SINISTER 2

You know the feeling you get when you go to summer camp and make a great new friend, but he/she isn't there the next summer, or the summer after that, and you end up forgetting about that friend until the next summer, when, all of a sudden, there he/she is? I don't, because I never went to summer camp. But I'm betting that sensation is similar to what I felt in the first minutes of Sinister 2 once I recognized James Ransone, who played Ethan Hawke's adorably dippy deputy pal in 2012's Sinister. Although the actor has amassed a bunch of film and TV credits since then (albeit not in anything I've seen), I can't say I've thought of him even once since the release of that low-budget horror hit. Yet the second Ransone's character showed up in director Cirián Foy's follow-up, with his chronic awkwardness and puppy-dog eyes and intense likability, it was like being reunited with a long-lost buddy whom you're ashamed to have let slip away. Ransone's presence here - as our romantic lead, no less! - was a hugely welcome surprise. That Sinister 2 didn't at all suck might've been a bigger one.

You can tell it's August at the cineplex, not because the newly released movies are so terrible (though a couple of them definitely are), but because there are so many of them. This annual dumping-ground month for films generally considered too weak to score summer-blockbuster dollars and too insignificant to pass as autumnal prestige fare has also, in recent years, become the cinematic equivalent of a Sam's Club or Costco: a little bit of everything, in bulk. And over four consecutive days, I caught up with seven of these debuting area titles - a collective experience that ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous ... and back to the sublime.

Friday, July 24, 10:40 a.m.-ish: It's been so long since my last quadruple-feature - a miraculous six months plus! - that I'm only mildly dreading today's, and only then because I know it's ending with Adam Sandler. It's beginning, however, with Mr. Holmes, and while I can't imagine the world needing yet another showcase for Arthur Conan Doyle's literary sleuth, I'm psyched knowing this latest iteration will reunite director Bill Condon with his Gods & Monsters star Ian McKellen and Kinsey co-star Laura Linney. Most of the movie consists of McKellen's 93-year-old Sherlock, in 1947, contending with failing memory and the haunting case that forced his retirement, while Linney's Irish housekeeper Mrs. Munro cooks and tidies up. But while several mysteries arise and are duly resolved in the film, I am distracted throughout by two unresolved questions. (1) Who is this little kid Milo Parker who plays Sherock's protégé (and Mrs. Munro's son) Roger? And (2) How is this boy giving a performance that might be topping those of the excellent McKellen and Linney?

MINIONS

The previews for the Despicable Me prequel-slash-spin-off Minions made me laugh out loud every single time I saw them ... the first dozen times I saw them. After the second dozen, though, I started to get a little nervous. By then, I had experienced roughly 72 collective minutes of these squat, yellow henchmen with their helium squawks and adorable bulging eyes (or, in some cases, eye), and my initially hearty laughter had been replaced by occasional grins and a smidge of irritation. Granted, I was only seeing three to five minutes of footage over and over, but would directors Kyle Balda's and Pierre Coffin's animated outing wind up feeling the same? Would a solid hour and a half of Minions, and Minions, be too much of a good thing? Answer: Not really. And also: Kind of.