Review – Warning Sign

A deadly bacteria gets released in a lab that’s secretly manufacturing deadly bacteria. Can the lab workers’ friends and family – led by the local sheriff (Sam Waterston) – cut through government bureaucracy and disinformation in order to rescue their loved ones from the ensuing lockdown before it’s too late? And in so doing, will they release the plague into the wider world? This production does a reasonably entertaining job of making the audience wait for the answer. Mildly amusing

Review – Winchester

The true part of this story is familiar enough: Sarah Winchester, widow of the firearms manufacturer William Wirt Winchester, believed she was being haunted by the ghosts of people slain with her husband’s rifles. So she had a mansion built (and built and built) with no end of eccentric details in order to placate and/or befuddle the restless dead. Simply positing that her ghosts were real should have been enough to sustain a good horror movie, especially with Helen Mirren in the title role and permission obtained to do at least some of the filming in the real location. Alas, the plot never finds a way to get off the ground. Mildly amusing

Review – Justice League

Once again Zack Snyder makes a DC Extended Universe movie that plays like a mopey version of its Marvel counterparts. Having killed Superman in the last one, Batman must now form a superhero team strong enough to take on a Thanos-esque baddie with the unlikely name of Steppenwolf. Though not completely charmless, this nonetheless comes across as a depressing revamp of The Avengers. Mildly amusing [and I should also note that two years later the studio let Snyder re-cut this to remove the color, shrink the aspect ratio and add a lot of extra footage, none of which made it any better]

Review – Into the Woods

At the risk of being the umpty-thousandth viewer to vent this gripe, this thing really goes to hell at the midway point. The first half of this adapted-from-the-stage musical is an entertaining re-imagining of several familiar fairy tales. But then suddenly a giant squishes everything, throwing the kingdom into chaos and forcing all the characters to re-examine their life choices. Maybe it’s profound, but at the risk of sounding like a witless rube, it isn’t very entertaining. See if desperate

Review – Venom

Venom didn’t make his first comic book appearance until after I’d stopped reading Spider-Man as a kid. And I kinda regret that, because he seems like a really good villain, a nice combination of vicious, powerful and scary. But here he’s the hero. Or to be more precise, he’s an alien symbiote that attaches himself to the hero (Tom Hardy). Once they finish with the how-did-this-happen part, this eventually settles down into a fun anti-hero action yarn. Mildly amusing

Review – Spider-Man: Homecoming

Freed from the vagaries of the studio rights ownership deals that kept the character out of the MCU, Spider-Man finally gets his own (semi-) stand-alone movie. I appreciated the decision to skip the pace-killing, all-too-familiar origin story and cut straight to the new battle between the teenage hero (Tom Holland) and the Vulture (Michael Keaton), who in this iteration holds the undignified position of being a supervillain who steals scrap metal. Mildly amusing

Review – Horror Noire

This is an excellent documentary about the role Black filmmakers have played in the horror genre over the years. It covers mainstream horror movies with Black characters, horror movies made specifically for Black audiences (especially in the 1970s), and of course the racism encountered in both. Worth seeing

Review – Mandy

Here’s further proof – however unnecessary – that no matter how terrible a production is, it’s still probably someone’s favorite movie. Nicolas Cage stars as the vengeful boyfriend of a woman kidnapped by a Manson-esque hippie murder cult and their biker henchmen. If you’re willing to buy the idea that a story must be profound if it’s lethargic and confusing, here’s a piece of high art for you. And you’ll have at least some company, as I’ve read several baffling, positive reviews of this thing. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Beware the Slenderman

Though the title makes this sound like yet another witless attempt to turn an internet trope into a horror movie, this turns out to be something far more disturbing. Inspired by online rumors about a sinister figure known as the Slenderman, two 12-year-old girls decided to go Leopold and Loeb on one of their classmates. This documentary raises all kinds of interesting questions about media influence, mental health and juveniles in the justice system. Mildly amusing

Review – Insidious: The Last Key

Yeah, I’ve seen the word “last” in horror franchise titles before. In this one, Dr. Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) is asked to help the current occupants of the haunted house where she grew up. The story features an unpleasant subplot about child abuse, but otherwise it’s what fans have come to expect from the Insidious series. See if desperate

Review – Ready Player One

In a dystopian future where everyone lives in trailers stacked on top of each other, the only hope our young protagonist has is a high stakes competition in a vast and elaborate VR world. The cyberspace setting gives director Steven Spielberg plenty of room to play around with all the cultural references Warner Brothers can supply, ranging from King Kong to The Shining. The story isn’t all that interesting, but the visuals are impressive. Mildly amusing

Review – Ferdinand

Wow is there ever a lot of animal peril in this, especially for a children’s movie. I understand that the underlying story is about a bull who refuses to fight and be killed in the ring. I loved Disney’s cartoon short when I was a kid. But here they literally kill some of the bulls. And later revealing that they’re not actually dead kinda doesn’t make it better. The voice talent is good, and the animation is acceptable. But the script is weak. See if desperate

Review – Annabelle: Creation

Why spend money on productions like this? As it relies entirely on jump scares, all the producers need to do is pick some random past release (preferably the most boring movie they can find) and add bright flashes and loud noises at random intervals. Or maybe don't even bother with a plot at all. If moviemakers need to cater to audiences who crave nothing more than cheap adrenaline rushes, let the fans  stare at a blank screen and have an usher drop by once in awhile and blast an air horn at them. The Conjuring franchise continues its downhill slide from an apex that wasn't much more than a speed bump to begin with. See if desperate

Review – Deadpool 2

Though the first Deadpool movie was straightforward enough to stand on its own, this one tends more toward the need to be familiar with the comic book characters before you take on the movie. It’s entertaining enough. But there seemed to be a lot going on that depended on one’s ability to get the inside jokes. And as I’m not familiar enough with the whole X-Men thing to do that, I felt left out in several spots. Mildly amusing