After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News (2020)

Sobering/maddening look at the way in which the right has been passing off fiction as news -- destroying reputations, livelihoods, and public trust with abandon. The moral bankruptcy and shortsightedness of this behavior is even more surprising when you realize that some are doing it for no other reason than attention (see Jacob Wohl).

As angry as I got at this criminal behavior masquerading as free speech, I was even more troubled to hear that some on the left think that we, too, should be engaging in the same disgusting behavior. Since pushing lies helpful to one's cause has been proven to be such an effective weapon for the right, why shouldn't we use it too? I think it's obvious why this would be dangerous -- why at least one group must make truth of paramount importance... but I'm starting to think we may be too far gone for it to matter.

B

Shot Caller (2017)

Successful family man accidentally kills his best friend when driving drunk and has to quickly adapt to prison life. When his sentence stretches longer than expected, he has to make a choice to let his family go in order to survive... and make sure his wife and son do too.

The story moves seamlessly between "now" and "then (aka how he got to this point)" -- in some movies that type of back-and-forth can feel like a gimmick, but here it felt vital. We make assumptions about who this guy is and find out, little by little, who he actually is. No matter the method, he's always providing for his family.

Unexpectedly good.

B+

Replicas (2019)

I love me some Keanu, but this almost snapped me out of that decades-long given. The dude doesn't so much need to stay in "his lane" as to simply stay OUT of the one in which he cannot believably swim: brainiac. But, even if we overlook his unsuitability for the role, the story itself is a groaner.

It has some promise: a scientist working on a project to download a human brain into a new/robot body is being stymied by the brain's rejection of its new circumstance. That's cool. But, when his wife and three children are killed in an accident, he has to hurry and figure that shit out in order to keep his family (albeit in clone form). If that isn't ridiculous enough, there's the twist that he has to let one of his children stay dead due to insufficient equipment capacity. To minimize the stress on his clone family, his solution is to basically run a "find and delete" of any memories of that kid in their brains. But what about all of the non-family members who knew the girl? Won't they be curious about where she is? Her teachers... grandparents... friends...? Ugh. It's so dumb.

D+

Dirty Dancing (1987)

I was 19 and in my third year of college when this came out so, needless to say, I was exactly the right age to romanticize the hell out of it. Matter of fact, I bought the soundtrack on cassette and played it incessantly -- one night enjoying it through three full times while I made out with my future husband in his tiny Toyota Corolla. So it was a travesty to find out that he'd never actually seen it.

I'm happy to say that, while it's dated and extremely slight, it does hold up. Grey seems slightly out of her league at times, but it doesn't really matter. The music, dancing, and forbidden love are the draws here and it's got those in spades. Also, it was nice to have both Orbach and Swayze, definitely putting the "great" in late, on my screen for the evening.

B-

The Vault (2017)

A squabbling team of robbers hold up a bank & get a bit more than they bargained for. A schlocky waste of time with a twist that is obvious from the minute you hear "1982" and have context for Franco's facial hair and sideburns.

D-

Toast (2011)

Nigel has a distant father and a kind mother who can't cook. He yearns for something tastier to hit the table. He does, sadly, get his wish when his mother dies and his father takes up with rough woman who can set a helluva table. Problem is, he hates everything else about her and she doesn't much care for him.

This is based on the memoir of Nigel Slater, a celebrated London food writer. And, frankly, I didn't buy it. The whole thing came off as "poor little me" when there seemed to be very little that was truly bad in his life. Furthermore, I seriously doubted the pettiness of his stepmother. It seemed unnecessary and counterproductive to her goals.

C-

White Boy Rick (2018)

Rick's family lives on the edges of the law. His sister's an addict, his father buys guns at shows and then sells them on after illegal alterations, and Rick's following in his footsteps. The FBI is keeping an eye on the family and approaches Rick when he has no choice but to agree to work as an undercover informant. Thing is: he's a minor.

This is based on a true story and it's hard to know just how much of it is true, since the FBI allegedly kept the agreement off the record. If it's true, it's fine. If it's not, they should've made it more interesting as long as they're making stuff up anyway.

C+

Thunder Road (2018)

Jim is in crisis. He's a cop whose marriage has recently broken up and whose mother has just died. He's clearly not someone who would be considered "stable" in the best of circumstances, but his recent upheavals seem to be magnifying his issues.

This is a bizarre story. The acting is amazing and we were genuinely interested throughout, but if I'd had to spend much more time in Jim's company, I probably would've had to stretch the viewing over a couple of days. His behavior was almost too cringey to take in a single sitting. This feeling seems to be deliberate on the part of the filmmaker, as everyone in his life seems to share it: his daughter, ex-wife, partner, boss, and siblings. I see that this was a short film first -- I bet it was stronger for its brevity.

B-

Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

History is, to my shame, one of my worst areas of knowledge. I'm not sure it improved a whole lot with this movie, since the facts of what went on behind closed doors can never be completely known. Was Mary the strong, stubborn, but ultimately betrayed woman we see here? Or was she completely to blame for her downfall?

I don't know those answers, but the movie was pretty good.

B

It Comes at Night (2017)

A family has made their home into a fortress to keep the infected out. When a man shows up seeking water for his wife and young son, they decide to combine resources and invite the newcomer and his family to move in.

There was no exposition -- we were dropped into the story and expected to catch up quickly. The few big scares felt earned and the entirety of the film was bathed in dread. This is a good story told with economy.

B

Pride (2014)

The true & incredibly inspiring story of a group of gays deciding to raise money in support of miners during their strike from 1984-85 in the UK.

This is a perfect example of how to do feel-good correctly. I felt like I knew the people and found myself crying several times as I watched them struggle, fail, and succeed. The truly uplifting message is that we all have commonalities -- in this case both the queer community and the miners experienced mistreatment by the government. We can bond over those shared experiences and then grow to celebrate our differences as well. No one is completely "other."

What a joy this was.

A-

Miss Bala (2019)

Gloria's visit to a friend down in Tijuana goes wrong when a club they're in is shot up. The perpetrators know that Gloria can identify them, so they force her to work for them while promising they'll locate her friend. She is then also forced to work as a mole for the DEA within the criminal organization.

No problem, though. She's somehow a badass who is impervious to the bullets flying around her and the rapey-ness every other woman in the vicinity experiences. Well, that's not exactly true -- she has to PG-13 strip for the crime lord and gets caressed. For a movie heavily laced with forced-prostitution, what we actually see on-screen is pretty tame. I'm not really complaining about this.

Just a predictable but fairly competent bore that could almost be a TV movie.

C+

Night Must Fall (1937)

Old Mrs. Bramson is set to give Danny, her maid's boyfriend, a talking-to about marrying the girl since he's already sampled the goods... but instead winds up being charmed into hiring him as a live-in companion. Soon after, a missing woman is found murdered, which puts the entire household at unease. Olivia, Mrs. Bramson's niece who sees right through Danny, is equal parts horrified and titillated by the possibility that Danny is the culprit.

This is a really weird little movie. It's not exactly scary, nor is it played for laughs. The thrill that runs through Olivia when talking to Danny feels almost sexual in nature and I bought it. She's clearly bored with her life and her romantic option and an adventure -- even a sordid one -- is welcome in her life. Like Olivia, I was happy to be caught off-guard by what I was seeing.

B+

Searching (2018)

Recent widower communicates with his teenage daughter mainly through text, so doesn't immediately notice that she's gone missing. Once he realizes, he uses all of the electronic resources at his disposal to, hopefully, figure out where she's gone.

John Cho is quite good as an increasingly frantic father. Less good is Debra Messing as the detective on the case who sounds like she's on a knock-off USA version of Law & Order. "Cops & Consequences," maybe? I immediately had a theory about who was responsible and it turned out to be true, so that's not great either.

B-

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

Another one. But this time in Europe.

C+