Spectre (2015)

The villain is muted, the political machinations too bureaucratic to make me care, and the love interest (no, not the widow Bond fucks right after her husband's funeral) is too combative to so quickly be conquered by his charms. Even Blofeld's torture of Bond -- which, by description, should basically leave him a shell of his former self -- only seemed to cause fleeting pain from which he fully recovered in minutes.

It's a serious falloff in quality and sensibility from the preceding few. Gary and I both fell asleep in the last 10 minutes or so, forcing us to rewind in case we'd missed anything significant (we hadn't).

C+

Dave (1993)

When President Bill Mitchell suffers a stroke that puts him into a coma, Dave -- a man who looks very much like Mitchell -- is tapped to act as the president in order to keep the country from chaos. It's a ridiculous set-up that, somehow, results in a story with a huge amount of heart.

Kline is inspiring as good-guy Dave who gets so much glee from all of the enjoyable perks as well as from all of the ways he can make a difference. Of course, he butts up against those who prefer the kickback-filled status quo to real change, but Dave's up to the task. 

One of those old-school, big-message, but still feel-very-good, movies.

B+

Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014)

Hector and Clara live in a gorgeous apartment, have great jobs, and a close relationship. But therapist Hector's started to wonder if he's being at all helpful to any of his patients and it's resulted in a case of "what even IS happiness?" So, he decides to travel the world to see if he can figure it out.

He enjoys some hedonism, travels to a remote monastery, pitches in at a medical outreach, enjoys some home cooking in a small village, meets and helps a drug lord, gets kidnapped, and even reconnects with an old lover. All along the way, he asks everyone what their idea of happiness is and dutifully records their answers in his travel notebook. Meanwhile, his calls home feel more and more distant, as though Clara is mentally moving on.

I don't know what this movie was trying to be, but I don't think it achieved the goal. Hector just seemed like a dude with too much looking for even more. Basically, "I'm having a midlife crisis but I've got enough money to make an IMPORTANT SOUL JOURNEY out of it."

C

Jackpot! (2024)

Under the lottery rules in near-future L.A., anyone who kills a newly-announced winner before sundown will be awarded the money instead. Katie is unaware of this rule when she arrives in L.A., so is completely confused when she suddenly finds herself dodging multiple attacks after her win. Luckily Noel (John Cena) arrives to help her survive for a small percentage of the jackpot.

Great idea. Just OK script and execution. I bumped up the score a bit because I have an unaccountable crush on MGK.

C+

Downtown Owl (2024)

It's the mid-80s and Julia takes a temporary teaching position at the high school in Owl, North Dakota, to get "out of [her husband's] hair" for a bit while he's working on his doctorate. She's soon binge-drinking with her new bestie in the town's only bar, crushing on the former high school football star, befriending a quiet older man, and getting involved in the high school's gossip mill. She's also starting to take stock of the state of her marriage.

While all of that sounds fine, the story just spills out onto the screen in a jumble. And not a jumble with bright bits that catch your eye or novel pieces that make you think, but just a pile of stuff you've seen a million times before -- the equivalent of junk draw detritus like soy sauce packets and dulled paperclips. Ed Harris and Lily Rabe are good, but I don't know why this movie exists.

C

Zero Effect (1998)

This seems to be a take on Sherlock, where a man great at his job as an investigator has difficulty handling day-to-day interactions. He's got a Watson who acts as a personal secretary and go-between. But this Sherlock (Pullman) comes off more as a man suffering from arrested development and privilege while his Watson (Stiller) can barely mask his contempt for his boss.

The case itself is alright, but there's no punch or levity in the telling. It's all very muted and depressing and sleep-inducing.

C-

Evil Under the Sun (1982)

A locked-room murder mystery where everyone has a reason to want the victim dead. Good thing Hercule Poirot (Ustinov) is vacationing at the small island resort where the murder occurred.

It's a fun little case, buoyed considerably by the scenes where the proprietress (Maggie Smith) pitches her suspicions to Poirot. Hurt only somewhat by the fact that I was able to guess the culprit and the method way before they were revealed by Poirot.

B- 

The Quiet Girl (2022)

A large Irish family ships one of their daughters off to relatives for the summer. Cait's used to being neglected and mocked for her bashfulness, but finds a different reality in the home of this older couple. As Cait begins to blossom, the couple's story also begins to reveal itself naturally.

I just loved the honest message here -- that the family you're born into isn't necessarily the family who will know you or love you best. What a hopeful heartbreaker.

A-

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

After a primitive tribe abducts three people from their small town, a group of four men ride out to rescue them. There's the sheriff and his elderly deputy who do so out of duty, an injured man whose wife was one of those taken, and a bachelor braggart with the most killing experience. The enemy's location and customs are a mystery to the rescue party and the journey seems to get more difficult by the hour. Yet, they persevere. 

This may not be the most graphically brutal movie I've ever seen, but it's definitely close. The barbarity, however, felt earned rather than "let's see how disgusting we can be."

B

The Untouchables (1987)

Everyone's in top form in this rousing "good vs. bad" movie. Costner is the squeaky clean Ness, Connery is the too-old-for-this beat cop who takes Ness under his wing, Garcia is the chip-on-his-shoulder young buck, and DeNiro is Capone.

Though it's a little bit creaky and sometimes feels more like a TV procedural than a blockbuster movie, it's still a good story told well enough to hold interest.

B

A Beautiful Life (2023)

While playing guitar for a friend with musical ambitions, fisherman Elliott gets the attention of a well-known music manager. Though he's a natural, the changes -- fame, new relationship, jealousy from his ambitious friend -- come so fast that Elliott struggles a bit with the new paradigm and his place in it.

The story goes exactly where you expect it to, but Christopher is such a magnetic talent that I didn't much mind the lack of surprises. The emotional song performed at the end of the movie (below) is especially lovely and brought honest tears.

B

Inside (2023)

Nemo (Willem Dafoe) is attempting to leave a penthouse after robbing it, but something goes haywire with the home's control panel and he gets locked in. There's very little food in the place and the water is not on, so he needs to figure out how to keep himself going until he can break out.

What I liked best was the relatable craving for connection. When an injured pigeon is stuck on the patio, Dafoe watches and roots for the poor bird over several days. He also turns the cctv feed into entertainment, with his favorite "show" being the one about of the maid who sneaks cigarettes, bops along to her playlists, and sometimes even vacuums right outside of his soundproof front door.

What I liked least was the ridiculous notion that both a security alarm and a fire alarm in a high-end building would go unheeded by authorities. Though Dafoe did a great job bringing us into his unraveling, it was really difficult getting past this and it made the run time of about 100 minutes feel like forever.

C

Sneakers (1992)

Martin Bishop and his crew make a living by breaking into companies to highlight their vulnerabilities. Most of the group honed their skills on the wrong side of the law, but they're flying straight now. When a government agency hires them to steal the ultimate codebreaking machine, the payday is big enough ($175,000 split five ways, hahaha) that they're willing to get back on the wrong side again.

This is a nostalgic romp, but it's laughably PG and the heists almost creak with age.

B-

Smoke (1995)

There are lots of stories in Smoke. There's the widower author who hasn't managed to put out a book since his wife died. There's the young kid hiding out from thugs and longing to find his estranged father. There's the smoke shop owner on the brink of the payout for a big deal on Cubans. And there's the woman beat up by life who is trying to save her daughter from crack addiction. Only tangentially related by the smoke shop, the stories swirl and linger and dissipate in the same way smoke does. Just settle back and breathe it in.

B