Freelance (2023)

Cena is ex-special forces toiling away in a desk job and on the brink of divorce. He agrees to handle a personal security job for a reporter (Alison Brie) traveling to interview a dictator, but things go sideways pretty quickly.

This is clearly going for the fun danger of movies like "The Lost City," but it falls completely flat. The casting -- though good -- can neither save the limp script nor make us forgive the poor green screen effects.

D

Pain Hustlers (2023)

Liza is a struggling single mother who, despite no experience in the field, pushes her way into a position as a pharmaceutical rep. The company -- the producer of a quick-acting pain med -- is on the brink of collapse as they are a new player going up against established brands to whom the doctors are loyal. Note: the docs are loyal to the perks they get from the companies for prescribing their drugs, not to the drugs themselves and definitely not to their patients.

Equal parts fascinating, entertaining and maddening. A terrific explainer for why capitalism simply should not be part of medicine.

B

Columbus (2017)

Jin travels from Korea to Columbus, Indiana where his estranged father has had a medical emergency, resulting in a coma. Meanwhile Casey, a recent high school graduate and architecture enthusiast, is stagnating in the town. The two form an odd friendship focused on the modernist architecture dotting the town and this relationship somehow pushes each of them forward.

It took a while -- nearly 45 minutes -- for this movie to hit its stride. Until that point, I was wondering who sucked all of the joy out of everyone on screen. The scenes seemed to stretch way beyond the point of useful storytelling and the camera was sometimes held away from speakers. There was a particularly disorienting section that vacillated between two different time points and two different settings (a bar and a hotel room) while maintaining the music from the bar for both locations. There seemed to be no gain from this confusing choice.

All that said, it did wind up having something to say and I do want to visit Columbus to see the amazing structures first-hand.

B-

Close (2022)

Leo and Remi are the type of best friends who spend every waking minute together. If they aren't spending the night their parents ask why, since it's unusual for them to be apart. Only when they begin junior high and their closeness is questioned does Leo begin to see the relationship through different eyes. Remi struggles to understand the new paradigm as Leo begins to place boundaries and forge a new path for himself.

This tore me up in a primal way. The topics are so natural and familiar -- even though I'm in my 50s, I can remember the all-encompassing hurt of a friendship coming apart. It's a marvelous and brutal film.

A+

Quiz Lady (2023)

Sisters Anne and Jenny grew up with a flighty mother, resulting in a bare-bones homelife. The nightly game show "Can't Stop the Quiz" provided the only predictability for the younger Anne. Even into her solitary adulthood, Anne continues to watch and, as a result, has become a trivia master. When the larger-than-life Jenny crashes into Anne's life, she quickly sees the potential of Anne's savant-like ability to answer the quiz questions and soon enough Anne's on her way to audition.

It's fun, but too lightweight and predictable to truly recommend.

C+

Master Gardener (2023)

Narvel, a quiet man, is in charge of the gardening staff at a large estate. The owner is a dowager who calls him "sweet pea" and occasionally calls him up to the main house for a meal and a fuck. She seems especially titillated by his array of white-power tattoos. When she allows her mixed-race great niece a spot on the gardening staff, things get complicated.

This film succeeds only on its mood. It's well-acted, but I couldn't ever find the point. Also, I'm generally put off by romantic age gaps that can be counted in decades and this story has two of them.

C+

Road House (2024)

The fight scenes are terrific. 

And I should probably stop this review right here because the script pretty much does as well. But I'll say a couple of other things: I like Gyllenhaal, but his role is seriously underwritten, along with Jessica Williams' -- and those are the two characters that interested me the most. Characters that got way too much screen time: spoiled rich boy Brandt, book store girl Charlie, and one-note (and that note was "crazy dialed up to 11") Knox. We had been looking forward to this ever since the trailer dropped a couple of months ago, so we were seriously disappointed.

C-

The Killer (2023)

Fassbender is compelling as our guide through the world of paid hits. The early scenes could almost serve as a training video for the bulk of the job: patience, knowing how to blend in, where to stay, what to eat, etc. But the film really takes off once a botched hit means he's forced to improvise to stay alive.

Fast-moving and smart. I really enjoyed this.

A-

Street Angel (1928)

Angela attempts stealing so she can buy medicine for her mother. When she's caught and sentenced to the workhouse, she escapes to get back to her mom whom she finds has died in her absence. A traveling circus kindly hides her from the cops who are on her trail and she makes a life with them on the road. Soon she's fallen in love with a dreamy artist and they head back to the city so he can make his fortune -- but the law's still waiting there for Angela

Though overlong, this was fine up until the very end when the dreamy artist becomes a physical threat to Angela. But he apologizes for attempting to choke her out, so that's cool right?

C

Ricky Stanicky (2024)

Three kids blame a prank gone wrong on the fictional "Ricky Stanicky" and continue to use him as a scapegoat throughout their school years. Once into adulthood, he's still regularly invoked when the three want to get out of town without getting grief from their significant others. When they're put on the spot and have to produce Ricky, they hire an unpredictable actor to play the part.

The idea is fun, but the script itself doesn't hit as hard as we were hoping. Many of the bits fall into chuckle territory rather than the belly laughs were were hoping for. Cena, however, is all-in and is the best thing in this otherwise just-OK film.

C+

The Zone of Interest (2023)

A well-to-do German family enjoys the good life in their house full of servants. Their grounds are large with a pool, a greenhouse, and a garden full of both vegetables and beautiful flowers. Dad's work is right next door, so he's able to be present for the family. He often takes the kids out for days on the river, which is within walking distance of the house. Mom regularly receives high-value items her husband is able to score during his workdays (e.g. a fur coat). That the job next door is Auschwitz doesn't hamper their enjoyment in the least. What a powerful juxtaposition. What terrible people. This movie basically sells itself based on the description alone. 

The problem is that the director is in love with affectation and deliberate obfuscation. For example, I had to look up what was going on with the sequences of a girl going out at night to stuff items into dirt; though the explanation was amazing, the film itself didn't bother to enlighten me or to even make it clear what the items were. Also, the movie begins with several minutes of black screen -- I wonder how many people left the theater to complain that there was no picture, because I stopped and restarted the recording in my living room and then had to research whether my stream was defective. The soundtrack is often just loud mechanical groaning that I'm sure was meant to evoke something other than the irritation I felt whenever it'd ramp up. 

In all, it felt like the director didn't want the material to speak for itself. This is like the Mona Lisa being put in a neon orange plastic frame decorated with glow-in-the-dark lightning bolt stickers. The delivery distracted from the compelling subject: the inhabitants of a smug little oasis made possible by their banal inhumanity.

C

Amsterdam (2022)

It's a murder mystery. No -- it's a war movie focusing on racism in the army. Hold up -- it's an expat throuple love story. Wait -- it's a political thriller. I mean... just when I'd get my bearings, this film shifted focus. Though it kept my interest, sometimes just for the "hey! look who it is!" star spottings, I was usually lost and feeling like I was being deliberately juked.

In short: a vibrant confusion.

C+

Confess, Fletch (2022)

"Jon Hamm is no Chevy Chase" is such a weird sentence, but it applies here. But, even if Hamm mugged convincingly enough to grab some laughs, the script is a mess. The jokes are lazy and the mystery's a bit too twisty to easily follow. A complete waste of time and film.

D

Poor Things (2023)

My sister and I watched this for about 30 minutes before bailing -- it felt like weirdness for the sake of weirdness and shock for the sake of shocking. I'm glad I came back to it because, once Bella leaves the house, things really take off.

I quite enjoyed Bella's journey and found it oddly inspiring. Her innocent lack of social graces just made social graces feel slightly ridiculous. Her incredulity, for example, at being expected to keep food she found repulsive in her mouth made me wonder why we ever agreed to swallow nasty stuff. We are born to freedom and wonder and pleasure but somehow, without even noticing, we shrink ourselves to fit a mold that makes us miserable.

Society is a truly crazy construct.

B+

Burning (2018)

The gist of the story: Jong-so bumps into a Hae-mi, young woman he used to know, and agrees to catsit for her during an upcoming trip. She returns with Ben, a friend she made while away, and they're invited to a party with Ben's friends. Jong-so is uneasy about Ben, who tells Jong-so that he enjoys burning down greenhouses and is scoping out some near Jong-so's childhood home. Jong-so decides to patrol the area to identify likely greenhouses and, I guess, protect them from Ben (??)  and then Hae-mi disappears.

I mean, I think I got what was going on here, but it was so convoluted and rambling that I wound up not really caring. There was some weird stuff with Jong-so not remembering Hae-min and she told a story about falling down a well that her family said never happened... I don't know what the hell was up with that. Regardless: Steven Yeun was really good as the rich and entitled Ben.

C-

Self Reliance (2024)

Tommy is just existing -- working in a cubicle and pining for his ex -- when he's offered a spot on a dark web game show. He'll win a million bucks if he can simply stay alive for 30 days and, because the killers can only attack when he's alone, he feels confident he can succeed and goes for it. Thing is... he was counting on his family being willing to help and they really aren't.

It's got a scruffy charm, but it wears thin before it's finished.

B-

All of Us Strangers (2023)

Adam is a writer living quietly in an almost-empty apartment building when Harry, another resident, introduces himself. As they forge a relationship, Adam is working on some writing about his late parents and is drawn back to his childhood neighborhood. While there, he's able to visit with his parents who are eager to learn all about who he has become in their absence.

Despite the fantastical set-up, it's a lovely and melancholy piece. Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are heartbreaking as lonely men desperate for connection. Equally heartbreaking are Jamie Bell and Claire Foy as parents who were failing their son in ways most parents fail their children but are now being given the hindsight to consider how their son was affected. 

Though not always easy to follow, this is worth the effort.

B

Run Rabbit Run (2023)

This is one of those movies that just kind of drops you into the middle of a situation and you find out bits and pieces as you go. This methodology was great for keeping our interest: we were continually saying "oh wait... maybe blahblahblah" to each other in an effort to figure out what might be going on. I think that desire to solve the mystery made it seem more interesting than it actually was, though. Now that I know the what and the why, I doubt I'll think about this again.

C+