Sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason, and oftentimes it’s because there is at least some bit of truth to them. I’ll dust off this old chestnut for “Roman Holiday”: They don’t make them like they used to.

Midway through “Bad Education” there’s a montage sequence in which small candy canes and Christmas cards are being stuffed into envelopes. These cards are meant for the parents of the Roslyn, Long Island, NY, school system.

By now we’ve gotten used to the ritual that surrounds the release of the live-action version of a popular Disney animated film. (Never the unpopular ones. I’m not holding my breath for a star-studded reimagining of “The Black Cauldron.”) The Mouse House’s marketing machine goes into overdrive…

As many fans of the iconic British comedy troupe Monty Python well know, the best choice for the role of an authority figure who constantly gets thwarted is John Cleese. No one puts on the airs of high-minded grace and dignity like Cleese.

As an avid movie watcher, and particularly as one who is required to think critically about the sounds and images being paraded in front of me, it’s easy to get cynical. I see a premise for a movie like “The King of Staten Island,” in which a 24-year-old pot smoking, tattoo drawing burn out…

It’s been said that art imitates life. It’s also been said that history repeats itself. The truth in these axioms was clearer than ever to me as I watched “The Outpost,” about a U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan who had to battle back an onslaught of Taliban fighters in 2009.

“Lorenzo’s Oil” has a first half that shows why some people become atheists, and a second half that shows how some people find their way to God. The movie, which is from 1992, starts off in 1984 and tells the story of Lorenzo Odone, played most prominently by Zack O’Malley Greenburg, a five-year-old stricken with what at one point is described as a “heartless disease” called adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD for short.

Charlie and Nicole Barber (Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson) are a couple going through a separation. It’s made clear in the beginning that they were once very happy. The reasons pulling them apart are not revealed immediately…What is clear is that once lawyers get involved in their break-up, the couple goes from amicable to acrimonious very quickly.

Barbara Stanwyck is a charmer. With her petite frame and inviting smile, she has a sweet, endearing, approachable, girl next door quality that makes her extremely likeable—even if the character she is playing is a swindler, like in 1941’s “The Lady Eve.”

A great shock awaited me in the opening of “Trolls: World Tour.” No, it wasn’t the discovery that the land inhabited by Queen Poppy (voice of Anna Kendrick) and her best pal Branch (voice of Justin Timberlake) was one of many in a much larger world.

With all of the pomp, circumstance, glitz, and glamor that comes with being a Hollywood movie star, it’s easy for us outsiders to lose focus on what is under that veneer. Before any of your favorite performers were stars, they were struggling actors, trying to make a name for themselves.

There’s a banter between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson that, when done properly, is musical. The contrast between the flabbergasted Watson, played in 1979’s “Murder by Decree” by James Mason, and the exuberant Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer), creates a rhythm.

The opening credits of “The Etruscan Smile” waste no time. Just a logo and some company credits, then the directing credit for co-directors Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis. That’s it. We then jump to the title screen and are off and running with the movie.

Say the numbers “40” and “41” to a Chicago Bears fan and it’s an almost sure bet they’ll know who you mean. For the rest of us, these numbers belong to Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, two running backs for the Bears who both came to the team in 1965.

Possessed cheese is a thing. At least it is according to “Extra Ordinary,” a comedy from Ireland about a driving instructor named Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins) who also has the gift to communicate with ghosts. “Gift” though, is the wrong word.

It’s been standard for a while for modestly budgeted motion pictures to use Toronto, Ontario, as a stand in for New York. The city structure, climate, and architecture are close enough to make it believable. As of “The Invisible Man,” we can add another replacement city to the list.

The 3D animated movies made by Pixar look good—really good. They’ve been impressing audiences with their depth of field, light and shadow, and their own rules of physics for the past twenty-five years. This is great, but they also have not changed much in that time.

If a movie like “The Call of the Wild” doesn’t give you a hankering to see the Alaska and the Yukon territory in Canada, nothing will.

Looking up director Osgood Perkins (son of Anthony Perkins of “Psycho” fame, for those keeping score of such things) on IMDB, I discovered that he started his directing career in 2015. This is because most of his credits are as an actor under the name Oz Perkins.