Movies are endlessly surprising. Take How to Be a Latin Lover. In a sane world, I’d follow that with the Catskills-comedian punchline “Please” – although on the day I attended, others were clearly looking forward to it more than I was. The friendly ticket-counter employee told me how much she loved what I thought were pretty noxious previews for the comedy, and directed me to the auditorium with “Try not to laugh too hard!” (“No problem,” I silently replied.) The incessantly chatty patrons sitting behind me expressed excitement about the impending “pool scene,” which, again, looked astoundingly unamusing in the trailers. Then I saw the film. And damn it if this latest vehicle for Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez wasn’t a sweet, moderately clever outing boasting a peppy spirit, a bunch of inspired performers, and a fistful of truly riotous moments. I swear: Sometimes, this job makes no sense at all.

Not to be grossly insensitive, but films such as The Promise – writer/director Terry George’s historical epic set amidst the (still-contested) Armenian genocide of World War I – make me wish there were even more comic-book movies. X-Men: Apocalypse, after all, gave us Oscar Isaac as a world-destroyer, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies gave us Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader, and both actors were infinitely more entertaining in those outings than they are in this turgid love-triangle melodrama – a ceaselessly phony piece of “prestige” moviemaking that feels like it’s unsuccessfully aiming for Best Picture of 1985. (The dull movie that did win that prize, Out of Africa, feels like Pulp Fiction in comparison.)

Friday, April 7, 10:05 a.m.-ish: To misquote Dickens, 10:05 proves the best of time and the worst of time. The best because I’m currently seated next to my favorite movie-going companion under the age of three. The worst because the movie we’re seeing is the animated Smurfs: The Lost Village, which turns out to be like the live-action Smurfs from 2011 and 2013 if you surgically removed Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, and Jayma Mays. In other words: awful.

Friday, March 24, 10 a.m.-ish: My latest back-to-back-to-back-to-back screenings start with Power Rangers, director Dean Israelite’s big-screen reboot of the 1990s’ Mighty Morphin Power Rangers franchise. If you’re wondering whether the film is just like the TV series, I’m gonna take a stab and say no, unless that Fox Kids show also opened with a gag about a high-schooler masturbating a bull. But until it inevitably turns into typically noisy and endless action-flick nonsense, this unashamedly juvenile entertainment is actually kind of endearing, primarily because it appears less interested in being the new Transformers than the new Breakfast Club.