current and classic film reviews for all of those wonderful people out there in the dark
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.
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.
More time travel shenanigans, less fun.
This sequel goes full Back to the Future at the expense of the original’s slasher mystery set-up. It feels both more overstuffed and more routine at the same time.
Unfortunately, the cast, whose work was at least serviceable last time, fails completely at adding value.
Disappointing.
…Assholes.
Look, I’m sorry. This review isn’t going to be empathetic or sensitive to the feelings of its subject or makers. Because I think they’re a bunch of assholes.
Alex Honnold, with his Jedi warrior masturbatory bullshit, is an asshole. His foundation sounds cool, but this movie isn’t about that – because he probably won’t die funding it. The filmmakers, who are clearly more interested in filming an aberrant personality possibly falling to his death than celebrating an athletic feat, are bigger assholes. Acknowledging (or faking in clearly staged conversations) their feelings about that makes them worse, not better. Alex playing to the camera during his climb is creepy, not cool.
I’ll leave the girlfriend out of my judgemental name-calling because she’s only hurting herself by pretending his (barely maintained) simulation of feeling is the same as caring. We’ve all made bad choices.
(Tommy Caldwell comes off okay as a supportive friend.)
Clever cardboard box effects on a generic bag cereal budget.
I’ll overlook the amateurish acting, as that can be part of the fun with microbudget features like this, but I wish as much thought had been put into the plot and dialogue as the amusing cardboard effects.
DMaM isn’t a great movie by any stretch, in fact it’s barely a good one, but I would unconditionally recommend it to any viewer who misses the “let’s put on a show” quality of the 90’s indies.
…inoffensive, I guess.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before starts cute, but loses steam quickly.
The set-up is fun and the (mostly) appealing young actors smile a lot, but the stakes are low and the outcome is predictable. There’s not even a B story to flesh things out a little.
At one point, the characters watch the problematic classic 16 Candles and rightly comment on its racism. This movie isn’t racist, but it also doesn’t have 16 Candles’ charm or humor or weirdness. This movie isn’t 16 Candles – or the even better Easy A. But it’s okay. It’s fine.
in the dark 