I Was a Stranger is a startling take on the immigration crisis, told in 5 parts by the lives of 5 connected individuals. While it centers on Syria, it’s a story that can easily be translated to anywhere. First part is The Doctor, and it begins on a woman in Chicago in 2023. Amira is working at a hospital when she has a flashback to 8 years earlier in her homeland of Syria, where she is a doctor during the civil war there. After an air raid kills all of her family except her daughter Rasha, she makes the decision to flee the country. The second part, The Soldier, recounts a captain in Syria’s army trying to squash the rebellion, and the conflict he feels when his army executes a young boy as a “terrorist” for writing anti-government graffiti. The Smuggler follows, showing a man who has been getting Syrians and others fleeing the war on boats headed across the sea to Greece, but not for any altruistic reasons, and The Poet, about one particular family being smuggled. The Captain comes last, showing a man who works for the coast guard in Greece, and the decisions he makes as a small boat approaches his country. The film shines a light on the crushing immigration crisis that has been created (one stat says that half of the country’s population had been displaced during the Syrian civil war, let that sink in) and doesn’t provide any answers for what we can do to fix it. All we can do is help those that need it. I was pleasantly surprised to see this film was distributed here in the USA by Angel Studios, a group that doesn’t often challenge it’s very right-leaning audience. ★★★★

Olmo is an indie coming-of-age drama. Olmo is 14 years old, the son of Mexican immigrants, living in a trailer in the 70s with his sister and parents. He and his sibling, and most of their friends and neighbors, all speak fluent English learned in school, and while their parents understand English perfectly well, respond in their native Spanish. Olmo’s dad is bedridden from multiple sclerosis and is mostly paralyzed from the neck down, reliant on his family to change, clean, and go to the bathroom. Olmo is not a bad kid, but he’s just 14, at that age when your status among your friends and the girls you like (like Nina, who lives across the street) is paramount. Thus, he doesn’t always treat his ailing father kindly. He just wants to go outside and play and flirt. When Nina invites him to a party one night, on a night when he is supposed to stay home and watch over his dad, Olmo’s world may just shatter without him knowing it. I don’t know that the film breaks new ground, but it is told well, with a great vintage feel (since it takes place in the 70s), and is ultimately very heartwarming. ★★★½

The Salt Path, based on a memoir, is a biopic with a couple of 90s stars who’ve had a career resurgence of late: Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson. Isaacs is barely recognizable with white hair and beard, playing Moth Winn. He and his wife Raynor have recently lost their home in London due to a bad investment. Their kids at least can live at uni, but the older couple have no where to go. To compound problems, Moth has recently been diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disorder that will weaken him, and eventually he’ll lose control over his limbs and even things like swallowing. With no home and nothing to do, the couple decide, almost on a whim, to follow the South West Coast Path, a 600+ mile hiking trail, to Land’s End, the western-most point in the UK. Their only source of income is the $40 a week they get from a tax credit. Along the way, we see Moth’s progression, as he painfully walks over rough terrain, but we also see moments of hope and levity. Yes, they have to deal with the shame of homelessness from those they meet, and angry or careless others yelling about camping out on open land, but they also experience kindness and compassion. We also see them rekindle the love that initially brought them together. This movie got some flack from being too staid, and at times does seem rote, but absolutely gorgeous scenery and on-point performances by the two co-leads made for a very uplifting film. I loved it. ★★★★

The Last One For the Road is an Italian road movie. Two 50-ish year old friends, Carlobianchi and Doriano, are flat broke but always in search of their next drink. They actually are on a mission to meet an old friend, but that story develops slowly as the film goes along. For now, they are just hitting bar after bar, swindling or begging for drinks as they go. They befriend an uptight young college guy, Giulio, who needs a dose of confidence, and try to teach him their ways. Along the way, we learn the two mens’ stories. Many years ago, they and a friend, Genio, were skimming off the top at the manufacturing company all three worked at. Genio got caught, but split town to Argentina before arrest, and then the 2008 financial crisis hit. This wiped out Carlobianchi and Doriano, so they’ve been impatiently awaiting Genio’s return and a share of the hidden money. Enough time has finally gone by that he can return home, and is supposed to arrive at the airport the next day, and the two old friends, now with Giulio in tow, are on their way there. It’s a typical road movie, with some good moments, some that drag, but a lot of laughs along the way. Like a lot of road movies, it doesn’t seem like it knows how it wants to end, but the trip to get there is decent. ★★★

The Blue Trail, a lowkey dystopian film out of Brazil, takes place in a near-future where the elderly are sent off to “the colony” in order to ease burdens on family and resources. However, 77-year-old Teresa doesn’t want to go. She’s still very “with it” and doesn’t have any mental or physical issues, but the government won’t even let her book a bus ticket without her “caregiver’s” (daughter’s) permission. Teresa isn’t having any of that, so she starts looking for a way out of the country. Any legitimate way out, i.e. commercial travel, is out, so Teresa looks to people already living on the fringes of society, like smugglers and ne’er-do-wells, to get her out for a little money on the side. You’re never too old to have a grand adventure! Really good beginning, with some subtle laughs at the ridiculousness of the situation, but the movie fizzles in the last 30 minutes or so (and it’s a short movie at under 90 total minutes). ★★½

• TV series recently watched: Agents of SHIELD (season 2), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 18)
• Book currently reading: Princess of Dune by Herbert & Anderson

Backrooms was one of the surprise hits of 2026, though maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise. Younger moviegoers are looking for something different, something from outside the establishment, and this wasn’t the only movie based on a web series released recently. This one stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, owner of a failing furniture store, who finds an impossible space in the basement of the building. He accidentally steps “through” a wall, and on the other side, a sprawling maze of rooms that seems endless. The rooms have weird, misplaced furniture, sometimes stuck in floors or walls, sometimes with strange sloping walls or tiny doors, in an almost Wonderland kind of way, if Wonderland was a terrifying land of monsters. Because Clark isn’t alone down there. He doesn’t know that in the beginning, though we do, thanks to a prelude before Clark’s story began, when we see a team of scientists studying the rooms and being hunted. But Clark is oblivious to start, so he gets his coworkers to come down to the spooky rooms and explore with him. It isn’t long before one of the trio is killed and the other goes missing, and when Clark’s therapist wanders into the rooms looking for Clark, we finally get (some) answers as to what the place is. Very creepy film, not too scary, though it will get your heart thumping a couple times. Obvious parallels to the unending and expanding House in Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves (a book I read when it first came out in 2000, and again in the last year, coincidentally enough). If you like this movie, you should love that book. I think the book is better, for what it’s worth. ★★★½

Young Mothers is the latest French-language film from the Dardenne brothers, a team I generally enjoy quite a bit. This movie sucks though, and I couldn’t even get through it all, giving up half way through. It follows 5 young (some teenage) moms or moms-to-be, and hits home (time and again, and harder than a steel mallet) how hard it is for these girls. Their home lives suck, their relationships with boys suck, the system for them sucks. Yep, we get it. Guess what? It’s hard for teen moms. We all know that. I was a teen dad, and it was hard, but thankfully I had a wonderful family that got me through those first years. Without the support, I’d probably be in just as bad of a position as our heroines, but damn, what do you think you signed up for? I gave up on the movie when a pregnant girl goes into labor and starts calling for her mother, a woman who abandoned her as a baby herself and who she only just recently met. That was even too much drama for me, and I love drama. Le sigh. ½

SHTTL is a brilliant film out of Ukraine, taking place on June 21, 1941. The date is important, as it is the day before the start of Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, when they invaded the Soviet Union. Near the border of western Ukraine, where you can practically see the Germans across the border in Poland, Mendele has returned to his hometown, a tiny shtetl (small predominantly Jewish village). He left 2 years ago to go to Kiev to pursue his dream of filmmaking, leaving behind his childhood love Yuna, but with the promise that he’d return for her. Well, he is back, currently on leave from the Soviet Red Army. Away from home and in the big city of Kiev, he took on some communist values, and as such he’s not welcome by many in his hometown now. The shtetl is filled with communists, extolling its virtues and denouncing the Hasidic religious leaders and claiming Ukraine should join the Soviets (sound familiar?), souring many to their Russian neighbors. Mendele is now smack dab in the middle of this conflict, all the more so because, in the intervening years, Yuna’s father (the town Rebbe) has promised her to Mendele’s rival Folie, who has aspirations to become the next Rebbe. As Mendele moves around town, visiting old friends and his estranged father, he has flashbacks to moments that shaped him and others around him. The present is shown in black and white, but the past shifts to color, which is used to powerful effect. Like when Mendele goes to synagogue and sings, and the film turns to color, signifying that this is part of Mendele’s past. He’s left religion behind, never to return, and there’s a sense of melancholy, of a life lost. In town, Mendele and Folie argue, which blows up when Mendele angrily shouts, “One word from me and you disappear.” He probably said it in anger, but a nearby Red soldier overhears and comes in to reinforce Mendele’s words, leaving Mendele in shame. A gripping movie, as gripping a film as can be with nearly zero action and almost all dialogue. Powerful and emotional and supremely re-watchable. ★★★★★

The Stranger (French: L’Étranger) is based on a book and begins in Algeria in the early 40s, where a Frenchman, Meursault, has just been put in jail for killing an Arab man. In a flashback, we see a very blasé Meursault learn about the death of his mother. Without emotion, he goes to the retirement community where she was living, oversees her burial, and then returns to his life. He runs into an old friend, Marie, and the two immediately begin a whirlwind romance, all while Meursault continues to show little passion towards anything. A neighbor beats his girlfriend? Meursault doesn’t care. When an old friend and longtime family friend loses his dog? Meursault doesn’t bat an eye. Marie brings up marriage? Meursault is indifferent and noncommittal. When the wifebeater has a confrontation with the girl’s brother, Meursault casually takes a gun out and shoots the guy. Even at his trial, Meursault answers questions very matter-of-factly with zero passion. I didn’t get this movie at all. I’m sure there’s some deeper message in there somewhere, but it’s lost on me. The dude just doesn’t care about anything, even his own life, and marches to his death without caring. ★½

Not sure why I bothered with Adulthood, definitely seemed like the kind of comedy I never enjoy (and I didn’t). I think I just liked the idea of the premise. Noah (Josh Gad) and Megan (Kaya Scodelario) are siblings with an aging mother who’s just had a stroke and ended up in the hospital. Over at their childhood home, they find that the hot water heater has been leaking for awhile, leading to a mold problem, and while digging into the walls, they find a body tucked behind the drywall in the basement. It’s a woman that went missing when the two were kids, and created quite the story in the neighborhood at the time. As kids, the whispers on the street were that the woman’s husband killed her, but nothing ever came of it, and he died years later. Now Noah and Megan realize that their dear old mom offed the woman for some unknown reason. The two dump the long-dead body in a local swamp and figure that’s the end of it. Except, of course, the body is found the very next day, and their mother’s at-home nurse puts two and two together and tries to blackmail the siblings. There’s some quirky smalltown-ish characters in the film for some easy laughs, and some funny moments as the body count rises over the course of the flick, but there’s nothing here to warrant watching this one again, and most of the comedy is forced and too on-the-nose. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Lanterns (season 1), Ted Lasso (season 4)
• Book currently reading: This is About Running. This is Not About Running by Chris Bennett

The Heroic Trio is a superhero film with a fantasy element. A mysterious invisible kidnapper is stealing babies from hospitals, and police are powerless to stop them. It seems a trio of superhero women are their only hope. There’s Wonder Woman (not that Wonder Woman), a martial artist who’s really the wife of the police inspector; Thief Catcher, a gun-toting badass, and the Invisible Woman, who seems to be the very person kidnapping the babies. Turns out she is being coerced by an evil villain who lives underground, accessible through the sewers of the city. He’s looking for babies who could be future emperors, and the three women all have ties to him. However, they now must stop him and his powerful henchmen. It has a great cast, including Maggie Cheung and an early role for Michelle Yeoh (the film was released in 1993), but the movie is awfully silly. I can see the appeal though, especially for fans of 80s/90s B movie action flicks. ★★

Though I didn’t care for the first one, the sequel, Executioners, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, and I’m a sucker for those films. It’s more of the same as the first, but does have less silliness, so that’s a plus. The fights are still goofy, but the story is better. After a nuclear war, drinkable water is rare, and controlled by one corporation. Most people scrape by on sips at a time, and the government seems powerless to secure more water for the population. The one water purification plant controls the pricing, and its owner has his eyes on the presidency. Our three superhero fighters will have to take him down and open up the water for everyone. The movie takes a little while to get going, but once a military coup breaks out, the shit hits the fan (in a good way). Leaps better than the first film, though I did admittedly have to rewind and rewatch a couple wildly zany fight scenes to see if I saw what I thought I just saw (and usually did). ★★★

Throw Down is from the same director (Johnnie To) but comes a decade later (2004), and this is finally a movie I really enjoyed from beginning to end. It begins on a young judo fighter named Tony, who has come to a bar to fight Bo. Bo was once a judo champion, but these days seems to only care for drinking and gambling. Tony isn’t going to take no for an answer, and starts trying to sober Bo up and motivate him into a fight. He is aided by a singer named Mona, who just wants to get a gig at Bo’s nightclub. And after awhile, we learn that Tony isn’t the only person who wants a piece of Bo; there’s another old champ who never got a crack at him either, and finally wants to get that chance. Lots of villains in this film, including pimps, money lenders, and downright crooks, but the film does a great job of showing the good side of bad guys and the dark side of good guys. Even the “main villain” shows that he has honor in the end. The plot is a little scattered, which at this point I just have to chalk up to the director’s style, but overall the story is really good and there’s some great, memorable scenes. ★★★½

A lot of moviegoers may not have heard of 2002’s Infernal Affairs, but there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard of the American version that Martin Scorsese made based on it: The Departed (released 2006). While the movies are very similar, there are changes that I won’t go into. If you are new to it, it follows two diverging men, each a mole sent into the opposing organization. For the triads (Chinese organized crime), they send a young man to enroll in the police academy, and for the police, they recruit a young hotshot academy student off to infiltrate the triads. A decade later, each mole has excelled at his job. Chan has worked his way up in the criminal network until he is now regularly with the boss, and for the police, Lau has become a senior inspector with access to all of the police’s investigations. But now that they are each close to their targets, the danger level has ramped up, as one mistake can end in prison or death. They soon become aware of each other, and the race is on to discover their opposite’s identity. Outstanding film, filled with suspense and action in equal parts. I’d need to go back and rewatch The Departed to see which I like better, but this “original” version is definitely worth a watch. ★★★★

Mild spoilers below, since we have a direct sequel. There’s not much we can do moving forward with Infernal Affairs II, since Chan was killed at the end of the first movie, so instead, we get a prequel. This film shows Chan and Lau working their ways up their respective fields. We see the crimes Chan had to commit to get ingratiated with the crime lords, and on the other side, how Lau was able to move up in the police ranks, all while getting intel to the triads. We also see how Sam rose to a prominent role within the triads, and Chan’s and Lau’s individual roles in taking down the boss that held the position before Sam. There’s less action (though there are some mob hits) but more intrigue, and overall it’s a fantastic “how they got there” kind of story. Different actors playing the younger versions of Chan and Lau, but the rest of the cast is the same. I actually liked this one more! ★★★★½

Infernal Affairs III brings all the original cast back. It is told in present day (2003, when the film was made), after Chan’s death and what that fallout meant for Lau, and there are flashbacks to 6 months before that event, and some happenings leading up to it. More moles, more double-crossings, and honestly I got a little lost before it all came together in the end. The end is fantastic, really stressing the living hell that Lau finds himself in for the deeds he committed, and finally answering the question he’s struggled with since the first movie: can he still be a good person even if he committed terrible deeds? The ending saves the film, because there’s a little too much going on before that, but it’s a welcome and perfect final scene tying everything up together. ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Furious (season 1), ST Strange New Worlds (season 4), Lioness (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

The Resident Evil films, based on the popular video game franchise, have never been a hit with critics (nor for many fans) but they’ve always made *just* enough money to keep it going. You may be surprised to know that 7 of these films have been made since 2002. After a failed reboot attempt in 2021, which again didn’t make much money nor win over viewers, this newest iteration finally seems to have turned the ship around. Maybe not for me, but for many, as it set a franchise record at the box office and garnered an amazing 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film follows a medical courier named Bryan. He’s just dropped off an organ at a hospital, as is tasked with another top priority delivery to a hospital the next city over. Top priority means big pay, so despite the winter storm dumping a blanket of snow outside, Bryan agrees. He’s driving through the snow, in the dark, talking to his girlfriend about their surprise pregnancy, when he hits a woman who has wandered onto the road. Bryan tries to do the right thing and gets out of his car to provide aid, only to find that she has run off into the woods, leaving a trail of blood. Bryan follows and finds her, nearly comatose. He coaxes her back to the car, just in time for a police officer to arrive. Bryan explains the situation and the policeman agrees to transport the woman to the hospital in his car, with Bryan following. They don’t get far before Bryan sees the cop car run off the road, and upon inspection, Bryan sees the cop dead and the woman, now very much alive and active, missing from the vehicle. In typical scary movie fashion, she jumps out and starts chasing Bryan, who finally shoots her with the cop’s gun. Bryan then heads to the nearest house, a farm, for aid, but the night, and his gruesome adventure, is just getting started. Bryan starts seeing all kinds of freaky things, and we learn that a virus has quickly spread over the area, turning people (and dogs!) into raving monsters. The item he is carrying towards the hospital isn’t an organ at all, but a possible cure, and the hospital needs it badly if this virus is to be stopped.

I honestly don’t get the love this movie is getting. It gave me exactly one jump scare (pretty early in the film too) and otherwise I laughed incredulously throughout. Good ol’ Bryan does just about every thing you aren’t supposed to do in a horror film, and they roll out every trope and stereotype you can think of. Tons of blood, and a couple creepy scenes (because a child is involved), but otherwise very forgettable. If a sequel comes out (and I’m sure it will) I think I’ll pass. ★★½

How to Make a Killing pretty much only exists because its two leads (Glen Powell and Margaret Qualley) are hot products right now. As a film, the original was much better (Kind Hearts and Coronets). No offense Glen, but you aren’t Sir Alec Guinness. Louis is awaiting a death penalty for murder and making his confession to a priest, telling his story. He was born to a woman who had been cut out of the vast family wealth when she married beneath her station. The man ended up dying shortly after, leaving the new mom and little Louis on their own. While poor, she raised Louis to appreciate the finer things of life, knowing that, though she herself has been cut off, Louis would still get a portion of that wealth, as it was tied up in an irrevocable trust. All Louis needs is to have the handful of men in front of him to die before he does. Louis gets this idea from a woman (Qualley), who he runs into and had a childhood crush on once upon a time, and so Louis sets off on his quest to take out his family members. Not nearly as funny as it thinks it is, but it is mildly entertaining, even if it is completely predictable outside of just a couple twists. It’s a very safe movie, which is why its audience score is so much higher than its critics score on Rotten. Just don’t expect anything great and you won’t be disappointed. ★★★

The Marching Band (French: En Fanfare) opens on a successful symphony conductor named Thibaut, rehearsing his esteemed group, before collapsing on stage. He learns that he has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant, but thankfully he can ask his sister, as familial relationships carry a much higher chance of a match. Well, turns out she isn’t his sister, and Thibaut finds out the hard way that he was adopted. However, his mother was approached years ago about adopting Thibaut’s birth brother, which she declined at the time, so she at least knows he does have a sibling. Thibaut tracks down Jimmy, who has lived a very different life. Whereas Thibaut was given every opportunity from a wealthy upbringing, Jimmy was raised in the foster system by a working class family in a factory town. Jimmy displays many of the musical talents Thibaut has (including perfect pitch), but those talents were never nurtured. Jimmy wouldn’t trade his family for anything, but can’t help but wonder “what if.” He agrees to the marrow donation, which saves Thibaut’s life. Afterwards, the two brothers get to know each other, and Thibaut encourages Jimmy, who plays trombone in the local community band, to pursue his musical abilities. This leads to problems down the line, as Jimmy outkicks his coverage. When the factory owners talk closure, which would devastate the community, Thibaut hopes to step in and lend his support. Great film, funny and endearing, even if it feels a little safe and predictable at times. ★★★½

The two leads in Miss You, Love You come from a theater background, and this is the perfect movie for that, as it could be presented as a play and would definitely work. Diane (Allison Janney) has just lost her husband after a 3 year battle with Parkinsons. She is estranged from her son Tyler, and instead of coming to his step-father’s funeral, he’s sent his assistant Jamie (Andrew Rannells) to help his mom with the arrangements. Jamie’s in a tough spot, but he has a big personality that (maybe) can match Diane’s bombastic attitude. Throughout the film, we will get to know how she ticks, what caused the rift between her and Tyler, and see her open up. Jamie isn’t just a bystander though, he has plenty of demons in his own closet, much related to the death of his own parents. Very emotional movie obviously, with a knockout performance from Janney particularly. And because of the revelations that come throughout the film (which is why I can’t say much!), it’s one that can be watched again and again. ★★★★

The Drama imagines how a dark secret can wreck what is otherwise a very happy relationship. At a cafe, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) is smitten by a girl who walks in, and tries to go over and hit on her. After an awkward exchange because she’s wearing a headphone in one ear and is deaf in the other, they officially meet, and hit it off. Emma (Zendaya) is a sweet girl, and two years later, they are a week away from their wedding. They see their wedding DJ smoking heroine in the park, and later, while drinking with their best man and maid of honor, ask for advice on what they should do. One friend says maybe they just saw the DJ on the worst day of their life, and no person should be judged by that, and this leads to each confessing the worst thing they’ve ever done. Some are worse that others, until we get to Emma. Turns out that she, as a teenager, was bullied and an outcast, and she planned a school shooting. Not just thought about it, but was ready to carry it out, and is deaf in one ear from practice shooting her dad’s rifle. It only didn’t happen because a shooting at the local mall happened days before, and Emma thus changed her mind. This news doesn’t land well with Charlie (who at first thinks she’s joking) nor with the other couple; Emma’s maid of honor has a sister confined to a wheelchair after a mass shooting. Charlie starts to see the love of his life in a whole new light, and needs to make a decision in this last week before their nuptials. The idea of the film is very good, but I was not a fan of the editing, with lots of cuts and shifts in narrative mid-scene, bouncing around way too much. I guess it was made for the younger tik-tok generation? ★★½

Is God Is, on the other hand, is told in a wildly different way that seemed fresh and exciting. Twin sisters Racine and Anaia bear burn scars from a traumatic childhood event. Racine is “the pretty one” as her scars are just on one arm, but Anaia is burned across her face and chest. As such, Racine has always defended her sister, sometimes violently, against bullies. As adults now, they get the news that their birth mother, long thought dead, is alive. They go to visit her, and on her deathbed, she charges the two of them with a mission: hunt down their birth father and kill him. Turns out he beat her when they were together, and one day threw her in the bathtub and lit her on fire. The girls’ injuries came from trying to save their mother from the flames. Seems like a crazy mission, and the twins think so too, but one talks the other into it, and off they go. They have just one clue, for a woman their father shacked up with after leaving town all those years ago. One clue leads to another, in a string of increasingly bizarre encounters, all with the same evidence, that their father was a monster. When they finally find him, and the family he has now, we’ll see if the hunt was worth it. It’s a wildly entertaining film, very funny in a (very) dark way, with a rare turn from Sterling K Brown as a bad guy, even if I though it lost steam before the end. ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: The Walking Dead (season 1), Silo (season 3), Walking Dead: Dead City (season 3), House of the Dragon (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

A few days I posted a set of films with nothing spectacular, but today the law of averages helped me out. The President’s Cake is an Iraqi film taking place during the Gulf War in late 1990, though it is not a war film itself. It follows a little girl named Lamia, whose parents are recently dead. She is being raised by her grandmother Bibi and they are very poor, with the US sanctions against Iraq making it difficult (impossible?) to get by. Going to school every day, Lamia hears the USA jets flying overhead, but tries to go about her life. At school one day, the teacher announces it is time to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday, which is a national holiday in which everyone is expected to participate. By random draw, Lamia is tasked with baking a birthday cake for the class, and she has no idea how she will come up with the ingredients, as prices for eggs and staples have raised tenfold. Under the guise of taking her to the city to purchase them, Bibi is in fact looking to give Lamia up to a foster family, as she cannot care for her on her own anymore. Faced with this, Lamia runs away, and tries to gather the cake ingredients on her own. She runs into and is aided by classmate Saeed, whose father, a cripple, begs and clandestinely robs on the streets of the city. The two young classmates are in for an adventure, as predators seem to stand on every corner, trying to rob, fleece, or kidnap (or worse) throughout the city, all while Bibi tries to locate her, getting no help from the police who deride “these stupid peasants.” Eye opening coming-of-age film, one that gets you rooting for a happy ending, and incredible performance from the young Baneen Ahmad Nayyef as Lamia. The cast is all non-professional actors, but you’d never know it. ★★★★★

Ricky is a gritty indie film with a good cast to back up its hard themes. It’s not a complex movie, and the shaky camera syndrome in the opening scene had me thinking this was going to be a mistake, but there’s more under the hood, so to say. Ricky is 30 years old, but in many ways, is still a child. He’s recently released from prison after doing 15 years, meaning he went in as a teenager but comes out a man. We don’t learn for a long time what he did, but obviously it’s serious. Because of the situation, he doesn’t know basic things that most 30-year-olds do. He doesn’t know how to talk to girls. He is thrilled when he gets his driver’s permit. He’s as awkward as any teenager during his first sexual experience. His younger brother is, in many ways, more worldly experienced than he. The movie explores these ideas, as well as the harsh reality of a man trying to go straight and narrow despite the system being stacked against him. The film’s low budget is telling and the acting is very uneven (some standouts, but many underwhelming to say the least), but it’s certainly not a bad film with an important tale to tell. ★★★

Romería, a Spanish film, is about a girl looking for answers. It’s 2004, and Marina is graduating high school and wants to go to film school, but in order to qualify for the scholarships and grants she needs, she has to show her genealogy/ancestry. Her father’s name is missing on her birth certificate, as he and her mother were never married and both died when Marina was a child. She heads off to her father’s family in southern Spain on the sea, most of whom she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl, as they did not keep in touch. If she expected a warm welcome, Marina is sourly disappointed. Nearly everyone is nice to her face, but in a condescending, snarky way. The family is wealthy, and since she’s recently turned 18, they think she is there for the money. Marina has her mom’s diary, which talks about how she didn’t get along with Fon’s (Alphonso’s) sisters, and they do indeed seem to be real bitches. Marina’s cousins (her own age) are nice to her, but of the adults, only two seem to accept her with open arms: Fon’s cousin Xulia, and Fon’s brother Iago, who seems to have been the black sheep of the family. It is Iago who starts filling in the gaps of Fon’s life to Marina, and what she learns is startling. She was always told he died when she was a baby in 1987, but finds out he died in 1992, hidden away by his family like a leper. This leaves her feeling empty, wondering why he never came to Barcelona to visit her, but the pieces of his troubled life and tumultuous relationship with her mom start to come together slowly, about their shared drug use and ultimate deaths to AIDS. The film ends in a Fellini-esque dream sequence, as Marina tries to discover the truth, which lies somewhere between what she’s always been told and the stories Fon’s family is feeding her. Excellent movie about the secrets a family will keep. ★★★★

I watched Signal One reluctantly, because it stars Dennis Quaid and Josh Hutcherson, two actors who, for whatever reason, seem to always end up in subpar movies. But it also stars David Thewlis, who is great, and I am a sci-fi nerd, so I gave it a shot. Ended up reminding me a lot of The Creator, another science fiction movie with incredible visuals but a lackluster story. This one is about a woman, Annika (Isabelle Fuhrman), who is recruited to work at a top-secret facility built to communicate with aliens. A signal has been coming in, but so far, the scientists haven’t been able to crack it or figure out how to send a message back. Annika is able to do so, but she wrestles with the question on if we (humanity) should respond, as we don’t know what the aliens are trying to say. There’s exactly one thrilling moment in the movie, when the team responds to the aliens and the aliens answer back. We don’t know how to communicate, so like a baby copying its mother’s words, we just repeat something in the message sent to us. The aliens respond by turning off all all electricity on our planet for 8 minutes and 19 seconds, the time it takes sunlight to reach our planet, to tell us they heard us and they know where we are. This of course kills a lot of people (downed planes, interrupted emergency services) and creates panic, but it is the first step in opening our eyes to a greater universe, for good or bad. There’s far too many wild leaps of conjecture without any evidence (which is really silly for a movie purportedly based on science), and some silly B movie plot twists, but the overall idea of what first contact with an alien civilization would look like is pretty good. I liked the ideas, and the graphics are top notch, but the movie has too many flaws to be really great. ★★★

Ending on a great one today. Manas (Portuguese: Sisters) takes place in a tiny fishing village in Brazil and follows 13-year-old Marcielle, or “Tielle” as she is called. She misses her older sister, who left suddenly and seemingly for no reason a couple years ago, and is coming of age in a village with not-so-hidden secrets. We know something is up when she asks if a pregnant girl in the village got her belly on the barge (a bi-weekly visitor to the village to load up fish for sale, where the older girls engage in prostitution for extra money), and Tielle’s friend responds that no, it came from the girl’s father, and “Everyone knows that’s how it goes in this village.” It isn’t much longer before Tielle’s father asks her to go on a hunt with him, and he starts in on her. All of a sudden, Tielle’s protector becomes her attacker. When Tielle tries to bring it up to her mom, her mom defends him, and replies “Some things cannot be changed.” Tielle tries to take control in the only way she can, by putting on lipstick and going to the barge, where at least sex can be on her own terms, but this makes her father fly into a rage. Even the police seem to be powerless to stop it. But Tielle is not her mother, who looks past the man’s faults because he rescued her from her own abusive father, and she isn’t her sister, who stayed until she was old enough to leave on her own. Tielle is going to put a stop to this, one way or another. A lot of powerful imagery in this film, like when her dad leans over her one night under the light, and his shadow looms large on the wall. We learn in the end titles that the film is based on the stories of the women of Marajó Island, off the coast of Brazil, making this harsh film that much more important. ★★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Enterprise (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

Reading Lolita in Tehran is based on a memoir and though it has a strong message of standing up to tyranny, it’s not a very well-done movie and I couldn’t get past the idea of its shaky premise. In the film, Azar returns to Iran after having studied and taught in the USA. It’s 1997, and the Iranian Revolution has just set up a new government in her native country, and Azar wants to be there bringing new ideas. She begins teaching at a university in Tehran, but it isn’t long before she gets pushback from students and the powers-at-be for teaching Western literature. When a new law is enacted that women must cover their hair, Azar refuses and eventually loses her job. That’s as far as I got in the film, couldn’t continue on. The acting isn’t great (to say the least), and all I could think was, “What did you think was going to happen?” I applaud her for standing up for what she thought is right, but don’t cry foul when you get what you know is coming. Kudos to her bravery, but it’s a blah movie that I couldn’t get through. ½

A Danish film, The Last Viking opens on a man named Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) barging into his family’s apartment with the cops hot on his heals. He has just enough time to tell his brother, Manfred (the always-great Mads Mikkelsen), to bury a bag of money at their mom’s property before Anker is taken away. He ends up doing 15 years in jail for robbing a bank of 40 million kroner, but sticks to the story that he doesn’t know what happened to the money. When Anker is finally released, he returns to his brother for the dough, but in the ensuring years, Manfred, who was always a bit eccentric and strange, has gotten worse. He has developed dissociate identity disorder (formerly known as multiple identity syndrome) and thinks he is John Lennon, the Beatle. In fact, whenever anyone calls him Manfred, he instinctively tries to kill himself, jumping out of a movie car or any nearby window, whether the window is on the ground floor or a couple stories up. Anker brings him back to their parents’ property, now an Airbnb, in hopes to jog his memory on the money. Along the way they meet a psychiatrist with ideas of “reuniting the Beatles” with other mentally-ill patients who think they are Ringo, Paul, and George, thinking this may bring Manfred around. In the brothers’ search for healing, they must delve into their troubled and abusive childhoods. The movie has lots of humor, some mystery, and even a little mild action thrown in (as Anker’s former bank-robbing partner comes around sniffing for a share), but I couldn’t help but think the movie didn’t know what kind film it wanted to be. It’s a bit all over the place. Just when you think it is going to be a comedy, something cruel happens; just when Manfred has a moment of enlightenment and the movie becomes endearing, the moment is quickly shattered with something else unexpected. ★★★

Voicemails for Isabelle is exactly what you’d expect from reading the cliffs notes blurb on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s safe, expected, and just (barely) cute enough for a romantic comedy. Jill and Isabelle are sisters and best friends growing up, but Isabelle got the short stick and has fought various ailments all of her life, most notably cystic fibrosis. Continually bedridden, she has been Jill’s biggest fan as Jill would regale her with stories of school, boyfriends, and life. There was never any jealousy there, only well wishes, and Jill’s life is crushed when Isabelle eventually dies just as Jill is about to start culinary school. Jill finds solace in continuing to leave Isabelle voicemails on her phone, as a way of healing and “talking” to her sister. Unbeknownst, the number has been reassigned, and Wes has been receiving, and listening to, the messages. Wes and Jill are a lot alike, in that they’ve had a hard time finding a meaningful relationship, and as he hears Jill’s stories of her life, he starts to fall for her, though they’ve never met. He remedies that by “bumping into her” one day, and the two start falling in love. We all know where this is going, as eventually she will find out that Wes has been receiving all those voicemails. Even though you know how the movie will play out, practically from the opening credits, it’s funny and cute in all the right ways. No new ground broken here, but a decent date night movie. ★★½

Power Ballad is the latest from writer/director John Carney, who does all the music-themed movies. Better than the last, this one stars Paul Rudd as Rick Power, a former rock band singer who left his band just when they were on the cusp of stardom in order to marry and settle down. Married now for years and with a teenage daughter, Paul is in a wedding band in Ireland and has a good time doing what he loves. The band’s latest gig is in a castle of all places, and the rich clientele has a famous friend attending: Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas). Danny is a former member of a very famous boy band, but he hasn’t found success as a solo artist yet. Danny and Paul hit it off, and spend the night drinking and talking music, playing songs for each other. Initially, Paul thinks Danny is just a boy-bander, but finds that he’s actually quite talented, but the music industry just wants him to play the kind of music his fans are used to. Danny is blown away by a song Paul wrote years ago, but one he’s never been happy with parts of and never recorded or released. At the end of the night, Danny gifts Paul an expensive guitar and wishes him well. 6 months later, walking in the grocery store, Paul hear’s his song over the speakers. Turns out Danny recorded it and released it as his own, and it is zooming up the charts. Now Paul needs to hunt Danny down, wanting credit for his song, but proving so will turn out to be difficult. I learned a couple things in this movie: Paul Rudd really can’t act (he’s fooled me a couple times, but he’s cringe-worthy in this one), and Nick Jonas definitely can. Not a great movie, but like I said, more enjoyable than Carney’s last couple. ★★★

Carolina Caroline is about a young woman who gets swept off her feet by the thrill of being bad. She sees a con artist swindle a few dollars off a gas station worker one day, and confronts him. She doesn’t want to expose the crook; she wants to learn how he does his cons. The guy is intrigued by this beautiful girl chasing after him, and accepts. The two become bank robbers, and for a couple weeks, all goes well, until all of a sudden, it doesn’t. Turns out the guy is willing to do anything to avoid getting caught, but there are some lines the girl is unwilling to cross. It’s a juvenile movie, with childish dialogue, paper-thin characters, and a paint-by-numbers plot. Seems to have been written by a 12-year-old. Unfortunately no great movies in today’s batch, can’t win them all. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Sugar (season 2), Dexter (season 3), One Hundred Years of Solitude (season 2)
• Book currently reading: The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar

The Currents is an Argentine film, following a woman named Lina. It opens on her in Switzerland, receiving a prestigious award, which she promptly tosses in the trash can before going for a walk around town. When she comes to a bridge, she jumps off into the river below. She survives, and when she returns to Argentina, mentions nothing about her suicide attempt to her husband. It is obvious she is depressed though, and has developed a severe anxiety about running water, refusing to take showers and quivering in fear when she tries to wash her hair in the sink. She eventually confides in an old friend, who uses gas to put Lina to sleep before giving her a sponge bath and washing her hair, in a ritualistic way implying she’s done this before. It seems Lina’s fear of water existed before her dunk in the water. It all starts to make sense when Lina visits her own mother near the end of the film, a woman who suffers from her own mental illnesses. A really beautifully made picture, but it tested even my patience, and I’m known to sit through 4+ hour movies (or more) with ease. ★★½

I usually stick to new-ish movies (or classics) but I stumbled upon Sunshine in a blog somewhere and decided to give it a go, mostly because of its writer, Alex Garland (big fan). This is the movie director Danny Boyle and Garland made after their first hit, 28 Days Later, and I was not a fan. And shame on me, because Sunshine is more like it than Garland’s hits that would come later. A team is on a space mission to the sun, which has been growing dim for a decade, throwing Earth towards a worldwide winter which will kill off humanity. A first mission launched seven years prior failed, with its crew never heard from again, so this is round 2. They must get to the sun with a huge nuclear payload, which is supposed to “jump start” the energy in the sun to start producing again. There are plenty of emergencies along the way, including a heart-stopping mission about 30 minutes in that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but overall the film fails for me, for many of the same reasons as 28 Days Later. In the final act, it becomes a hack-and-slash film with a 28 Days Later-esque disfigured bad guy trying to kill the surviving crew members, complete with the same dumb camera tricks used in that movie that I hated so much. A few moments of brilliance portending Garland’s growing writing skills, but not a memorable flick. In the end, just kind of silly. ★½

Omaha is a fantastic small independent film starring John Magaro, a very recognizable face from his busy schedule in the last decade, though I can only remember him as a lead in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow (liked it a lot). It opens on him, as Martin, as he bundles up his 6-year-old boy Charlie and 9-year-old girl Ella into a dilapidated car early one morning. They are leaving their home for the last time, as they’ve just been foreclosed on, and Martin says only that they are going to Nebraska. Ella is old enough to know something isn’t adding up and asks a few questions, which Martin vaguely answers or ignores completely, but Charlie is young enough that he’s just along for the ride, whatever the destination. It is clear to the viewer that Martin is flat broke, and money gets tighter over the few days as the family continues their road trip. At first Martin is counting dollars, but by the end of the film, he’s counting cents, and we wonder if he has any plan to provide for his children. I initially thought that he had a job lined up and they were heading towards a new life, but the reality will hit you like a ton of bricks. Magaro is fantastic as a man at the end of his rope, and I know it’s a tiny low budget film, but how did it not get more attention? Really powerful movie. ★★★★½

Tuner is a heist film about a young man named Niki, an apprentice piano tuner to an aging man named Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman). Harry has run his family business all of his life and loves to tell stories, many of which revolve around how he found little Niki, a former piano prodigy and the best player he ever heard, and convinced him to follow him in the piano tuning business. Niki is always carrying around ear plugs and heavy noise cancelling headphones, due to a condition called hyperacusis; loud noises cause him unbearable, debilitating pain. But he does have good ears, making him ideal for this job. It also makes him good at some less savory jobs, as he soon learns. When Harry forgets the combination to his wall safe, Niki puts his ear up against the safe and turns the dial until her hears the tumblers fall, and is able to crack it. His newfound skill earns him some shady friends, who employ Niki to start robbing rich houses in the area. Niki uses the money for good, paying Harry’s ongoing medical bills and whatnot, but when things go south (and you know they will), it will be Niki left holding the bag. Parts of the film are very good, but overall it felt contrived and unsatisfying. Doesn’t help that I’ve got nutcrackers in my house less wooden than the actor playing Niki. ★★½

Don’t Say Good Luck is a musical drama, starring Adam Sandler’s daughter Sunny in the lead as 16-year-old Sophie. Sophie is into musical theater and is auditioning for her school production of Waitress (the Sara Bareilles hit from a few years ago). She’s hoping for a secondary character but ends up nailing the lead. Should be an exciting moment in her young life, but her home life is in tatters. Her mother Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey) beat cancer a few years ago but it has aggressively returned, so while Sophie is rehearsing, Elizabeth’s condition continues to worsen. The musical numbers are performed quite well (no idea if that’s really Sunny singing or not, but if it is, she’s got talent) but until she actually makes a name for herself, I can’t help but hear “nepotism” ring in my head. And Lynskey is a one-trick pony who hasn’t performed well in a movie or show (I’m looking at you Yellowjackets, despite the early hype) in a long time, maybe ever. The movie is just fine, and completely forgettable once the credits roll. ★★★

Hollywood Shuffle is fantastic satire from actor and first-time director Robert Townsend, released in 1987. He plays another “RT” in the film, lead character Bobby Taylor, an aspiring actor in LA struggling to land a meaningful role. As he laments, black actors only get to play jive-talking gang members, butlers, or slaves. The movie is mostly told in sketch comedy-like scenes, where Bobby envisions things he overhears or ideas that come to mind, like a school (full of white teachers) teaching young black actors how to talk jive, or a black version of Siskel and Ebert pointing out how ridiculous white movies can be but how they see the nuance in a movie about pimps that rove the streets as zombies preying on working girls. When Bobby does get a callback for an audition, he learns that the (again, all white) movie team wants an “Eddie Murphy type” actor (since that is currently bankable). Hollywood Shuffle is a comedy but its satire hits hard, showing time and again how right Bobby is, and it hits home when he reads a note from his younger brother stating that the kid wants to be an actor just like Bobby when he grows up. Bobby then envisions the little guy as a stereotypical pimp, one of the only roles available to a black man. The movie drags a bit in the end (which says a lot, as it’s a short film at under 80 minutes), but the writing is spot on. You can see the influence of cowriter Keenan Ivory Wayans, who had met Townsend doing standup a few years earlier; he would start In Living Color’s sketch show just a couple years later in 1990. ★★★½

Crossing Delancey is a very typical 80s romcom. Knowing that going in, I knew what to expect and the film delivered what I was looking for: nothing complicated, but a cute love story, and in 80s fashion (and still popular today), from an unexpected source. Isabelle runs in intellectual circles and is a bit of a snob because of it. She tries to tell people that she doesn’t need a man in her life and is happy single, but she secretly wants companionship (often settling for sex with a married man for occasional flings), and her very Jewish grandmother is constantly trying to set her up. The matchmaker comes around one day with a new potential man, Sam, but Isabelle is put off by the fact that Sam owns a pickle store. While a respectable shop in the Jewish community, Isabelle wants a learned man, and has been pining away for local author Anton. We all know where this is going and the film doesn’t disappoint. It’s a delightful film with truly equal parts romance and comedy, about a woman who is lonely but “too intelligent” to admit it to herself, and turns a blind eye to where the love could be found. The city itself is a main character too, full of the buzz an bustle of 1980s New York. Not a complicated film but a charming one. ★★★★

Smithereens also showcases the city, albeit a grittier side, as it follows a young woman named Wren. She’s fled her home in New Jersey to live the punk rock scene in New York, only to find that most of it has since moved to LA. She latches on to rocker Billy, who was in a band called Smithereens with a one-hit-wonder years ago. Billy keeps dropping hints that he’ll take Wren to LA, but is just as likely to ignore her when she comes around, in favor of any other interesting woman who may be near. While Wren keeps following Billy like a lost kitten, she ignores the potential match right in front of her: Paul. Paul is homeless and living in a van, but he truly cares for Wren, no matter how badly she treats him. After getting evicted from her apartment, Wren takes to sleeping in Paul’s van, but will take off anytime she thinks she has a chance to connect with Billy. There’s no happy ending in this film. It isn’t all that deep, and the acting from a bunch of never-was’s is pretty rough, but just like Crossing Delancey, the feel of the city is great. It’s the best redeeming quality of this film. Honestly not sure what the film was trying to convey. It is trying to get me to feel sorry for Wren? Because I don’t; she takes advantage of people and is given a pass because “she’s punk.” ★★½

Choose Me is a straight up romance, though does have a few funny moments here and there. The three main characters are Mickey (Keith Carradine), Nancy (Geneviève Bujold), and Eve (Lesley Ann Warren). Mickey is recently released from a mental hospital and has come to LA to find an old flame, Eve. He goes to a bar, Eve’s Lounge, but the Eve tending bar isn’t the Eve he remembers; turns out this Eve bought the place after the original owner killed herself. Eve is a former prostitute who knows how to please a man, but not how to keep a man. She can never get herself in a good, healthy relationship. As such, she follows a popular local radio talk show hosted by Nancy Love, who serves relationship advice nightly. Despite being an expert on the radio, Nancy is shy and reserved around men in real life, and in an odd turn of events, ends up as Eve’s roommate (though Eve doesn’t know this is the Nancy she listens to every night). Into this twisted affair comes Mickey, a very confident man who is either a crazy liar or has done it all, admitting to having flown helicopters and photographed all around the world and knows martial arts. He doesn’t come off as a braggart, is just very matter-of-fact, and he is looking for a woman to marry. At turns, he falls for Nancy and Eve, but is somehow pulled into an affair between Eve’s current boytoy (a married man and pretend-gangster named Zack) where he has to defend himself with brutal force. There’s a lot going on there, but the heart of the story is about finding the right person in this crazy thing called life. Who doesn’t love a good love story, especially when there are occasional fisticuffs? ★★★½

A Dry White Season stars Donald Sutherland as Ben Du Toit, a born-and-raised South African in Johannesburg in the mid-1970s. Ben lives a carefree life and is unaware of the political strife shaking his country. When his gardener, a black man named Gordon, comes to him asking for help because his young son was arrested on trumped-up charges and caned as punishment, Ben brushes Gordon off, thinking the boy must have done something to deserve it. Soon after, the boy is caught up in a protest against apartheid and killed. Ben “makes a few calls” but doesn’t do too much, until Gordon is also arrested and evidence comes out that he is being tortured, eventually dying in custody. Ben can’t turn a blind eye anymore, and starts to get involved. For Gordon’s widow, he hires a lawyer (a later career role for Marlon Brando) and sues the police, but they ultimately lose the case with a heavily stacked court system against them. Ben then makes it his mission to get the news out on his own. The papers that describe the police brutality are often run by black Africans, and are dismissed by the white populace, so Ben wants to tell a story that his fellows will actually listen to. But doing so will turn the police against him and his family. A very powerful film, all the more so because it takes place not all that long ago. In fact, though it takes place in the 70s, it was released in 1989, and at that time, apartheid was STILL going on. It’s almost impossible to believe that a country like South Africa could carry on such blatantly racist practices for so long, but it’s a reminder that these things can still happen today. There are certain people in our government who like to say that race is no longer an issue, but we should remember that it is, and always will be if we are not vigilant to injustices. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Visions: The Ninth Jedi (series), Lost (season 5), Race Across the World (series 4)
• Book currently reading: Bloodline by Claudia Gray

Starting off today with a couple really good indie dramas. Mad Bills to Pay follows 19-year-old Rico who is a man by age, but still a boy by deed. He spends his days selling homemade cocktails on the beach outside New York City and his evenings getting hight and drinking with his friends. Not a whole lot of ambition there, despite the good example of his extremely hard-working single mother, an immigrant. Rico’s going to have to do some growing up quick though, when he knocks up his 14-year-old girlfriend Destiny. Destiny expects him to take care of her and their child, moving in to the small apartment Rico shares with his mom and younger sister (who is older than Destiny). Like a lot of expectant mothers no matter their age, Destiny knows the import of what is coming and starts ragging on Rico to start taking this seriously, but it is going to more than nudging for him to realize how much his life is about to change. A raw, completely riveting movie about a guy who’s just not ready to grow up. Rico keeps taking one step forward, two steps back, no matter how much he “wants to be a man” and be everything that his own jailbird father never was. ★★★★½

Due West is not a deep movie (not nearly as deep as it wants you to think it is), and isn’t as thought-provoking as the above film, but it has emotional heft that is hard to ignore. An unnamed woman (her name is never given, purposefully I’m sure, to imply that this could be anyone you know) lives in a small west Texas town. She is texting mysteriously with someone telling her to meet tomorrow at a city a couple hours away, and to bring $700 or don’t come at all. For a long time, we don’t know what for, but if you read any description of the movie, you know it is for an abortion. The secrecy surrounding the woman trying to come up with the money and get to the meeting is because abortions are very illegal in Texas now, and she, along with anyone aiding her, would face prosecution. The woman hasn’t made this decision lightly though. It’s not because she wasn’t careful, it’s not because she’s too young or too old or any practical reason. The woman was raped, and if you think that’s isn’t awful enough, just see the trials and tribulations she has to go through to try to move on from that terrible event in her life. A movie that makes you see both all of the good and all of the evil in mankind, in equal measures. ★★★★½

Deep Water tries to be a disaster movie that covers the most bases but doesn’t succeed at any of them. In the beginning, as passengers are boarding a plane from LA to Shanghai, it has some Final Destination levels of ridiculousness, ominously showing all of the little things going on that could go wrong, giving you a sense of (quite silly) foreboding. Most of it is brought on by the stereotypically loud and obnoxious overweight American. When the catastrophe finally comes, the plane is forced to crash into the Pacific Ocean, with no land in sight. The pilots (played by Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart) do all that they can, but the plane comes apart upon impact and the majority of passengers are killed or missing. The survivors band together to realize they are out of the frying pan, into the water, as the ocean is packed to the gills with the most ferocious sharks ever shown on screen. The movie devolves into a silly shark flick, and not even a good one at that. The scene when the plane goes down is as tense as it gets, but it is all downhill (or down the drain, if you like) after that. ★★

Normal is from writer Derek Kolstad, of John Wick fame, so you know what to expect going in. It stars Bob Odenkirk as Ulysses, who is serving as interim sheriff in the tiny town of Normal Minnesota, after its previous mayor recently died of a heart attack. Seems like a quiet town, but it has some idiosyncrasies. The sheriff’s office is loaded with high power guns and C4, there’s a new $18 million town hall going up, a little old lady has a long-range police scanner in her fabric shop, and other things that just don’t add up for such a small middle-of-nowhere town. The townspeople all seem to be a little too nice to their temporary sheriff. The opening scene of the movie, showing Yakuza in Japan sending some hoodlums to Normal, gives the viewer a clue as to what may be going on here, but it comes to a head when some out-of-towners attempt to rob the bank. Ulysses, unaware of what the town is hiding, steps in to diffuse the situation, but ends up on the shooting end of a town full of people unwilling to let anyone in on their secrets. Great action film with a lot more laughs than the typical John Wick movie. Doesn’t break new ground, but it doesn’t have to. ★★★½

Ian McKellen is one of the greatest living English actors, and he shines in The Christophers, playing a renowned artist named Julian Sklar. Most of Julian’s fame comes from two series of paintings he did 25 years ago called the “The Christophers,” where his muse is painted in portrait. A third series was hinted at by Julian, but he never finished or showed them. Now very old and still living off his former fame (he makes money by selling Cameo videos to fans), his adult children Barnaby and Sallie see a way to make some money once dear old dad dies. The two hire Lori Butler, a once-promising painter who hasn’t exhibited in a decade, to be Julian’s assistant and to finish Julian’s third series of Christophers behind his back, knowing that the paintings would each selling for millions upon his death and “discovery” in the attic. The brash and abrasive Julian doesn’t immediately warm up to Lori, but when she is forced to come clean about her motives, the two form a bond. Lori helps Julian move past some of the grief he’s been carrying over the real Christopher, a man Julian loved once (back before being gay or bisexual was “the cool thing” according to Julian) and Julian too can help Lori re-find her love of painting and overcome fear of rejection. You’ll laugh and be moved in equal measures, and McKellen shows that age has not slowed down his wit or expressiveness. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Agents of SHIELD (season 1)
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