Like Applegate’s book, Sharrock’s film — scripted by Mike White, who also pops up in a funny cameo and voices a neurotic seal — is told from Ivan’s perspective (voiced by Sam Rockwell), creating a sense of discovery that helps sneak in some of the tougher ideas without permanently scarring the most sensitive members of its audience (this writer cried throughout, so make of that what you will). Initially unfolding a bit like a fairy tale in which Ivan is the (one and only) star, the film presents a fantastically fun world in which the cracks are just starting to show....

Make no mistake: Iuli Gerbase’s feature directorial debut is prescient, and not just another pandemic-centric property rushed out during times of global upheaval. The rising Brazilian filmmaker’s “The Pink Cloud” opens with a notation that is both funny and painful. “This film was written in 2017 and shot in 2019. Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental.” “Coincidental” is putting it mildly. The Portuguese-language film opens innocently enough, literally all blue skies shining above....

And as it is with overnight stardom, the offers started rolling in. There were the film’s two sequels, released in 2020 and 2021, TV roles and rom-coms — but recreating the critical and audience success of “To All the Boys” proved difficult. Netflix’s own “Sierra Burgess Is a Loser” paired him with “Stranger Things” fan favorite Shannon Pursuer in a modern-day Cyrano criticized for catfishing, and the 2019 “Charlie’s Angels” reboot — well, this article may have just reminded you it exists....

Fans of “The Sopranos” will recall the abrupt and rather unceremonious exit of Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) in Season 6, Episode 20, “The Blue Comet.” After being berated by her colleagues at a dinner party (which included her own therapist, played by Peter Bogdanovich, among the company), Dr. Melfi decides to sever ties with mobster Tony Soprano, for whom she’s served as a therapist for the entirety of the show....

From the start, filmmaker James Gunn had a vision for “The Suicide Squad”: this thing had to be rated R. While Gunn is best known to most audiences for his successful Marvel franchise “Guardians of the Galaxy” — which, like all MCU films, are rated PG-13 — his early features like “Slither” and “Super” are decidedly R-rated outings. When Gunn moved over to Warner Bros. to write and direct one of the studio’s DCEU films after being fired (only to later be re-hired) by Disney, he was understandably looking for a bit of freedom....

“These Days” tells the story of Mae (Marianne Rendon), a dancer in New York City embarking on an internet relationship of some kind with Will (William Jackson Harper). The pilot hopes to find a home at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival and flesh out Mae’s story. Brooks and Saraf started thinking of a story at the time the stay-at-home orders went into effect, hoping to create a universal plot that would touch on the times we’re living in....

Part of that underestimation may come from the industry’s default-defeatist attitude toward films that target an older female audience. With source material from a massive bestseller, “Crawdads” also had built-in interest beyond most adult-oriented dramas — even with the film’s mixed-to-negative reviews. It currently stands at 44 on Metacritic. If “Crawdads” can sustain a decent multiple‚ as its A- Cinemascore suggests, the film could yield one of the year’s most net-positive results....