Most people, I think, would agree that box-office returns aren't necessarily an indicator of quality. But it was still a bit disheartening to discover that of the five movies I caught over the weekend, the two I most enjoyed were the titles most likely to leave the area when the new Ghostbusters gobbles up screens this upcoming Friday.

Almost no one, in retrospect, likes a misleading trailer, and I don't know anyone who enjoys a trailer that seems to give away a narrative's contents from points A to Z, making you feel like you've seen the movie months before you actually see it. (Ordinary Angels, anyone?) Yet I reserve a special kind of irritation for trailers that wind up almost exhaustively descriptive of the eventual experience simply through the predecessors they choose to plug.

Winner of seven New Zealand Film & Television Awards including Best Film, Director, and Screenplay, and a work whose 2010 release made it the highest grossing New Zealand film to date, writer/director Taiki Waititi's Boy enjoys a March 21 Figge Art Museum screening in the venue's Free Film at the Figge series, its critical consensus at Rotten Tomatoes stating that the movie "possesses the offbeat charm associated with New Zealand film but is also fully capable of drawing the viewer in emotionally."

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Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too.

Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again.

Thursday, March 14: A recap of the Academy Awards; discussion of Imaginary, Cabrini, Kung Fu Panda 4, and 20 Days in Mariupol; and previews of Arthur the King, One Life, Love Lies Bleeding, The American Society of Magical Negroes, and what might turn out to be the sleeper hit of the spring: an R-rated teen comedy titled Snack Shack. Stay tuned.

Now playing at area theaters.

Ryan Gosling didn't win an Academy Award last night. But Ryan Gosling totally won the Academy Awards last night.

The reasons that even Herbert virgins might want to consider showing up for Dune: Part Two lie less with the tale's specifics than the sorts of massive pleasures that only works of this magnitude provide.

Can a sweep year at the Oscars also be a spread-the-wealth year at the Oscars?

Just what is it going to take for Joel and Ethan Coen to end this silly separation of theirs and get back together? An online petition? A generous gift basket? A promise to reconsider the merits of Intolerable Cruelty?

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