Category: Detective

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.

Mindhunter (TV) ☆ (1/5) 2/3/19

Dull and drawn-out Silence of the Lambs wannabe.
 “Just the facts, ma’am.”

I’m not a David Fincher fan. I think his only really good movie is Zodiac, otherwise I think that somehow his chilly style prevents people from seeing just how flat and on the nose his work is.

Mindhunter was filmed in my hometown, though (My childhood Dairy Queen is in it!), and I am interested by Jonathan Groff, because he’s an out gay actor and because I think his performances are weird. Not in that fake, attention grabbing Johnny Depp way, more in an, “I don’t know if I think that is good or awful,” way.

I don’t know if I think Groff’s performance here is good or awful, either. His natural charm keeps shining through the cold fishface he sinks into as his character becomes increasingly obsessed with his serial killer work. He’s definitely watchable, and the other actors do their best to shine through the low-key material they’re given. Holt McCallany is especially good.

It’s just all so… gray. Happy Anderson elevates his scenes by flirting with camp, and a less stagnant director could have really turned that into something special, but Mindhunter doesn’t want to be fun or suspenseful. It wants to be Serious, and it has all the flat affect of a modern Dragnet.

Don’t even get me started on the stupidity of that recurring cat thing. I’m still mad at how that pays off.