Something about space often entices filmmakers to pair the eternal vastness of the universe with the comparatively tiny insignificance of human life and relationships. Kind of like how my poor insignificant body always seems to be paired with the endless supply of pizza and nachos that are slowly destroying me. Past films that explore this dichotomy of small mankind with infinite space include Interstellar (2014) and Contact (1997). Ad Astra, a Latin phrase meaning "to the stars", is another epic space adventure with a consistent emotional trajectory.

I've seen one of my favorite films of the year so far, and I hope more people go to the theater soon to watch this beautifully honest story.

Co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (V/H/S, 2012) have another entry in the canon of the horror/thriller genre that is one half Agatha Christie mystery and one half bloody hunting contest. An innocent bride marries into a super-rich family that have built their multi-generational fortune on board games. But instead of honeymoon bliss, the wedding night is a night of initiation for the new bride who is lured into a deadly game of hide and seek to follow an important family tradition.

The Kitchen is centered on 3 women who's husbands are in the Irish mafia in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of 1970s New York City. When the husbands are arrested and sent to prison, these 3 women start managing parts of the family business at first to put food on the table for themselves and their children. But it doesn't take long for them to usurp the entire (or mostly entire) male-dominated leadership to control the whole operation of gangsters, debt collecting, intimidation, and murder.

Oscar-winner Hilary Swank (The Homesman, 2014) leads an all-star cast of wonderful performances as she plays a woman returning home to chilly Chicago to help take care of her mother battling dementia (played by a terrifically fragile Blythe Danner, Hearts Beat Loud, 2018). Swank's character also has to convince her staunch, bullheaded father (Robert Forster, London Has Fallen, 2016) to place her ailing mother in a special care facility. What They Had was first released in November 2018 and is now available on a personal movie viewing platform of your choice.

Despite the fatigued title, director Quentin Tarantino's (The Hateful Eight, 2015) 9th, full-length, mainstream film is an interesting and fond revisiting of 1960s California and a strange interpretation on a historical tragedy.

Can you feel the love tonight? I mostly felt a fondness for vividly rendered African landscapes mixed with a teaspoon of nostalgia. Simba the lion is back in this live-action remake of the 1994 smash animated Disney film about growing up, death, destiny, and avenging your family.

First of all, let me just say I saw the latest Marvel superhero movie Spiderman: Far From Home. It was fun, but the formula is getting painfully familiar and predictable. Thankfully, I watched another film this week: The Guilty which offers a story that is absorbing, inventive, and unpredictable.

Up and coming director Ari Aster did a somewhat satisfactory job with his first full-length film, Hereditary, from 2018. So his second film Midsommar had promise to be a more succinct and less jumbled horror film about grief, family skeletons, and desperate measures. But instead of getting a delicious compact slice of cake, Midsommar turned out to be a 3-day-old, half-eaten Twinkie plucked out of the garbage and served on a scrap of cardboard.

After an unexplained blackout sweeps the entire planet for 12 seconds, a belabored singer/songwriter in England (an awkward but relaxed Himesh Patel, Eastenders, 2007-2016) slowly discovers he's the only person alive who remembers The Beatles.