The human who watches this movie can neither go to Heaven nor Hell

DEATH NOTE

Talk about your inaccurate translations...

2017

Directed by Adam Wingard

Written by Charlie Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapanides, and Jeremy Slater

With Nat Wolff (Light Turner), Willem Dafoe/Jason Liles (Ryuk), Margaret Qualley (Mia Sutton), Shea Whigham (James Turner), and Lakeith Stanfield (L)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Great ape

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Who'd have guessed that the best movie of 2017 so far was the one about bouncing goofy visual gags off the side of a giant monster?  Actually, I had an inkling.

2017

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Written by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, and John Gatins

With Terry Notary and Toby Kebbell (Kong), John C. Reilly (Lt. Hank Marlow), Corey Hawkins (Houston Brooks), Jing Tian (San Lin), Tom Hiddleston (Capt. James Conrad), Brie Larson (Mason Weaver), John Ortiz (Victor Nieves), Jason Mitchell (WO Glenn Mills), Toby Kebbell (again) (Maj. Jack Chapman), Shea Whigham (Capt. Earl Cole), John Goodman (Bill Randa), and Samuel L. Jackson (Col. Preston Packard)

Spoiler alert: mild

Life in space is impossible

LIFE

Pleasantly grim and agreeably boilerplate, the worst thing you can say about Life is that it doesn't live up to its influences, but then, not too much does.

2017

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

With Olga Dihovichnaya (Ekaterina Golovkina), Rebecca Ferguson (Dr. Miranda North), Jake Gyllenhaal (Dr. David Jordan), Ariyon Bakare (Dr. Hugh Derry), Hiroyuki Sanada (Sho Murakami), and Ryan Reynolds (Rory Adams)

Spoiler alert: moderate

The tree of knowledge

A GHOST STORY

At times, I know, it's almost a parody of an art film, but it's hard to name too many movies that earn their asininity the way A Ghost Story earns its.  It gets to where it needs to go, and a high-concept, low-affect meditation upon the awful, beautiful futility of life was, in the end, the most direct way it could have taken.

2017

Written and directed by David Lowery

With David Pink and Casey Affleck (The Ghost), Rooney Mara (The Woman), and Will Oldman (The Prognosticator)

Spoiler alert: moderate