Luce: Did he or didn't he?

The first time we see Luce (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) he's a high school senior, handsome, smart, popular. He's delivering a speech with his Mom (Naomi Watts) and Dad (Tim Roth) beaming in the audience.

We soon learn that he was adopted at the age of seven. In his earlier years, he was a conscripted child soldier in Africa. The central question in this controversial and thought provoking film is simply this:  Can such a child be rehabilitated?

The movie zigs and zags between the answers to that question.

Enter Luce's high school teacher (Octavia Spencer.) She assigns an essay which Luce completes in a disturbing fashion. Now she's convinced he's not the teenager he appears to be. But, hey, she's got some heavy baggage of her own. Should we believe her?

Luce is a movie that delves into the thorny issue of race in America. Talk about thought provoking. At the same time it must be remembered that Luce is hardly a typical teenager, black or white.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

With Once upon a time Quentin Tarantino brings a fairy tale to the multiplex. He sets it in 1969, sprinkles it with with real people and real news stories, and saturates it with upbeat, bouncy '60s music.

The story involves two buddies (Brad Pitt & Leonardo DeCaprio) who fulfill their roles on and off the screen. A diva of an actor and his stunt double, who doubles as his cleanup guy and heavy lifter in real life.

Like many fairy tails, this one  has some grim, dark moments and some characters who mess
with our heroes.( Boo.) But Tarantino does not give us a Grimm's fair tale ending. Thank you very much, Quentin. 
 
The Movie Slut loved the ending. Sure it was alternative history. So were the endings in Inglorious Basterds when he killed off all the Nazis and in Django Unchained when he massacred the slave owners. The difference here is that he showed some restraint and maturity. While there are violent scenes in Once..., it's not an over-the-top gore-fest. 

Rocketman: It soars

The Movie Slut has been a Taron Egerton fan since 2014 when he starred in the first Kingsmen movie with Michael Caine. And she's loved Elton John's music since 1970 when "Your Song" hit the charts.

So did she love this movie? Do Crocodiles Rock?

That's not to say she didn't cringe at the hokey moments. And there were plenty of them. And, not being a lover of Broadway shows, she almost tolerated it when the production looked exactly like something on the Great White Way during high tourist season.

The fact that Rocketman is a winner is all about Egerton's sensational performance. (He sings. He dances. He acts and you feel his pain.) And the incredibly irresistible music.

Aladin: Where's the magic?

If the movie slut found a magic lamp which awarded her three wishes, she'd wish for a movie with some memorable music and one that didn't look like a Broadway tourist play unfurled on the big screen. Wish number three would be that she skipped this flick.

If that sounds harsh, maybe it is. Maybe MS went in with expectations that were too high. The story of Aladin and his magic lamp should be, well, magical. Sadly, the magic was missing.

Booksmart: Revenge of the geeks

Molly and Amy had it all figured out. Buckle down in high school, make top grades, get into an ivy league college, land a killer job.

Imagine their consternation when they discover that the "losers" and partyers were also accepted by top colleges.

Now, the night before graduation, they have to make up for the four years of fun they didn't have.

That's the set-up in this flick, which is comedienne Olivia Wilde's directorial debut. And it's a good one. Trouble is, the movie devolves into a typical crazy-teens-run-amok film. Drugs. Sex. And a little growing up. But not much.

There are genuinely smart and funny moments in Booksmart, but not enough of for the Movie Slut to elevate it beyond its genre.

Photograph: Smile. Don't say cheese

He's a street photographer at Mumbai's Gateway monument.

She's an accounting student from a middle-class family who's walking by.

That's how boy meets girl in this lovely love story.

If, like the Movie Slut, you're sick of boy-meets-girl-and-they-hop-into-bed stories, which have proliferated in recent years, this flick is for you.

Love grows slowly and steadily in this story. We meet Rafi and Miloni and gradually learn who they are in a deeper way than today's typical love stories allow.

Of course there are problems. It may be modern-day Mumbai, but class distinctions create barriers that are difficult to cross.

Can Miloni and Rafi cross the divide?

Poms: No Cheers

So,  you might think this is a comedy. Septuagenarian cheerleaders. Funny. Right?

Wrong.

That doesn't mean Diane Keaton isn't sparkling as Martha, a gal who moves to a retirement community and can't find a club to join until she starts one of her own. With pom-poms. The problem is she's come there to die. (No spoiler alert necessary since moviegoers learn this right from the get-go.)

Maybe the dying of cancer plot could be handled with humor. (Doubtful.) Still, advertising this as laugh at the multiplex is a stretch. It's like asking audiences to forget that Godzilla is a huge, hairy monster wreaking havoc on Tokyo