There’s a small genre of films I call “cheerfully nasty.” This is an ultra-violent story of hard-core featuring a time-traveling criminal who, between shoot-outs, has a serious conversation with his colleagues about whether Jess, Dean, or Logan is the best boyfriend for Rory. If you don’t know and appreciate that these are casual murderers who have all watched every episode of “The Gilmore Girls,” this may not be for you. But for the right audience, it is a hoot. It has a terrific cast, some delightfully deadpan dialogue, a bunch of great needle-drop songs, some surprising twists throughout, even a post-credit scene with one more.

It opens with Billy Joel’s “Why Should I Worry?” from the 1988 animated film “Oliver & Company” perhaps a nod to another movie with an ampersand in the tile. Symon (Ben Schwartz), a nerdy-looking guy in a garage filled with tech equipment is bopping along as he is doing something techy. Then someone shows up and shoots him. We will find out what been cooking up in that lab and we will see the nerdy guy again in a flashback.

The first of a series of chapter titles tells us we are at: “The Party.” It’s a welcome home party for Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), back from service a prison term. The host is his devoted father, Sosa (Keith David), the local crime kingpin. Sosa jovially welcomes the crowd, but lets them know that the person who framed Jimmy Boy will be dealt with.

Nick (Vince Vaughn) and Mike (James Marsden) are part of Sosa’s crime family. They leave the party to drive to a house, and Nick tells Mike to use a chloroformed handkerchief to knock out the person who answers the door. But when he gets to the door, the person who opens it is — Nick. It turns out that there are two Nicks, one from the present and the one in the car, who is used a time machine invented by Symon a few months in the future to go back in time and prevent Mike from being murdered by an assassin. Sosa believes Mike is the one who framed Jimmy and has sent a very scary hit man who solves the murderer’s biggest problem — disposing of the body — by eating them. Yes, he’s a cannibal assassin.

Another complication: Mike is having an affair with Nick’s estranged wife, Alice (Eiza González).

This is a top-notch cast, and every one of them gets the delicate balance of tone right on the button, keeping the energy of each scene high while they stay matter-of-fact in the most outlandish circumstances and handling the most outlandish dialogue with hilarious understatement. These are all awful people, but some of them are less awful and being funny about all the madness helps keep us on their side.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for an extra scene.

Parents should know that this is a very violent film about criminals who kill without any hesitation. There are many fights and shoot-outs with guns, grenades, and whatever blunt objects are at hand, as well as a cannibal assassin, with graphic and disturbing images. It also includes sexual references, nudity, and non-explicit situations with strippers, prostitutes, and references to impotence. Characters use constant strong language.

Family discussion: If you found a time machine, where would you go?

If you like this, try: “Mr. Right,” “Boss Level,” and “Shoot-Em-Up”

“Fantasy Life” is the story of people in their 30s-50s who are struggling with the kinds of mental health challenges that often accompany or exacerbate mid-life concerns. They do not have money problems, but they have problems of purpose, confidence, loneliness, and feeling that they don’t know how to get what they want out of life. There are chapter titles letting us know what season we’re in. But it feels more unfinished than episodic, as though it could have used one more draft. That may be a reflection of having one person serving as writer, director, and star.

Matthew Shear stars in “Fantasy Life” as Sam, a law school dropout struggling with intrusive thoughts, possible OCD, and panic attacks. In the first minute of the film, he is fired from some kind of file clerk job. And then, he has a panic attack at a bookstore, falls, and gets a cut on his forehead.

We quickly see that he may be lost, but he is a nice guy. At the bookstore, he offers to buy the woman who offers him her thermos. With his therapist, Fred (Judd Hirsch, triggering memories of “Ordinary People”), he apologizes for his “internalized anti-Semitism,” ugly and disturbing thoughts that come to his mind.

And then Fred’s receptionist, Helen (Andrea Martin), who is also his wife, asks Sam if he can do an emergency babysitting job for her three young granddaughters, the children of her son, David (Alessandro Nivola) and his wife Dianne (Amanda Peet). Sam knows that is unorthodox, and possibly inappropriate. But Helen reassures him that it must be okay because they know his family, and, some faint praise, “you’re functional.”

Because he is a pleaser and because he has nothing else to do, he agrees. David gives him a few brisk instructions and rushes out to fill in for an ailing guitar player in a band. And Sam becomes the family’s “Manny,” but he doesn’t like that term.

Dianne is an actress, but she has not worked in many years and is worried that she is too old to get a job. She and Sam become friendly. And David is invited to go on tour with the band.

Shear makes some interesting choices as a director. The sea-green colors in the most significant interiors give us the sense that the adult characters feel like they are under water. In his first evening with the girls, and then again when he is with Dianne, they are framed sitting on a long sofa, looking at us in the audience, where the television would be. But by far his best choice was in casting. Every role is superbly performed. Amanda Peet, who seldom gets a chance to show us the depth of her talent, is breathtaking in every scene as Dianne, an actress who does not know who she is without the kinds of roles that depend on youth and beauty. Nivola shows us that David may be selfish but it is because he is scared and angry that he may not have a chance to be the musician he wants to be. Their scenes together are wrenching because we see that they seem to have forgotten how to connect, how to share their very similar mid-life fears, how not to hurt each other. Jessica Harper, Bob Balaban, and Zosia Mamet make strong impressions in small roles.

The storytelling has some gaps, not just in time but in the kind of information we want to have. At one point, it seems like commentary on the prevalence of psychopharmacology in treating anxiety and depression, and whether that prevents patients from making progress on their issues. At another point, it seems like a commentary on the existential questions of mid-life. but it limits our sympathy for the characters that they come across as spoiled and self-indulgent. What makes it worth seeing is Peet and the other performers, as well as the chance to see a first film from Shear, who deserves a second one.

Parents should know that this film has strong and crude language, characters with mental health challenges, family confrontations, and sexual references including accusations of adultery. Characters drink, including drinking to excess and drinking to numb feelings, and there is brief drug use.

Family discussion: Was Sam a good nanny? Why didn’t Dianne want to film her audition?

If you like this, try: “While We’re Young”

“Project Hail Mary” is everything we hope for in a movie, filled with intelligence, humor, heart, and hope. It also has one of the rarest of qualities in a movie: genuine joy.

If we are going to spend much of the run-time with one actor, there couldn’t be a better choice than Ryan Gosling, who is a quintessential American boy-you-wish-lived-next-door hero, with self-deprecating humor, and the superpower of the scientist trifecta: boundless curiosity, problem-solving skill, and extensive knowledge of the physical properties and the organic world. Those three qualities overlap and enhance each other. If curiosity is your foundational mode of thought, there is no room for fear. And knowledge and not panicking help a lot with problem-solving.

Gosling plays an unassuming middle school science teacher named Ryland Grace. In a brief classroom scene we learn two things. First, he loves teaching and inspires his students. Second, as the students ask him questions about rumors and bits of news reports they’ve heard, there may be an existential threat in some changes to the sun. He does his best to answer honestly but reassuringly. And then, as he is about to ride home on his bicycle, he is quasi-Shanghaied by some mysterious but official-looking people. They are the ones monitoring the dimming of the sun and trying to figure out what is going on and how to stop it. The leader of this initiative is Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), perhaps selected for this role because of her ability to move forward, eliminating every consideration except whatever it takes to keep the planet alive.

Hüller and Gosling play very well off of each other as the resolute Stratt and the amiably goofy Grace. The middle school math teacher has a degree in molecular biology and was tossed out of academia for a theory that was so far outside of conventional belief it was considered not scientifically valid.

It is his openness to think outside conventional belief that makes him immediately valuable to Stratt. And eventually we will learn how that led to his being sent on an interstellar mission to find out why just one star has not been affected or infected and what that means for saving our sun. A karaoke scene where Stratt sings Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” brings them together for a brief respite from the overwhelming existential threat; it is a pivot point at the heart of the story.

Information about the past is revealed to us as Grace remembers it in pieces. He has been in an induced coma as he traveled through space. The other members of the crew have died. But he is not alone for long. He meets an alien who is there for the same purpose. They find a way to communicate, and they work together to save the stars.

The alien, a sort of spider-looking creature who looks like he/she/it/they is/are made out of rocks and so nicknamed Rocky, is utterly endearing to Grace and to us. They manage to create a translation program so they can communicate but it helps a lot that for both of them their first language is science. Numbers and molecules and physics are the same in any language, even when the words for them are different. And, as Grace says, if his puny human brain does not understand what Rocky wants to say, Rocky uses his masterful construction skills to make little puppet figures to show Grace what he means.

They do have their adjustment problems. There is a scene that could be a sci-fi version of “The Odd Couple.” But the friendship that develops between them is immensely touching and the way they think through their challenges is hugely satisfying.

The production design by Charles Wood and special effects by a huge team are stunning. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are the brains and heart behind some of the funniest, smartest and most joyfully buoyant animated films of the past two decades, including “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” the “Spider-Verse” films, and “The LEGO Movie.” Their visual imaginations are witty, accessible, and thrilling. The score by Daniel Pemberton is excellent. And costume designers David Crossman and Glyn Dillon deserve a special award for Grace’s sweater, t-shirts, and glasses, which achieve the near-impossible in making Ryan Gosling look even more adorable and yet relatably human than we imagined.

Gosling contributes a lot to that as well, of course. He makes Grace just a little shrubby, but heroic in a way he does not realize. When he remembers something about his past near the end, when he is faced with a dire moral dilemma, when he finds a connection to Rocky that is more meaningful than any he has ever had before and realizes that connection is as important to saving both their planets as all the science and engineering they can draw on. Gosling does not just show us what Grace is feeling; he makes us feel it, too. His comic timing is impeccable, and he is just as good at the drama, the fear, and the adventure.

I do this job because in my heart I believe that movies are the culmination of every art form imagined by humans, the greatest story-telling mechanism ever developed. “Project Hail Mary” makes use of every part of that story-telling capacity, a film that makes us feel good about the characters, about the people who devoted all of their skill to making it, and about being human.

Parents should know that this movie is about a threat that could destroy all life on Earth. Characters are in peril and some are killed. There is some mild languages and references to bodies and characters drink alcohol.

Family discussion: If you woke up in a spaceship, what is the first thing you would do? If you met Rocky what questions would you ask?

If you like this, try; the book by Andy Weir and the book and movie of “The Martian“

Before it was eclipsed by the superior guide to movies by Leonard Maltin, the late Steven H. Scheuer’s 1970s Movies on TV, dismissively referred to some romantic dramas as “for the ladies.” If he was still writing, the third firm based on a popular Colleen Hoover novel, this one co-written and co-produced by Hoover, would likely merit that description, along with “weepie” and possibly “syrupy.” It’s a story of redemption, reunion, healing, and romance, glossily filmed, with talented and attractive performers, which almost makes up for the fact that it may be watchable but it is not very good.

It stars Maika Monroe, more recently known for horror films like “Longlegs,” but worth checking out her earlier romantic drama, “After Everything,” opposite pre-“Bear” Jeremy Allen White. She plays Kenna, who returns to her home town after being released early for good behavior from a seven-year prison sentence. She asks the cab driver to stop at a. makeshift roadside memorial and takes the cross, telling us “Scotty hated memorials.”

She has returned home because she wants to see the daughter who was taken from her minutes after birth, now almost six years old and being raised by her grandparents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford).

As Kenna starts from scratch, moving into a seedy apartment building. The landlord (“Schitt’s Creek’s Jocelyn, Jennifer Robertson), insists that Kenna take a kitten. No one wants to hire a felon. But a kind-hearted assistant manager at a grocery store played by country star Laney Wilson gives her a chance as a bagger.

Kenna stops by what used to be a bookstore/cafe that she loved. It is now a bar owned by Ledger (Tariq Withers). He is drawn to her but she is not ready to make a friend. And then it turns out there is a connection. Scotty, whose memorial Kenna destroyed, was Ledger’s lifelong best friend. He is a former NFL player, now living in his childhood home, across the street from Grace, Patrick, and the daughter Kenna is desperate to see, Diem (Zoe Kosovic). Ledger is devoted to Diem and she adores him.

When Ledger finds out that Kenna is the one who was convicted of vehicular manslaughter after the car accident that killed Scotty (played in flashbacks by Rudy Pankow, who even seen briefly is able to make us understand why everyone misses Scotty so much), he is furious, and he prevents her from seeing Diem. But he is still drawn to her. As he realizes how vulnerable and devastated she is, he offers her a part-time job at the bar. They begin to warm to each other.

It’s very soapy. As often happens with an adaptation of a book with an army of fans, there are details and characters that seem barely sketched in because a film script won’t have the time to develop them that an author has in a novel and a reader has the opportunity to fill in as she pictures the story in her mind. The situations and attempts at humor are contrived and the dialogue is clunky except when it is said by Diem or by Kenna’s neighbor and fellow bagger, a spunky young woman with Down syndrome named Lady Diana (the appealing Monika Myers), when it is just sugary. It ham-handedly signals Kenna’s increasing confidence by having her start combing her hair and go from tiny cut-offs to pants. The scene with Scotty and Ledger laughing when high as teenagers is not nearly as endearing as it tries to be. The story feels like Temu Nicholas Sparks. But Monroe and Withers give strong performances, doing much more than the script to make us feel the conflicts and chemistry of Kenna and Ledger. That plus the inherent belief in the themes of second chances make it watchable, if pleasantly forgettable.

Parents should know that this film includes mature material including a fatal car crash, a guilty plea to vehicular homicide while under the influence of drugs, custody issues, alcohol and drug use, sexual references and non-explicit situations, and some strong language.

Family discussion: Was Kenna’s sentence fair? What made Ledger change his mind about her?

If you like this, try: the book by Colleen Hoover as well as “The Lucky One,” “An Unfinished Life,” “Gifted,” and “What Maisie Knew”

Imagine that the little band you put together in your teens exceeded every possible dream of success, worldwide fame, rave reviews, unprecedented adoration from fans, buckets of awards, and money money money. Then, it all ends, the band breaks up, the complications from business managers and lawyers and hard feelings create intense misery. And you’re only 27 years old.

That is what happened to Sir Paul McCartney as the 1960s were ending. This film, produced by Sir Paul, tells the story of what he did next.

The first thing he did next was a combination of unwinding and despair. Sir Paul, his wife Linda and her daughter from her first marriage moved to a remote farm that seemed like it was at the end of the world. He tells us he thought he would never write another note.

The peace of the farm is healing. He likes the sheep. He becomes a vegetarian. Linda has a baby. And then he returns to music with the McCartney album, the one with, in my opinion, one of the greatest love songs of all time, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” and then Ram with “Too Many People,” what today we’d call a diss track about John Lennon (not discussed in the film).

He wants to go. back to his roots, start a new group. Linda agrees to join. “Well, that’s two, then,” Paul says. His plan is to play at small venues and have the kind of band the Beatles was in the days of the Cavern Club and Hamburg, where, in his mind, everyone was equal. Much has been written about whether the Beatles was equal with two people writing most of the songs and making most of the decisions, but whether it was or not, four teenagers performing in their home town of Liverpool is not the same thing as an international superstar assembling (hiring) a new band.

It is a lot of fun at first, traveling around and playing for small groups who are more surprised and curious than appreciative. Like a Supreme Court justice arguing your ticket in traffic court or George Takei showing up to act in your fanfic “Star Trek” movie. This is what Sir Paul loves, playing music with his mates for an audience who isn’t drowning out the music with screams.

Documentarian Morgan Neville has assembled archival clips, including some endearing home movies, in an impressionistic, occasionally whimsical, mosaic. Sir Paul, who produced, is famously cheerful (compare his Christmas song to Lennon’s, and recall that he wrote “You have to admit it’s getting better” and Lennon added “Can’t get no worse”). His oddly cool reaction the day Lennon was murdered is included, though sympathetically portrayed as a response to an unforgivably rude question. In this film he allows himself to get more introspective than usual, talking about how he and John were estranged but never stopped loving each other and about how Linda and his children helped bring him back to music. When Wings breaks up, he knows he can start again. And if he never reaches the heights of the Beatles era, that’s fine. As a fan of Sir Paul for decades, who’s seen him in concert twice, I found this a pleasure.

Parents should know this film includes some strong language and social drinking.

Family discussion: What would you do if everything you had worked for suddenly stopped? What is your favorite Paul McCartney song?

If you like this, try: “A Hard Days Night” and “Get Back”