Anticipation for a film like the Beetlejuice sequel has built over a long while especially with stops and starts over the years. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” tries to do many things and work on the same auspice as the original but it doesn’t fire quite right. Part of it might have been the time period. Part of it also might have been the writing. A lot of it might have been the time inbetween..

The essence of “The Crow” is always going to be shadowed by Brandon Lee. “The Crow” [1994] was a product of its time and had a mythical edge of sorts to it which is understandable which was only heightened by its circumstances. The new iteration starring Bill Skarsgard and directed by “Snow White and the Huntsman” helmer Rupert Sanders is remarkably beautiful in many ways.

“Alien: Romulus” tries deftly to walk the line but has the odds stacked against it. Its greatest attributes are its two would-be leads in Cailee Spaeney and David Jonnson as Rain and Andy respectively who each have their own approach but in their own relationship work against the ideal of what we expect.

The essence of an M. Night Shyamalan film rests many times where the filmmaker is in his own head and where that path might take him. With ”Trap,” there is a weird essence of dual personality not unlike his lead character Cooper (played by Josh Hartnett) who begins the movie taking his daughter to a concert. The irony is the way it is built.

The new R-rated Marvel offering within “Deadpool & Wolverine” isboth interesting, surprising, funny, intense but also very scattered. There is still a scrappy nature to Deadpool but oddly enough what starts out as more subversive becomes less so as it goes along. While there is a kind of dance to this especially with the two leads,  it becomes more about Jackman/Reynolds than about Deadpool/Wolverine.

The aspect of creating a néw perspective on “Twister” 30 years after the original is a different conundrum. Weather has changed. Technology has charged. But people really haven’t. While this version in “Twisters” might be more woke per se, it doesn’t quite have the jolt of fun the original had. Whether this has to do with the actors involved or the differing directors is hard to say.

The initial texture of “Fly Me To The Moon” has some interesting tendencies. Scarlett Johansson is brought in as a PR spinner to help make NASA a cool, well-oiled machine. The irony or play of the element within the story is what gives it pause. Realistically, in the character build and execution, it makes total sense and as a character piece, it is very contextual. But to build such a large scale film around this kind of story is an interesting risk

The aspect of the original "Inside Out" was the uniqueness of approaching emotions inside the mind as a sense of self. However, there was a sense of the unknown in the first movie where it was making the mythology as it was building the world. "Inside Out 2" is, in some ways, more complex but in other ways less so.

The context of Mad Max is to make the path as undeniable as it can be. There was something about "Mad Max: Fury Road". It had issues but it was a force of nature. George Miller willed that film into being. Comparing it to "Furiosa" is sort of hard to do. It is about path.