“Everyone is afraid of the dark…and that’s what she feeds on.”

Despite rumors to the contrary, I am a full-grown adult. That means I can’t in good conscience admit to being afraid of the dark. The most I’ll concede is a sense of uneasiness if I’m in a dark space because I might bump into something. And if I hear a strange noise in the middle of the night, my mind might start creating sinister shapes out of shadows. (Hold on…am I afraid of the dark?!) Either way, that primal and unshakable fear of what could be hiding just out of sight is what powers Lights Out, one of the leaner, nimbler, and flat-out most enjoyable low-budget horror flicks in recent years.

"Space... The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before."

Every Star Trek fan knows the words by heart. For 50 years they've heralded the promise of something special. From the television show that couldn't but did anyway to 12 feature films. Would #13 be the lucky one? The trailers left many of us worried that it would more than likely be unlucky. And we needed so much for this one to be great. Since the last film we lost Leonard Nimoy, who was most certainly the heart of the franchise on the screen. He was also the gateway between the two incarnations. That loss was eventually expected. Then we tragically lost Anton Yelchin, who was one of the industry’s rising stars. It's the 50th anniversary, and with all this we really needed something good. Trailers said we were out of luck. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I'm here to tell you that you can't judge a film by its trailers. Star Trek Beyond turns out to be not only what the fans wanted... but what we desperately needed.

Captain Fantastic has nothing to do with Elton John. (It turns out that’s not entirely true, because director/writer/actor Matt Ross (Big Love, Silicon Valley) found out his mother played Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy all the time, and it must have imbedded itself in his subconscious). The story in the movie starts in a very Lord of the Flies way, with camouflaged faces hidden amongst the leaves of the woods. They are children, and one of them leaps from the bush with a knife and cuts a deer’s neck. There are seven children and they all belong to Ben (Viggo Mortensen, Lord of the Rings). The oldest boy has killed the deer, and Ben baptizes him in blood and says he is now a man. This would lead one to think this is some kind of radical cult. Anything dangerous and deranged is soon dispelled. It is simply a father teaching his children survival skills. It is a father holding his family together and bonding with them and loving them and passing on knowledge. Ben’s form of home schooling is extremely rigorous and intellectual. This has been a lifestyle for a very long time. His wife has recently gotten very ill and is not with them anymore, living in the woods. Then she dies. Her father, Jack (Frank Langella, The Americans) hates Ben and says he will have Ben arrested if he comes to the funeral, but Jack’s wife, Abigail (Ann Dowd, The Leftovers, The Masters of Sex), hopes a compromise can be formed. Ben decides he won’t go to the funeral, but the children are furious and sad about this. Eventually Ben relents, and they take an old converted bus and hit the road.

The movie is absolutely beautiful. It is a celebration of both nature and a way of life that has almost disappeared. The family is like no family you are likely to know. This becomes especially apparent when they visit family members on the way. Harper (Kathryn Hahn, Transparent, Parks and Recreation), Dave (Steve Zahn, Treme, Modern Family) and their two boys are a typical American family, and they couldn’t be more different than Ben’s brood. In fact, Ben’s philosophies and methods might be considered controversial, so I won’t reveal much about them and let you discover for yourself. If you go see this film, you can decide if it’s a good family or not. Ben is mostly a very reasonable and civilized person, but it is not to say he compromises his principles in any way.

Café Society looks absolutely gorgeous. Every camera setup finds a new authentic location that suggests a time and place long ago. The lighting and cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Last Tango in Paris, Reds, Apocalypse Now) are sumptuous and delicious. The story is novelistic like an F. Scott Fitzgerald magnum opus. Woody Allen has had a long and very productive career. He is definitely at a stage when he should have slowed down, but he doesn’t. Café Society is not Woody’s magnum opus, but it certainly feels like he is reaching for it. It has depth and complexity. It is funny at times but is generally filled with ache and regret. The film is crammed with story and beautiful moments. When one thread seems resolved, it moves on yet again to another. All of Allen’s themes drift through the conversations of the characters, but they seem to have less conviction than they ever had. There seems to be a consistent lack of solidity to these lives. It seems like things matter, but then you come to accept that they don’t. There are so many characters I can hardly begin to list them.

The main character is Bobby Dorfman (Jessie Eisenberg), and his family is central to the story. Bobby’s mother, Rose (Jeannie Berlin) tries to get him to go to Hollywood to work for Phil Stern (Steve Carell), her brother and a big-shot Hollywood agent. Another important thread to the story is that of Jessie’s brother, Ben (Corey Stoll), who is a gangster who eventually becomes the owner of a fancy night club. Café Society winds its way from New York to Hollywood and back again. The other central thread is the story of Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), who is a sweet and unpretentious girl who becomes an object of desire for more than one man. Stewart, by the way, has never been better. She radiates warmth and charisma, her smoky eyes and shy smile recalling famous Hollywood movie stars of the past. She does not play a movie star here, but a secretary without great ambitions.