Nicholas Stoller's and Billy Eichner's achievement gave me everything I want and so rarely get from Hollywood rom-coms: interest, involvement, investment, sexual heat, huge laughs, legitimately threatening obstacles.

Some movies are love-them-or-hate-them. The polished, mediocre Don't Worry Darling doesn't do much to inspire either reaction.

Before proceeding, allow me to share my amazement in a weekend happenstance I hadn't previously experienced over nearly three decades of reviewing: I saw five new movies and enjoyed them all – a lot. Even the horror prequel whose predecessor debuted fewer than six months ago. Even the reboot of a planned Chevy Chase franchise that died in 1989.

A couple weeks ago, in my review of The Invitation, I opened by saying that the fright flick felt like a bunch of different fright flicks – none of them good – rolled into one. Writer/director Zach Cregger's Barbarian feels a bit like that, too, except in this instance, the quality is significantly higher, and not all of the complimentary/competing movies are horror movies.

As hilarious as Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown, and their Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. co-stars frequently are, you're left as likely to well up from pity as from laughter. This is a truly rare bird: a mockumentary drama. With loads of cringey giggles.

No one wants to get mugged, but I was delighted to have Three Thousand Years of Longing sneak up on me and knock me out.

A prequel to the 2009 horror yarn whose moderate success didn't suggest the likelihood of follow-ups, Orphan: First Kill is an extremely unlikely movie in more ways than one: It's unrepentant, obscene, even laughable trash, and about as much fun as I've had at the cineplex all month.

Interestingly, in a weekend that saw the arrival of precisely zero new major-studio movies, the three local releases we did get all featured significant characters who earned a living through their podcasts, YouTube channels, and/or Instagram accounts. Once upon a time, on-screen professionals focused on careers in advertising and architecture. Now they're only focused on themselves. Eh, it's 2022. Guess that makes sense.

As a movie lover/reviewer who's been at this a lo-o-ong time, it should go without saying that I almost never see a film anymore that I'd consider calling my new all-time favorite. But every now and then, I do see films that I'm pretty certain will be somebody's new all-time favorite, and director David Leitch's comedy thriller Bullet Train absolutely feels like one of those titles.

In his first outing as a feature-film writer/director/star, B.J. Novak does a lot of very smart things in Vengeance; while I've enjoyed a bunch of movies this summer, none of them has been the low-key, completely unanticipated surprise that this comedic thriller proves to be.

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