Sully (2015)

  This would have been a great Father's Day post.  Oh well.

In the days after a forced water landing on the Hudson River, airplane pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) must defend himself in an inquiry by the NTSB to determine what, if anything, could have been done better.  

My brother recommended this to me a long time ago.  It's a little hagiographic for my taste but this is a solid Dad-movie directed (of course) by Clint Eastwood.  Tom Hanks has the appropriate amount of gravitas, Aaron Eckhart radiates charm, and it's stuffed to the gills with character actors whom you'll recognize even if you have no idea what their names are.  If you're looking for a nice quiet movie to put on so your dad can nod off while he swears he's just resting his eyes, look no further.  It's engaging but not so much so that you'll be irritated if someone texts you while you're watching.  

Currently streaming on HBO Max.

A Different Man (2024)

Nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling     Our second Sebastian Stan performance and the one that should have gotten him nominated.

Edward (Sebastian Stan) has a rare cancer that causes tumors to grow on his face.  He joins an experimental drug trial that gives him back the life he thinks he should have had.  By chance, he discovers the neighbor he had a crush on (Renate Reinsve) has written a play about a man with facial deformities and the girl who loved him.  You can see where this is going.  He auditions for the part, using his old face as a mask but is quickly upstaged by Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man with facial deformities who is comfortable in his own skin.  Edward's life spins out of control as he grapples with a number of truths.

This just in:  Local man discovers beauty means nothing without a personality (and money but mostly personality)!  News at 11!

I called this The Substance for dudes and I'm not wrong.  Frankly, if either protagonist had a single (1) friend, neither one would have ended up where they did.  And/or a therapist.  Stan does a good job here but the material is frustratingly navel-gaze-y.  Pearson is a bubbly delight, but Reinsve feels underwritten in a Manic Pixie Dream Girl way.  For once, that actually serves the story since Edward mostly perceives her as an archetype, not a person, anyway.

Pacing is glacial.  There are long moments where the camera just pans between characters like Iñárritu in molasses.  I respect the attempt but it didn't work for me.  I just started fast-forwarding in 30-sec jumps and missed nothing.  

I thought this movie was a hot mess but it's streaming on (sigh) Max so you can see for yourself.  

Kwaidan (1965)

  Some bonus post-Halloween ghost content for your All-Souls Day.  

This is an anthology of four traditional Japanese ghost stories.

The Black Hair - a samurai (Rentarô Mikuni) regrets the choices he made in service of ambition.

The Woman in the Snow - a woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) has a terrifying run-in with a snow demon (Keiko Kishi).

Hoichi the Earless - a blind monk (Katsuo Nakamura) is summoned to perform a historical epic for its victims.

In a Cup of Tea - a samurai (Kan'emon Nakamura) is tormented by a ghostly presence reflected in his teacup.

I don't throw the word "masterpiece" around very often so trust me when I say it.  Kwaidan is a masterpiece of Japanese cinema.  The scare factor of this is very low while the art factor is extremely high.  Every scene is basically a painting that moves.  It is a stunning film.  The performances feel a little wooden, a little stage-y, but it just adds to the vibe.  It does run a little over three hours but I did not feel it.  

It's streaming on the Criterion Channel and also (sigh) Max.  Treat your eyeballs.

RoboCop (1987)

  Content warning:  some gore, violence

In the near-future, a mega-corporation has contracted with the city of Detroit to provide an alternative to the police force.  But the main prototype, ED-209, still has some bugs to work out.  Fortunately, executive Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) has a back-up.  His project takes an existing human body and combines it with machine for the best of both.  Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is volunteered for the procedure after being gunned down by a gang of criminals led by Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith).  Morton's team insists that all that's left is a brain running pre-programmed software, but it turns out androids dream of electric vengeance.

Sad to say that RoboCop was the closest predictor of our actual future.  In that sense, it's aged like fine wine.  Everything else is pretty dated, though.  Weller is the least main Main Character in a movie.  He has a lot of screen time but is literally robotic.  It's hard to root for him when he gets introduced, murdered, and then put in a tin can like five minutes in.  The Omni Consumer Products executives have more of an inner life, even if it's a soulless 80s yuppie one.  

A lot of people love this movie and it's considered a classic.  I thought it was okay but I wouldn't rush out to find the sequels.  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max along with the 2014 remake that I also haven't seen.

The Batman (2022)

Normally, I wouldn't repost something that I had seen so recently but it's been kind of a shitty summer for me and Batman is like comfort food.  This is my second viewing and it holds up pretty well.  I didn't get any new insights in it but that's not really what I was looking for.  I actually forgot about it when I was doing my Top Ten for 2022.  Didn't even include it in the ranking.  So it's a little surprising how often I thought about it since and I needed to revisit to see if I was mis-remembering or if it was Actually Good.  Verdict:  Actually Good!  I think it's still streaming on whatever Frankensteinian monstrosity (sigh) Max has become but I bought it.  Originally posted 07 May 2022.    I did not hate this movie!

Like many of you, I'm a little Batman-ed out.  Zach Snyder Batman has not been my favorite interpretation and I was concerned about yet another unnecessary origin story, but Matt Reeves Batman was refreshingly to-the-point.

Gotham City is wracked with corruption.  The mayor, Don Mitchell, Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones) is up for re-election against a feisty and motivated opponent, Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson), but is spared from losing at the polls by being brutally murdered by the Riddler (Paul Dano).  Riddler has a grand scheme to expose the many ills of his hometown, leaving a complicated trail of clues for Gotham's caped crusader (Robert Pattinson), in whom he feels a kindred spirit.  Batman follows the leads to an underground club run by the Penguin (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell), and a missing girl named Annika (Hana Hrzic), who might have witnessed some shady dealings of the late Mayor.  

Somebody finally let Batman actually do some detective shit!  Yes, he's still dark and gritty and emo AF but this time it works.  He looks like a 20-year-old billionaire stuck in permanent adolescence trying to figure out exactly what running around the city in costume is getting him.  Reeves has said in interviews that he wanted Batman to be more DIY, less high-tech, and that grungy effect works to astonishing degree.  And there are moments of humor that work even more because the rest of the film is so stark.  No spoilers, but about 3/4 of the way through, there is a reveal and Pattinson's "wait, wut" look is pitch-perfect.  Like, you can see his brain just blank and then frantically try and cover for it.  It's subtle but great character work.

But honestly the thing that impressed me the most was Colin Farrell.  It is unreal how completely he disappeared into that character.  Not even his voice sounds the same.  It might be his best performance ever and it's in a goddamn comic book movie.  That is wild.  The Batman is currently streaming on HBO Max but I don't know for how much longer.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

  I'm sorry, I just don't buy that anyone ever thought Hugh Grant was attractive.  

Charles (Hugh Grant) sees Carrie (Andie MacDowell) at a wedding.  Sparks and some bodily fluids are exchanged but then Carrie goes back to America and Charles loses track until another wedding where they are again both guests.  Over a year or so, the pair keep running into each other but the timing is never exactly right.

MacDowell is charming enough but most of the ensemble felt terribly underwritten.  I could not have cared about any of Charles' friend group and the humor felt very flat.  Kristin Scott Thomas was criminally underused, although John Hannah had a very good role.  In fact, for the mid-90s, this was great LGBT rep (even if it still falls prey to the Bury Your Gays trope).  

I am very clearly not the target audience for this.  I remember when it came out and it was all people could talk about.  My mom rented it.  I'm pretty sure she liked it.  But I was 13-ish and this held no interest for me.  Still, it won a bunch of awards so a lot of people must have enjoyed it.  Maybe you will too.  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max.

All the Way (2016)

  Everything I've read about Lyndon B. Johnson paints him as a loud, crass, blustery asshole.  This HBO Original tries to ameliorate that by also claiming that he was genuinely trying to improve the lives of Black people in the Civil Rights debate instead of just using them for political points.  Content warning:  racism, racial murder, homophobia

Thrust unexpectedly into the Presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson (Bryan Cranston) has to scramble with pushing legislation from his predecessor, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  His Southern Democrat compatriots vehemently oppose the Act but Johnson knows that the South must change or be left behind.  He tries to walk a fine line between appealing to Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (Anthony Mackie) and not pissing off his oldest supporters, like Senator Dick Russell (Frank Langella). Then there's a re-election campaign and a looming war in southeast Asia to consider.

I feel like history has judged LBJ already and it was not a positive legacy but I'm not a presidential scholar.  This biopic is pretty decent.  Stephen Root plays J. Edgar Hoover and Bradley Whitford is back in the West Wing as Herbert Humphrey.  Cranston kind of disappears under the makeup but Melissa Leo quietly steals the show as Lady Byrd.  All the starry performances can't quite get it out of the shadow of JFK, though.  As always, your mileage may vary.  It's currently streaming on Max.

Stagecoach (1939)

  This Western is 85 years old and still feels completely modern.  And that's why John Ford has 4 Oscars for directing.

Nine strangers board a stagecoach bound for Lordsburg, by choice like Mr. Peacock (Donald Meek) the whiskey salesman, by happy coincidence like Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) the drunk, because they're running away like Mr. Gatewood the banker (Berton Churchill), because they're running towards something like Mrs. Mallory (Louise Platt) the soldier's wife, or Hatfield (John Carradine) the gambler, for vengeance like the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), for justice like Marshal Wilcox (George Bancroft), because they were paid to like Buck (Andy Devine) the driver, or because they were run out of town like Dallas (Claire Trevor) the prostitute.  Nine people in cramped conditions under the constant threat of attack by famed Apache warrior Geronimo, each with their own secret.

Unlike the majority of Westerns that came after, this is not a homogenous narrative of White People Good, Indians Bad.  It's a story of outsiders, people on the fringe of society.  Geronimo is a boogeyman here, a name on the wind.  Yes, the main cast is all white, but all the Native Americans are played by actual Native Americans, and all the Mexicans are played by actual Hispanic people which is better than most productions from that time.  I'm not going to sit here and say it's not racist because how could it not be?  But it was at least making an effort.

John Wayne is the big name but this was early enough in his career that he mostly has a supporting role in the ensemble.  Claire Trevor is the powerhouse in this film and she carries the vast majority of the emotional connection with the audience, but no one is miscast here.  Every story has weight and every character feels fully realized.  That is really hard to do in a nine-person ensemble without pacing problems but the script is so tight, it never feels like it's rushed.  The denouement does lose a little momentum but your tolerance for that may vary.

It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max and the Criterion Channel for money, Roku, Crackle, and Tubi for free, and Hoopla with a library card.  Give it a shot, even if you don't typically like Westerns or John Wayne.

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

  I'm not a big Peter Berg fan, even though I agree with a lot of his points.  I find him overly dramatic, bordering on histrionic.

British Petroleum (BP) cuts corners on safety inspections at the floating oil rig Deepwater Horizon because it is behind schedule, leading to a catastrophic failure and blowout endangering the lives of the 116 workers on board.  Chief Engineer Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) tries to rescue as many as he can from the fiery disaster.

Fun fact!  The Gulf still hasn't fully recovered from this, the largest oil spill in U.S. history.  BP paid $4 billion in fines but not a single employee spent a day in jail.  

Of the two Disaster Directors (that is, directors who mainly do disaster movies, not directors who are disasters), Roland Emmerich is for large-scale, world-ending stuff while Peter Berg focuses on smaller, more human-focused stories.  Not a dig on either, just an observation.  

I didn't love this movie, although I think it's very competently done.  The script is tight, characterizations are bare-bones but enough, John Malkovich's evil executive is very evil and Malkovich-y even though his accent kept tripping me.  Kurt Russell is great.  Kate Hudson is also in this, but they don't have any scenes together.  It just feels overwrought to me.

Deepwater Horizon is currently streaming on (sigh) Max.  

Mermaids (1990)

  Finally, a coming-of-age story I semi-relate to!  Mostly because I, too, went through a phase in my teens where I wanted to be Catholic (specifically stigmata).  Then I got a little older and realized what I actually wanted was Attention.  And divine favor, which is really just Attention+.  Anyway...  Content warning:  child endangerment (drowning)

Charlotte (Winona Ryder) is a nice Jewish girl desperately wishing she could be a Catholic nun and tired of moving across the country every time her free-spirited mother (Cher) gets dumped.  When they land in a small town near Boston, her problems are intensified by a hard crush on the caretaker (Michael Schoeffling) of the local convent.  Her mom hits it off with a shoe salesman (Bob Hoskins) but her pathological fear of commitment stands to ruin both her's and her daughter's relationship.  

I remember watching this as a (very literal autistic) kid and being bitterly disappointed that there are no actual mermaids.  It is not a fantasy film at all.  So just in case you too were misled by the title.  I still have no idea why it's called this.  It's based on a book so I'm assuming it gets explained there.

The performances are mostly great.  Cher and Hoskins are magnetic together and this is the debut of tiny Christina Ricci, who is also good considering she's like 8-years-old.  I love Winona Ryder but Charlotte's voiceover/internal monologue was irritating as fuck.  I don't think I'd ever watch it again, now that I've completed it (I left it unfinished when I was a kid and it has always bothered me because autism) but it's not terrible if you like period pieces --the 1960s, New England in the fall, Cher, Bob Hoskins, or problematic age gaps.  (The caretaker is 27 or 29 and Charlotte is 15.)  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods (2023)

  Happy 2024!  I am cheating a little bit because I watched this a couple of days ago so I could have one more for my top ten.  Which it did not make because it is straight-up terrible.

Billy Batson (Angel Asher) is leaning into his life as the superhero Shazam (Zachery Levi) so he can avoid thinking of his problems as a foster kid about to age out of the system.  Which doesn't have anything to do with the Daughters of Atlas, goddesses who are searching for a seed of the tree of life so they can rejuvenate their blighted world.  Meanwhile, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), is shocked and delighted to learn that the new girl in school, Anne (Rachel Zegler), is interested in him.  

Do those seem like three separate storylines that are somehow ham-handed into one?  Because that's what I got out of it.  Nothing in this film made sense.  The heroes' motivations were unknown, the villains were underbaked, the actions scenes didn't feel grounded, and the story was somehow both overstretched and cluttered.  Ensemble films are hard to pull off.  None of the Shazam-family seemed to have much of a personality in either of their forms except Billy and Freddy.  That worked okay in the first one, because it focused primarily on Billy/Shazam.  This one tried to broaden out but there wasn't enough there to build on.  

Shazam is supposed to be a kid dealing with adult problems, forced to grow up too soon, given an absurd amount of power but no instructions on how to use it.  A metaphor for adulthood.  There is a lot to be mined from that but this movie is completely uninterested.  It doesn't even seem interested in the parallels between the Daughters of Atlas, unmoored by their grief with no clear way forward, and Billy's fears of abandonment.  

It's a regression, filled with childish one-note jokes about unicorns and Billy's teenaged crush on Wonder Woman.  

Skip it and watch Black Adam instead.  Seriously.

Scream-O-Rama 2023 Day 28: The Leftovers season 1 (2014)

  Is this horror?  Is it just sci-fi?  I don't know, but I do know it sucked.  Content warning:  blood, dead animals (deer, dogs), burned bodies, some gore

Three years after a global event that saw the disappearance of 2% of the population, a small New York town struggles to find meaning.

I gave this three episodes but I just couldn't finish it.  I didn't care about any of the characters, their motivations were unfathomable to me, and I was bored when I wasn't outright disgusted.  Maybe slow-burn mystery-box shows are your thing.  If so, all three seasons are streaming on (sigh) Max.  I couldn't get into it.

Scream-O-Rama 2023 Day 5: True Blood season 5

   Is this the season that's finally shitty enough to make me stop my absurd need for completion?  Nope!  Content warning:  gore

Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) continues to deal with the fallout that is her life and learns more about her Fae heritage.  Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) are arrested by the Authority, a vampire ruling council, and tasked with finding Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare) or be killed themselves, only to discover they are actually pawns within a religious schism.  Meanwhile, back in Bon Temps, Jason (Ryan Kwanten), Hoyt (Jim Parrack), and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) try to navigate their broken relationships with each other, a new hate group is targeting shifters, and Terry's (Todd Lowe) past from Iraq catches up with him.

This show remains the junk food of vampire TV.  It is so bad, but when you are in the mood, just satisfying enough to make you hate yourself later.  This is probably the most disconnected season and felt the furthest removed from its beginning.  Almost nothing revolved around Sookie's magical faerie vagina and which buff super-dude gets to have it.  That's kind of an improvement, if it wasn't immediately replaced by Hot Vampire Ladies in Your Area.  It was like someone at HBO was going to die if there wasn't a naked woman on screen every 10 minutes per episode.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-nudity but this show has always had a problem with how Male Gaze-focused it is.  At least they finally let Rutina Wesley be hot instead of constantly dialing her down.

The entire series is streaming on (sigh) Max.  This was a massively popular show a decade ago.

Scream-O-Rama 2023 Day 3: Children of the Corn 3: Urban Harvest (1995)

  Day three and we're knocking out an unnecessary sequel!  Content warning:  gore, bad VFX

Joshua (Ron Melendez) and his little brother Eli (Daniel Cerny) are fostered by the Porters in Chicago after their father (Duke Stroud) is murdered by corn.  Joshua attempts to assimilate, making friends with the neighbors, trying to get along at school, but Eli resists.  Mrs. Porter (Nancy Lee Grahn) discovers that Eli has been sneaking off to the abandoned factory next door to tend his corn.

I cannot overstate how absolutely shitty this movie is.  Everything about it is awful.  The dialogue is bad, the acting is wooden, the plot makes zero sense, it's weirdly racist and misogynist despite having a predominantly Black cast (eau de White Savior sprayed all over), and the special effects are laughable.  The only reason to watch it is if you are a die-hard completionist.  There is a small cameo from a baby-faced Charlize Theron near the end (one of the crowd scenes) but that is absolutely not an endorsement to watch.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max with all the other Children of the Corn movies.  Maybe 4 is better?  I have no idea.

It's Been a While So Have Some TV

I've been watching a lot of TV recently, so I thought I'd do a recap because it's been a while and I'm trying to get ready for 31 Days of Horror which is kicking off in about a week.

I tried to watch The Sopranos, consistently rated one of the best shows ever made, and I just couldn't get into it.  I just didn't care about any of the characters and I was annoyed by the whole thing.  A mobster reluctantly sees a therapist in order to work out the problems in his life.  Gave it three episodes and it just wasn't for me.  It's streaming on (sigh) Max.

I finally got around to watching season 3 of Riverdale and it was exactly the kind of trashy fun I was looking for.  Season 1 was a murder mystery, season 2 was a serial killer, so to keep upping the ante, season 3 features an evil cult and references the Satanic Panic, Dungeons & Dragons, Fight Club, and Silence of the Lambs.  I love that this show is unabashedly wearing its heart on its sleeve for the things it likes.  It's streaming on Netflix.

The Pretender is one of those very rare shows I wouldn't actually mind seeing rebooted.  It was made in the 90s and the plot is that a super-secret private organization has been training Very Special Children to model and predict events until adult Jarod (Michael T. Weiss) runs away and uses his chameleon-like abilities to right wrongs while trying to find information on his birth family.   The parallels to autism are very in-front and I like that his superpower is basically empathy.  It's streaming on Amazon Prime.

Tyler and I watched season 1 of The Diplomat and I fucking loved that show.  I'm super excited it's getting a second season, although in these uncertain times, that means nothing until it's actively in front of my eyeballs.  A career diplomat is prepared to receive an assignment to Afghanistan but is shocked to find herself transferred to the UK.  It's a wildly different posting that she is determined not to turn into a fluff piece, unaware she's being groomed for something larger.  It's streaming on Netflix.

Once we finished that, we started season one of The Bear on Hulu.  We're only about four episodes in but we like it so far.  A highly-acclaimed fine dining chef moves to Chicago to take over the sandwich shop bequeathed him by his dead brother and finds himself embroiled in all kinds of emotional entanglements as he tries to bring order and standards to the shop.

Tyler is a big Star Trek (star anything, really) fan and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came to us very highly recommended by our friends, the Ballards, so I (a casual watcher at best) strapped in.  I was very pleasantly surprised by how entertained I was, and we blew through seasons 1 and 2 before I even knew it.  I loved the musical episode so much.  La'an Noonien-Singh is my favorite and I would die for her.  The storybook episode?  My heart.  It's streaming on Paramount+.

On my own, I tried to watch Nip/Tuck because it was again highly recommended to me by my cousin, Christy.  I made it through three episodes but I could not get into it.  The misogyny was so built-in that I couldn't take it.  Two Miami plastic surgeons deal with professional and personal hijinks while trying to build their practice and manage their personal ethics.  It's streaming on Hulu.

I'm currently watching Secret Diary of a Call Girl season 2 on Tubi.  The video quality is bad -- it's extremely fuzzy -- but after a few minutes, I can just ignore it.  Independent escort Belle (Billie Piper) navigates managing her clients while mentoring a young protégée and trying to find a work/life balance between her persona and her real self.

And lastly, Tyler and I have been watching Ahsoka over on Disney+ (see, I told you about the star thing).  He watched Star Wars Rebels and has a much deeper knowledge of what the hell is going on between the characters but even as a neophyte, I found it easy enough to follow.  Ronin Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), former padawan to Annikin Skywalker, is trying to stop the Empire from regaining control of the universe and bringing back Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), who has been exiled to an unknown location.

So you can see that I've been very busy sitting on my ass in front of my TV.  All for you, readers.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

  This is probably my least favorite Tim Burton film for all its iconic imagery.  I've just never liked it.

An Avon saleslady (Dianne Wiest) makes the cold call of her life when she finds a young man named Edward (Johnny Depp) in a crumbling mansion.  Edward was created but unfinished at the time of his maker's (Vincent Price) death, leaving him with shears for hands.  Undaunted, Peg takes him to the suburbs, where he struggles to fit in and obsesses over Peg's teenaged daughter, Kim (Winona Ryder).

It's a nicer version of Frankenstein, sure, but there's something about it that just doesn't land for me and I think it centers on Kim.  Her character has no depth, perpetually whines, and her wig falls into the Filmmaker's Poorly Disguised Fetish category.  Everything else in the film works: the characterization of the suburbs, Alan Alda as the clueless but supportive dad, Depp still trying to be the second coming of Buster Keaton, the dogs, the topiary, the mini-malls, the mad scientist aesthetic.  Everything but Kim.

In fact, if you removed her from the movie, pretty much nothing would change.  You'd lose the framing device but nobody remembers that anyway.  

I won't go so far as to say I hate it, but I've never owned a copy and I would never have watched it again if it weren't for Movie Club.  It's streaming on (sigh) Max right now.  See it once, if you haven't, and then go watch something better.  

Ed Wood (1994)

  This will be a very heavy Tim Burton week.  Someone in Movie Club admitted that they had never seen Beetlejuice, which kicked off an entire movement to watch the highlights as it were.  

Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) desperately wants to be a filmmaker and when he hears about transgender activist Christine Jorgensen's life story being given the film treatment, he knows he's the man for the job.  The film turns into Glen or Glenda, which flopped hard but gave Wood the boost to continue following his truth.  He is bolstered by legendary actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), now fallen on hard times, and a string of underdogs and misfits trying to make their Hollywood dreams come true.

This is such a sympathetic portrayal.  It was back in the 90s, when Depp and Burton were still actually trying, and it shows in the meticulous attention to detail.  The opening credits alone are spectacular B-Movie glamour.  Landau won an Oscar for his Lugosi and rightfully so.  His daughter, Juliet Landau, also has a role here.  Continuing the nepotism streak, Burton's then-wife Lisa Marie plays OG video vixen Vampira.  

It is a truly great film about art and staying true to oneself in the face of criticism and doubt.  Even when your art is truly, objectively terrible.  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max but I watched my copy on the server.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

  It's not as good as the first one, but not a bad sequel overall.

After eight months of success, Sonny (Dev Patel) and his partner, Muriel (Maggie Smith), are looking to expand the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to a second location.  Sonny has a failed hotel in mind for purchase, but to get the funds they have to court an American retirement home conglomerate.  Evergreen has promised to send out their anonymous hotel inspector.  Sonny is convinced it is new arrival Guy Chambers (Richard Gere), who claims to be working on a novel but mostly seems interested in wooing Sonny's mother (Lillete Dubey).  Love affairs are very much on the minds of the other residents as well, with Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Evelyn (Judi Dench) tiptoeing around their feelings, Madge's (Celia Imrie) inability to choose between her two suitors, and Norman (Ronald Pickup) accidentally putting out a hit on his girlfriend (Diana Hardcastle).  Sonny's relationship with his fiancée, Sunaina (Tina Desai) is also being jeopardized by his insecurity when faced with a richer, more handsome "friend of the family" (Shazad Latif).  

The heart and bubbliness are still there but this sequel feels underbaked.  In particular, the Madge sub-plot should have been cut and more effort put into Muriel's maternal affection for Anokhi, which was pivotal in the first movie and mostly overlooked here.  Still, it's not bad for a lazy Saturday where you just want something light with a guaranteed happy ending.  It's currently streaming on Max (formerly a streaming service with HBO brand recognition.)

Johnny Dangerously (1984)

  One of the only good things about HBO rebranding itself is that sometimes things get shuffled to the top, like this little gem from the '80s.  Content warning:  ethnic slurs, homophobic slurs

Johnny Kelly (Michael Keaton) is just a regular joe trying to keep up with his mom's (Maureen Stapleton) medical treatments and put his little brother (Griffin Dunne) through law school by becoming the notorious gangster Johnny Dangerously.  But when his brother becomes the District Attorney and vows to crack down on organized crime, can Johnny quit his criminal ways and go straight?

Everybody (rightfully) talks about the dialogue but I had forgotten how many visual gags there are in every scene.  If you're one of those people who are on your phone half the time during a movie, you are going to miss out on a lot.  Also, it's great to show people who primarily associate Keaton with Batman that he can also be goofy and light-hearted.  He's always been a great actor and I don't think he's ever truly been recognized for it.

Johnny Dangerously is currently streaming on (*sigh*) Max.  It would be a fun double-feature with Oscar, based on exactly one gag, or with Manhattan Melodrama if you want comedy/drama.

The House Bunny (2008)

  This was an aggressively stupid movie that featured a decent soundtrack and great eye candy.  It's one of the leftover Christy Collection movies that I added way way back when we had combined our respective DVDs.  The message isn't terrible but I seriously doubt I could ever watch it again.

Orphan Shelley (Anna Faris) dreamed of having a home, and being super hot, found one at the Playboy Mansion.  Then she turned 27 and got kicked out.  Homeless and destitute since everything she owned was actually owned by Hugh Hefner, she wanders onto a college campus and learns about being a housemother.  The only sorority in need of one is about to have its charter revoked for not meeting their pledge requirements, and lead girl Natalie (Emma Stone) thinks Shelley might be the answer.  If she can show the Zeta girls how to be hot and popular enough to draw attention and prosperity, they can keep their charter.  In return, they give Shelley a home and a slightly larger vocabulary.

I cannot overemphasize how trite and predictable this movie is.  It is every "college comedy" stereotype complete with a makeover sequence to turn uggos like Stone, Kat Dennings, Katherine McPhee, Kiely Williams, and Rumer Willis into... how they normally look.  The message of sisterhood and being true to oneself is constantly undercut by the film asserting that male approval is still the only metric that matters.  It was hamstrung from the beginning with a faulty premise that all the pink Girl Power! Juicy sweatpants in the world couldn't fix.

Ladies, you deserve better.  But it is streaming on HBO Max if you so choose.