Apollo 11 (2019)

Director: Todd Douglas Miller. 93 min. Rated G. Documentary.

A 100% Tomatometer winner, which I'd call a "pure" documentary: a compilation of footage (some previously unseen) of man's first lunar mission, and except for a few soundtrack notes ... nothing else. No narrator, no manipulating sound-image juxtaposition, no directorial point-of-view, nothing. And amazingly, it’s still engaging. Similar to last year's dramatized version, First Man, the fascinating historical moment is how they landed the lunar module seconds before exhausting fuel; but also similar to how between another 100% documentary, Man on Wire, and its counterpart, The Walk, I preferred the dramatized version, here again ... I’d go with First Man.

Mo says:

Captain Marvel (2019)

Director(s): Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck. Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou. 124 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Sci-fi.

Impressed, by how Marvel has tried to come up with a Wonder Woman equivalent ... and succeeded. After a beautiful opening tribute to the late Stan Lee, the indie directors are in no rush to tell their story - they minimize the number of big-budget action scenes, and replace them with the strong foundation of a good story, slowly developing characters for Carol Danvers, a young Nick Fury, and the multiple complicated villains. By the end, you've seen a Marvel movie that similar to Black Panther, works independently on its own terms. And boy, is that post credits scene awesome.

Mo says:

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

Director: Robert Rodriguez. Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Edward Norton. 122 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Sci-fi.

Robert Rodriguez has been making entertaining movies for so many years, but still doesn't get it. He still doesn't know that eye-popping CGI effects never replace (or even undermine) a good story, and females should not become action heroes (with total disregard for what made a female unique for the role) just because it's cool. And then being so self-assured, to actively move the entire plot towards an incomplete ending ... on the very first installment? To show your main villain in the last scene, to prepare for a sequel? Lots of guts.

Mo says:

Suspiria (2018)

Director: Luca Guadagnino. Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Grace Moretz. 152 min. Rated R. Italy/USA. Horror.

Forget the critics: the horror in Dario Argento's giallo movies was all about "the mood" (his stories weren't necessarily scary), and this remake of his 1977 film recreates exactly just that - in updated form. Guadagnino's version does have some discomforting moments, but what I took home were the colors, the costumes, the music, the sounds (or lack thereof). Yes, the ending is corny, but there has rarely been a movie in recent memory where I was so engrossed solely in its haunting atmosphere, I wanted to stay there for a very long time. A must-see for horror lovers.

Mo says: