An air of menace and a cloud of controversy accompany the arrival of Todd Phillips' "Joker" like a thick perfume.

For the amount of cursing, vulgarity and nudity in "Dolemite Is My Name," it might come as a surprise that it's actually a rather sweet and heartfelt film.

Will Smith is usually an asset for a movie.

The next new film at the Tennessee Aquarium Imax 3D Theater will introduce audiences to a group of extraordinary canines. Beginning Friday, Oct. 11, "Superpower Dogs 3D" will be shown at noon and 4 p.m. daily in the Imax.

Netflix's "Marianne" is a French series about a horror writer who thinks she's getting out of the genre but discovers she may not be able to do so. It certainly has some frights in it and, after watching a few episodes over the weekend, I'll watch the rest of it. But it also made me think:

Renée Zellweger is so undeniably perfect as Judy Garland that it almost makes up for the shortcomings of the film around it.

"Abominable" is just about the most cuddly piece of East-West synergy a corporation could dream up.

Having stayed rigorously close to his native New York for much of his career, writer-director James Gray has lately been making up for lost time.

The "Downton Abbey" movie isn't exactly a movie.

"Hustlers" saves all of its tricks for the end

Everything is beautiful in John Crowley's adaptation of "The Goldfinch," even the grilled cheese sandwich that a kind stranger makes for a boy who has just lost his mother.

Market it right, and you can get people to pay for literally anything these days. Especially in Manhattan.

In the next few weeks I'll be adding my money to the $93 million that "It: Chapter 2" took in on its first weekend of release. Even though I've read Stephen King's 1,100-page tome a couple of times, I still need to rewatch "It: Chapter 1" before I see the sequel, just to make sure I'm up-to-date.

It can be a cheesy thing when a novel is split up and spread out over a handful of films, but Stephen King's "It" is not one of those books.

Flipping channels through a stupor of boredom on Sunday night, I ran across "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." I have seen all the Potter movies, read all the Potter books. While I think the books are by far the best of the two, I still enjoyed the movies. So I stayed on "Goblet of Fire."

Traditionally, weddings usually lead to some fun and games in the bedroom for the happy and exhausted couple. In the new horror-thriller "Ready or Not," that's definitely true - but the games aren't always fun.

Getting in shape and putting your life together usually, at the movies, passes in a montage. But for many, the non-Rocky legions of us, such transformations require more than inspiring theme music and lifting weights in the snow.

There is a certain mindless pleasure in the "Fallen" movies.

The 12-year-old protagonists of "Good Boys" have mastered the use of lingo like "lit" and "burn," but they are foggier on just exactly what a tampon is and swear that a nymphomaniac is someone who has sex on land and on sea. They are tantalizingly close to young adulthood and yet tragically far away.

After starring roles for Freddie Mercury ("Bohemian Rhapsody"), Elton John ("Rocketman") and the Beatles ("Yesterday"), it's Bruce Springsteen's turn to join the mixtape that the movies have lately become.

It's hard to have huge expectations for a movie called "The Angry Birds Movie 2." After all, it's not even a movie based on a smartphone game. It's a SEQUEL to a movie based on a smartphone game.

I didn't know it until last week, but Allan Arkush might be the guy I've always wanted to be when I grow up.

The idea behind "Where'd You Go, Bernadette " is tantalizing — a woman goes missing and her 15-year-old daughter tries to piece together where she went.