Directed by Olivia Wilde, and boasting a script by four screenwriters who evidently contributed about 50 superb jokes apiece, the high-school comedy Booksmart is like Scorsese's After Hours without the menace; Superbad without the sexual obsession; Dazed & Confused without the hangover. It is, in other words, utterly delightful – a riotous, warmhearted, unexpectedly wise meditation on growing up that's also cheeky and confident enough to score laughs via condom water balloons and a stuffed panda employed as a sex toy.

On one night, over the course of roughly seven hours, Rozz-Tox patrons can witness back-to-back(-to-back-to-back) screenings of four of the greatest and most influential horror films of all time, with the Rock Island venue and 365 Horror Films hosting May 25's “The Classics” quadruple-feature of 1931's Dracula, 1931's Frankenstein, 1941's The Wolf Man, and 1954's Creature from the Black Lagoon.

In many ways, Long Shot is a traditional rom-com to its teeth: there are slapstick antics and getting-to-know-you montages and familiar pop tunes aplenty; the supporting figures include sensible besties and backstabbing rivals and foolish authority figures; our heroine, when depressed, consumes a pint of Häagen-Daaz in her bathrobe. But it's been a long, long time since a Hollywood feature made me as thunderously happy as I was during director Jonathan Levine's showcase for Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, and the nearly forgotten pleasure of old-school, grown-up screen romance. And yes: I just referenced “Seth Rogen” and “grown-up” in the same sentence. I also referenced “Seth Rogen” and “Charlize Theron” in the same sentence. We can argue later about which seemed less likely.

The curse of La Llorona, as explained in the fittingly titled The Curse of La Llorona, is a piece of Latin American folklore too juicy to be employed merely as a bridge to yet another feature starring that nasty porcelain doll Annabelle. Alas, director Michael Chaves' supernatural horror film is being marketed as the latest in the “Conjuring Universe” that entails two Conjurings (with a third heading our way next year), two Annabelles (with a third heading our way this June), and last fall's dreary The Nun (with a second, and inevitable third, TBA). Every cinematic series, it seems, has to be capitalized Universe now, but am I alone in wishing that this latest entry had functioned merely as a self-contained planet?