Richard E. Grant

[7] It’s best to go into The Rise of Skywalker knowing that this third Star Wars trilogy has never had a strong guiding hand. It’s not the result of a carefully premeditated creative effort. Creator George Lucas was not there watching over everything for these three films — and for good and for bad, it shows. Episode 9 is the result of a studio panicking …

[3] Bruce Willis stars in this ill-conceived action comedy that’s neither exciting nor funny. Willis plays a master thief who’s hired to steal priceless artifacts created by Leonardo Da Vinci, so some bad guys can use Da Vinci’s secret technology to turn lead into gold. Isn’t that some shit? Along the way, he’s aided by his buddy Danny Aiello, and kinda falls for a vatican …

[6] Melissa McCarthy shifts gears with a dramatic turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the true story of celebrity biographer Lee Israel, who after decades of success writing best-selling books about the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Estee Lauder, and Tallulah Bankhead, found herself in a desperate dry spell in the early ’90s. She turned to forgery to make ends meet, selling fake private letters …

[8] Writer/director James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) returns to the X-Men franchise after 2013’s The Wolverine and serves up a highly satisfying conclusion for its centerpiece hero. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart return as Logan/Wolverine and Charles/Professor X, respectively. They are joined by young Dafne Keen, playing a child mutant in a 2029 future where mutants have gone nearly extinct. But military-scientist …

[6] Philip Kaufman (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Right Stuff, Quills) directs this adaptation of Anais Nin’s autobiography, about her sexual escapades with Henry Miller and his wife June in 1930s Paris. Movies that turn sex into some sort of transcendental experience leave me cold and bored. If I appreciated the approach more, Henry & June is a fine film with good performances from …