family that have built their multi-generational fortune on board games. But instead of honeymoon bliss, the wedding night is a night of initiation for the new bride who is lured into a deadly game of hide and seek to follow an important family tradition.

The Kitchen is centered on 3 women who's husbands are in the Irish mafia in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of 1970s New York City. When the husbands are arrested and sent to prison, these 3 women start managing parts of the family business at first to put food on the table for themselves and their children. But it doesn't take long for them to usurp the entire (or mostly entire) male-dominated leadership to control the whole operation of gangsters, debt collecting, intimidation, and murder.

Oscar-winner Hilary Swank (The Homesman, 2014) leads an all-star cast of wonderful performances as she plays a woman returning home to chilly Chicago to help take care of her mother battling dementia (played by a terrifically fragile Blythe Danner, Hearts Beat Loud, 2018). Swank's character also has to convince her staunch, bullheaded father (Robert Forster, London Has Fallen, 2016) to place her ailing mother in a special care facility. What They Had was first released in November 2018 and is now available on a personal movie viewing platform of your choice.

Despite the fatigued title, director Quentin Tarantino's (The Hateful Eight, 2015) 9th, full-length, mainstream film is an interesting and fond revisiting of 1960s California and a strange interpretation on a historical tragedy. 

Can you feel the love tonight? I mostly felt a fondness for vividly rendered African landscapes mixed with a teaspoon of nostalgia. Simba the lion is back in this live-action remake of the 1994 smash animated Disney film about growing up, death, destiny, and avenging your family. 

First of all, let me just say I saw the latest Marvel superhero movie Spiderman: Far From Home. It was fun, but the formula is getting painfully familiar and predictable. Thankfully, I watched another film this week: The Guilty which offers a story that is absorbing, inventive, and unpredictable. 

Up and coming director Ari Aster did a somewhat satisfactory job with his first full-length film, Hereditary, from 2018. So his second film Midsommar had promise to be a more succinct and less jumbled horror film about grief, family skeletons, and desperate measures. But instead of getting a delicious compact slice of cake, Midsommar turned out to be a 3-day-old, half-eaten Twinkie plucked out of the garbage and served on a scrap of cardboard. 

After an unexplained blackout sweeps the entire planet for 12 seconds, a belabored singer/songwriter in England (an awkward but relaxed Himesh Patel, Eastenders, 2007-2016) slowly discovers he's the only person alive who remembers The Beatles. 

You know that feeling you get when you take your first bite of a delicious slice of pizza or your first gulp of an invigorating cocktail and you think, "I'm going to remember this"? That's how I felt after watching this film. 

Dark Phoenix is a prequel in the series of X-Men superhero films that started in 2000 with the first movie titled X-Men. With this being the 10th film in the series, it's a strong reminder that not all chapters are good ones and not all entries in a saga are winners (much like my sex life). 

I'm happy to say this film is more than a concert from the past or a frivolous musical review. British director Dexter Fletcher (Eddie the Eagle, 2015) nicely blends reality and fantasy in this story of Elton John's formative years. 

I have seen the funniest film of 2019 so far. Actress Olivia Wilde (TRON: Legacy, 2010) makes her full-length feature directorial debut with a teen comedy that is a loud, irreverent, zippy whirlwind of friendship, alcohol, condom water balloons, and the elusive goal of having fun.

Diane Keaton (Morning Glory, 2010) plays a single retiree who begrudgingly moves out of her New York City apartment and into a retirement community in Georgia for active seniors. To capture some of her lost youth, and to annoy some of the established leaders of the well-groomed retirement community, she starts a cheerleading squad with some of her fellow female retirees. After enduring awkward rehearsals, riding in fancy golf carts, and bonding with unlikely sensitive teenagers, the cheerleaders learn to love themselves, their bodies, and their lives.