It's been almost ten years since we last saw Jesse and Celine -- the chatty couple played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy for three movies now -- but it took me all of five minutes into Before Midnight to fall back in love with them. That's the unique power of this series, overseen by director Richard Linklater and written in close collaboration by him and his two stars. No matter how long the gap between movies has been or how completely the characters' lives have changed, when Jesse and Celine turn to each other and start one of their famously epic conversations, it feels like no time has passed at all.

Much like an actual hangover, the Hangover franchise has lingered around multiplexes long after the pleasant buzz of the original hit has passed. The Hangover Part III, then, is the cinematic equivalent of the two aspirin and/or special cocktail of Tabasco sauce, raw eggs, peanut butter and whatever the hell else is in the fridge that you knock back in order to rid yourself of that queasy feeling that accompanies the morning after a long night of binge drinking. The only difference is that those miracle cures generally improve your mood, whereas this movie will likely leave you more nauseous. In the interests of AA-inspired group sharing, if you're planning to spend Memorial Day weekend in the company of the Wolf Pack, here are five things you should know:

After turning it over in my brain a bit, I think I've come up with an analogy for why Star Trek Into Darkness proves so disappointing as the second entry in J.J. Abrams's rebooted Trek film franchise. Bear with me a moment while I set this up: (Warning: Spoilers Follow)

Over the course of building Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios developed a house style for their blockbuster comic book movies that included a bright color palette, a light tone (particularly compared to their Distinguished Competition's more somber wares like Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy and Bryan Singer's self-serious Superman) that made room for plenty of humor amidst the derring-do, villains with a lot of firepower (but not much menace) and straightforward stories that lobbed few curveballs at the audience. What's interesting about Iron Man 3, which kicks off Phase 2 of the MCU, is that it very deliberately goes about blowing up Marvel's house style... along with the house of its signature hero, Tony Stark -- played, as always, by Robert Downey Jr. That particular point isn't a spoiler, since it's been heavily featured in the movie's many trailers and teasers. However, in order to really get into why IM3 represents such a departure (at least for a little while) from the Marvel status quo, I'm going to have to get into more specific detail about what incoming writer/director Shane Black (taking over from franchise starter, Jon Favreau) has in store for Tony and his armored alter ego without, of course, giving the whole game away. So here's a Spoiler Warning for anyone who has an ironclad resolve to go into the theater without hints of any kind.

When Paramount initially announced last year that they would be moving G.I. Joe: Retaliation -- the sequel to 2009's sort-of hit The Rise of Cobra (which earned $150 million domestically, but cost close to $200 million to make and market) -- from its mid-summer berth to the following March, the common assumption was that the studio was running from an impending flop. In hindsight though, the move qualifies as a stroke of genius. Facing a packed line-up of back-to-back blockbusters that included The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, Retaliation was in danger of getting lost in the summer shuffle. But now at the end of March -- with A Good Day to Die Hard in the rearview and Iron Man 3 over a month away -- it has the big-budget action movie sequel playing field to itself. So the movie's financial success is seemingly assured. It's creative success? Well... that's a different story. Before you too join the ranks of the millions of moviegoers screaming "Yo, Joe!" this weekend, here are five things to know about Retaliation.

It's been almost a decade since the One Ring was cast into the fires of Mount Doom, rescuing Middle-earth from the scourge of Sauron. In the wake of that triumph, Aragon reclaimed his throne, Frodo sailed off to the Grey Havens and Sam returned home to his wife and daughter with an earnest, "Well, I'm back." As for Peter Jackson -- the unlikely filmmaker who brought J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings to life onscreen in a trio of much-loved blockbusters -- he's gone from being a New Zealand-based cult favorite to a reigning master of Hollywood spectacle, alongside directors like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg.

Let's start off by answering the biggest question first: yes, Skyfall really is as great as you've been hearing. The 23rd entry in the venerable James Bond franchise isn't just the best studio blockbuster of the year -- featuring a better story than The Avengers, fewer logic gaps than The Dark Knight Rises and rip-roaring action sequences that easily outclass pretenders like The Hunger Games and Battleship -- it also ranks in the top five (hell, maybe even the top three) Bond adventures that have come along in 007's now 50-year big-screen history. In a fall that's packed with awards-friendly prestige pictures, Skyfall is reminder that a smart, beautifully-crafted and, in general, kick-ass action movie can be as worthy of serious acclaim and respect as any historical biopic or weighty drama. With that out of the way, time to get to some of your other burning queries:

Another October, another Paranormal Activity sequel. Having already ended the reign of the previous premiere Halloween horror franchise (those infernal Saw movies), Paranormal Activity is now the scary movie season's big kahuna -- the film that other studios go out of their way to avoid competing against. Which is why Paranormal Activity 4 is flooding the multiplex unopposed two weeks before the trick-or-treating and/or costume party debauchery begins. Since, as always, the details of the movie have been kept shrouded in secrecy, here are four things you should know about this fourth chapter before you head off to the theater. See you back here -- same spooky time, same spooky channel -- in October 2013 for Paranormal Activity 5.

With Halloween on the horizon, horror movies are crawling out of the woodwork to seize on the public appetite for all things spooky. Last week, the excellent anthology V/H/S opened in limited theatrical release following a run on VOD, while next Friday brings the return of the powerhouse Paranormal Activity franchise, now in its fourth edition. Before that well-known brand name clogs up multiplex screens in a week's time, three lesser-known horror titles open today to get a jump on the competition. One of them is actually spooky, while the only scary thing about the other two is that someone thought they were worth making.

Dumped into American theaters in January 2009, few people expected the French-produced action movie Taken to do much business on these shores, even with a noted star like Liam Neeson in the lead role. But not only did the film become a hit, it was a massive hit, almost doubling its international gross over the course of its domestic theatrical run. It also gave Neeson a whole new career as a bankable action star, paving the way for such movies as The A-Team, Unknown and The Grey (well, one out of three ain't bad). A sequel was unnecessary, but also inevitable and this time around, Taken 2 is getting the prime October berth and major ad campaign that befits a big Hollywood (by way of Europe) blockbuster. So the release recipe is a bit different, but the movie itself turns out to be exactly the same.