Ruthless People ☆☆ (2/5) 4/5/19

Nobody’s ever going to confuse Ruthless People for a good movie, but it’s silly 80’s camp and did good things for Bette Midler’s career.

For some reason it really makes me laugh when she nails Judge Reinhold in the face with the coffee mug.

A waste of time, but a mildly amusing waste of time.

Russian Doll ☆☆☆☆☆ (5/5) 4/1/19

I feel like Natasha Lyonne really Gets Me, ya know?

Sweet jumping Jesus, I loved this show.

Literally anything I could say about the clever plot would be a spoiler of some sort, so I’ll just say the acting and writing are terrific. Lyonne’s performance is spellbinding – rough, raw, and hilarious, but Charlie Barnett and Elizabeth Ashley also shine. Ritesh Rajan is gorgeous. Brendan Sexton iii (Hey, remember the “I’m gonna rape you at 3 o’ clock” bully from Welcome to the Dollhouse? That’s him!) kills his role in a really special way that I predict is about to give him a solid career boost.

Check out the definition-of-cool playlist of the show’s songs, too.

One of my all time favorite TV shows.

Watch it.

Us ☆☆☆☆ (3.5/5) 3/21/19

This one’s really, Really tricky for me to review. Most of the movie is terrific fun, with frequent tonal shifts between humor and horror that are beautifully played. Lupita Nyong’o kills it in what is (somehow) her first starring role. I had a great time.

Until the ending. Which is…. I don’t want to say garbage, but I’m afraid that’s what it is. Garbage. Way too much time is spent explaining what just happened, and the explanation is stupid. It doesn’t make sense as metaphor, and it certainly doesn’t hold up as a thing that could actually physically happen.

I’m going to focus on the good times, and give this a recommendation as an entertaining fun house ride, but I’m also very disappointed.

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase ☆☆☆ (3/5) 3/17/19

I’m a Nancy Drew fan. As a kid, I read all 50 of the books in the original series, many of them in different editions since they were updated and changed over the years (Shout out to the true original author, Mildred Wirt, whose books are still the best, even though they’re dated). I have a decent collection of early editions from the 30’s and 40’s. Maybe that helps my enjoyment here, since I had high hopes for this latest reboot.

Sophia Lillis is a great young actress, and of all the TV and movie Nancys, she is by far the most suited to the role. It’s dream casting. Linda Lavin and Laura Wiggins are also quite good, and the script’s emphasis of character over mystery is well played, if not ideal. Wiggins plays Helen Corning, an early and often forgotten friend of Nancy’s – her inclusion here is the first of many indications that this movie was made by fans of the material.

The problem, such as it is, is that Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase feels like the pilot for a 90’s TV show. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’d watch the hell out of that show. It does seem a little cinematically uninspired, though.

The most important thing is that in spite of the updates (and a thin mystery), this does feel like a real Nancy Drew story. I think it might be appreciated by its intended age group.

I hope we get to see Lillis in the role again.

Captain Marvel ☆☆ (2/5) 3/17/19

I saw Captain Marvel in Imax tonight, and the second-weekend audience was definitely appreciative.

Was I missing something? To me, Captain Marvel is on the very low end of Marvel movies. Better than Thor 2, but not as good as Doctor Strange, which at least had clever effects.

This one is extremely routine factory filmmaking. The jokes are sitcom-y, the plotting is predictable, and Brie Larson’s too slick performance doesn’t land. I didn’t care about her.

Seeing the Skrulls as refugees instead of an evil empire was a nice twist, and so was meeting the young Monica Rambeau, a character that also goes on to become a Captain Marvel in the comics.

Not a terrible movie, but a disappointing one.

The Hole in the Ground ☆☆ (2/5) 3/13/19

This mostly routine horrorshow gets a definite lift from its talented cast – even the actors who only get a few minutes screen time succeed in creating interesting, particular characterizations, and the kid is especially good. The direction is solid, hitting all the usual creepy marks effectively.

There’s a kind of gothic slow-burn, atmospheric horror flick that is comfort viewing for me, and I suspect many other people. I love the shadows and stairs and cracked mirror bullshit as much as anyone. And it’s a plus when things actually get a little squicky, too.

My problem with The Hole in the Ground is that the only way it stands out (aside from the acting) is that it really punches its creepy-kid-as-postpartum-depression metaphor. And for me, that kind of kills the comfort viewing and just makes it sad. At the same time, the horror beats are so ingrained and uninspired that it’s hard to take the film too seriously. The silly climax in the hole doesn’t help, either.

I wouldn’t exactly recommend this one, but if it’s your kind of thing… you’ve seen worse.