Karen Abercrombie and Priscilla C. Shirer in War RoomFriday, August 28, 10 a.m.-ish: The day begins with the pro-faith drama War Room, in which a harried working mom is guided - or more accurately bullied - into surrendering to God's will and forgiving her husband for his inattentive, verbally abusive, potentially adulterous ways. It's kind of exactly the movie you expect. It's also one of the most revolutionary movies of its type yet produced, because even a few years ago, it would've been unimaginable for a film skewing to America's religious right to feature an African-American family at its core.

Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel in The End of the TourTHE END OF THE TOUR

An interviewer for Rolling Stone travels to Bloomington, Illinois, to meet his subject: an author embarking on the last leg of his book tour. They make small talk at the author's house. They smoke incessantly. They gorge on junk food. They travel to Minnesota for a reading and radio segment. They visit the Mall of America. They catch a multiplex movie. They hang out with a couple of young women. They consume more junk food. They return to Bloomington. They part ways.

In broad outline, that is the entire plot of director James Ponsoldt's and screenwriter Donald Margulies' The End of the Tour. And with the possible exception of Mad Max: Fury Road, no other 2015 release, to date, has entertained, thrilled, and devastated me quite as much as this one. (The film is currently playing at Iowa City's Marcus Sycamore Cinema.) I'll concede that much of the reason for my enjoyment might be strictly personal, or at least intensely specific. But I also don't think anyone needs to have been an interviewer, or an interviewee, to be dazzled by the film's intelligence, emotional complexity, and deep empathy, or by the insight it demonstrates regarding the oddly fraught practice of the celebrity profile. You probably also don't need to be an admirer of David Foster Wallace to find yourself frequently moved to tears, but if you are one, consider yourself warned.

Aldis Hodge, Neil Brown Jr.,  Jason Mitchell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., and Corey Hawkins in Straight Outta ComptonSTRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

In the N.W.A. bio-pic Straight Outta Compton, long after the professional and personal flame-outs between Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) and Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson Jr., playing his real-life father), the two rappers run into each other at a club, and Eazy, seeking reconciliation, tells Cube he saw him in Boyz n the Hood. Cube reminds his former friend that Eazy publicly called the movie "an after-school special," and Eazy, knowing he's caught, simply grins and says, "Man, you know I like after-school specials." (As it must, this initially tense encounter ends in a hug.) Given the film's expectedly harsh language, constant threats of violence, and poolisde and hotel-room debaucheries that only platinum-selling albums can buy, I was amazed to find its own resemblence to an after-school special the most surprising thing about director F. Gary Gray's musical drama. But whatever - I, too, like after-school specials.

Ian McKellen and Milo Parker in Mr. HolmesFriday, 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?

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator GenisysTERMINATOR GENISYS

Following some requisite, necessary backstory, Terminator Genisys opens in 2029 Los Angeles, where resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) transports fellow revolutionary Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) to 1984, where he's to hopefully prevent global apocalypse and protect John's mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke) from a murderous robot (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Upon arriving, however, Kyle finds that Sarah doesn't need saving and the robot isn't murderous, so off they go to 2017, where the planet is still imperiled, and John Connor himself proves to be the source of the planet's eventual ruin. After one of these whisks through the decades, Kyle says, "Time travel makes my head hurt," and time-travel movies generally make my head hurt, too. But for a fifth installment in an increasingly confounding series, this particular time-travel movie is actually a fair bit of fun.

Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane-ish in Ted 2TED 2

Every fan of Family Guy knows that when he wants to, Seth MacFarlane can be really offensive. (I am in no way a fan of Family Guy, and even I know that.) But the biggest problem with MacFarlane's Ted 2 - which is likely to at least occasionally infuriate anyone who isn't a white, straight alpha-bro - isn't that it's offensive; it's that it's too often sincere. This is a movie in which Morgan Freeman, as a benevolent civil-rights attorney, invokes the 16th Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation when arguing for the rights of a talking teddy bear, with the scene's moved onlookers and swelling score matching him in earnestness and integrity. My audience, meanwhile, watched and listened to Freeman's impassioned oration in what felt like stunned silence. Can MacFarlane possibly be serious about this - that his foul-mouthed teddy's rights are equal to those of hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised human beings? And if he's not serious, why isn't this scene in any way funny?

Paul Dano in Love & MercyLOVE & MERCY

Receiving a wide national release on the same weekend as Inside Out's debut, director Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy is also an exploration of the brain - specifically, the brain of Beach Boys wunderkind Brian Wilson, alternately portrayed by Paul Dano (during the film's Pet Sounds-era 1960s sequences) and John Cusack (during Wilson's heavily-, and incorrectly-, medicated period in the late 1980s). And rather astonishingly for a work of its type, it boasts numerous scenes in which it really, truly feels like we're allowed to roam around in a legendary musician's head, feeling what he feels and, even more importantly, hearing what he hears.

Hailee Steinfeld, Anna Kendrick, and Rebel Wilson in Pitch Perfect 2PITCH PERFECT 2

Pitch Perfect 2 opens strongly, with the peerlessly funny Elizabeth Banks (who also directed the film) and John Michael Higgins performing an a cappella rendition of the Universal Pictures theme song and launching into the hilariously bitchy byplay that made their vocal-contest judges among Pitch Perfect's many highlights. And while it's true that this musical-comedy follow-up, like director Jason Moore's 2012 predecessor, is set in the world of collegiate a cappella groups - and specifically the world of Anna Kendrick's fledgling mash-up artist Beca - it's more accurately set atop a steep precipice. Because although it starts promisingly, as the saying goes, it's all downhill from there.

Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon in Hot PursuitHOT PURSUIT

All movies provide at least one reason to feel grateful, because even the worst movies eventually, mercifully end. Director Anne Fletcher's action comedy Hot Pursuit provides exactly one reason to feel grateful.

Michiel Huisman and Blake Lively in The Age of AdalineTHE AGE OF ADALINE

In director Lee Toland Krieger's The Age of Adaline, Blake Lively plays a 29-year-old who, following a supernatural accident involving a car crash and a bolt of lightning, goes through life never again aging a day, and 82-year-old Ellen Burstyn plays her daughter. You may recall that Burstyn also recently portrayed Matthew McConaughey's elderly daughter in Interstellar. If this is the continuation of a trend for the magnificent actress, I'm really hoping she keeps acting for another decade or more, because I'm dying to eventually see her cast as the great-grand-niece to that adorable little girl on Modern Family.

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