Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018):

Using a first-time-seen brand of animation, an all-star voice cast engages Peter Parker across parallel universes where many different versions of Spider-Man exist.  Watching this movie is like reading a comic book, without the "reading" part - the experience is unique, and I felt that I may never really care to see a live-action Spider-Man movie again, as this brand of animation is so involving and pays such appropriate tribute to the source material.   As usual, there is a threat, not just to the world, not just to the galaxy, but to all of reality.  Diabolical villain Wilson Fisk, who lost his family in a car crash, and who blames Spider-Man for that, has created a particle accelerator in an attempt to access versions of his wife and children in alternate dimensions.  As "our" Spider-Man, Peter Parker (voice of Chris Pine) fights to prevent that creation from going online, the worst of all things happens - he is killed at the hands of Fisk.  A young African-American teen named Miles, while all this is happening, gets bitten by a radioactive spider - same thing that created Spider-Man - and feels compelled to stop Fisk, but the boy does not yet have the skills.  As the portal opens, versions of Spider-Persons appear in our time and space, including a female version (Hailee Steinfeld), a 1930s noir version (Nicholas Cage), an over-the-hill version, a cartoon pig version (Spider-Ham), and a Japanese Anime version.  From here on the action is frenetic, the plot is complex, and the characters are well-defined and most likable. Also features the voices of Liev Schreiber, Lily Tomlin, and Mahershala Ali.  Rated PG.

The Quake (2018):

Four years ago a Norwegian film called “The Wave” became to top-grossing movie in that Scandinavian country, so it makes perfect sense to follow it up with a sequel.  The Wave was based on an actual event, a tsunami that destroyed a coastal town and turned many lives upside down. In this film, essentially the same cast comes together as the action picks up three years later.  Not a special effects film, but rather a relationship and cause-and-effect story, scientist Kristian Eikjord (Kristoffer Joner) is once again the focus here. Since the events in “The Wave,” his marriage has failed, and his wife and children have moved to Oslo … and soon Joner finds evidence that the 1904 earthquake that crushed Oslo into sawdust and rubble may soon be ready to repeat.  We have seen this scientist-knows-something-but-authorities-won’t-listen plotline before, but it’s handled with great aplomb here as Joner works to try to save not only his estranged family, but the population of Norway’s largest city. It’s an unusual approach, but interesting. Rated 14A.

Big Kill (2018):

If you long for western movies that hearken back to “those thrilling days of yesteryear,” this serviceable oater reminiscent of drive-in movie westerns of the 1950s and early ‘60s may just fill the bill for you.  The only difference between what we see here, and what we saw in the day of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart westerns are the naughty bits – language and sexual references. If you can get past those, you may feel that you are settled in for a double feature at the movies after the newsreel, a couple of cartoons, and this, the B-movie before the big attraction.  Christoph Sanders, who plays Kyle on “Last Man Standing,” is a mild-mannered tenderfoot from “back east” who sets off for the town of Big Kill, AZ, where he has reason to believe that his brother has hit it big as a saloon owner in this mining boom town. Along the way, his character falls in with a couple of other men headed in the same direction, and they are all surprised to see that the town has fallen on hard times with the mine closed, and businesses going broke.  And much worse … someone who runs the town doesn’t want them there. A fun western. Rated 14A.

Mirage (2019):

A glitch in the space-time continuum creates both opportunities and tragedy for a nurse and single mother named Maria in this Netflix original movie from Spain, shot on location in that country, and in the Canary Islands.  The story revolves around a cataclysmic storm that strikes the area, and lasts 72 hours.  During the storm, Maria's 12 year-old son Nico, who has been videotaping himself playing guitar in her present day, 1989, when he sees something terrible in the house next door.  He runs over there, finds the neighbour dead, and runs back home, but is hit and killed in the street by a speeding car.  25 years later, the same house becomes a conduit for a nurse named Vera, who has a husband and young daughter, to somehow cross into Nico's world, where she tries to save him ... but learns that in this world, her daughter does not exist.  Rated 14A. 

Love, Death & Robots (2019):

This Netflix original series covers a lot of ground, and will be of interest to fans of the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres.  An animated series of short stories, it crosses all the boundaries from space travel to demon possession, with everything in between being on the table for more strange things.  Rated 14A.