Review – Black Christmas (2006)

The original was a clunker, and this doesn’t really do much to improve on it. Indeed, my favorite parts were the homages to the older movie. Beyond that it’s sorority girls being butchered by a psycho, with some backstory stirred in for a little extra added annoyance. See if desperate

Review – The Beekeeper

Hollywood finally appears to be getting the revenge movie formula worked out. The elite killing machine protagonist here is set off when his kindly neighbor commits suicide after falling victim to a phishing scam. I’m not inclined to care a lot about mobsters or international cabals. But as far as I’m concerned, criminals who steal from old folks can definitely all get murdered by retired super commandos. Beyond that, this is a comfortably familiar assembly of action sequences. Mildly amusing

Review – Munich: The Edge of War

Here we have a big moment in history as seen from the perspectives of two young professionals who happen to be old acquaintances. One’s a minor bureaucrat on Neville Chamberlain’s negotiation team, and the other is a German with insider knowledge about Hitler’s true intent. Naturally enough, this turns out to be one of those stories that one desperately wishes would turn out differently than it did. Mildly amusing

Review – Unthinkable

This “thriller” has two basic plot elements: arguing and mutilation. And after awhile both become extremely tedious. The set-up is a typical contrivance of scenarios in which torture might possibly be justified, which adds an extra layer of artificiality to the story. See if desperate

Review – Last Call

The subtitle “When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York” somehow implies that this hadn’t happened before and hasn’t happened since, which of course isn’t accurate. Still, the murders committed by Richard Rogers back in the 1990s provide some food for thought about the question of people that law enforcement does and doesn’t care about, particularly the older, closeted victims who might otherwise have been a priority for the police. Especially noteworthy are the efforts of the LGBT+ community to force homophobic authorities to do their jobs. Mildly amusing

Review – Eye in the Sky

Military echelons from drone operators to anti-terrorism commanders to the Prime Minister wrestle with the ethics of launching a drone strike that will kill terrorists in their lair but also blow up a little girl selling bread in the street outside the building. So basically this is nearly two hours worth of an expensive version of the trolley car problem. See if desperate

Review – The Eugenics Crusade

Just in case anyone needs a reminder (or worse, this is new information to you), the Nazis didn’t invent eugenics. This installment of American Experience documents the monstrous philosophy’s heyday in the United States prior to World War Two. Though we didn’t make it all the way to death camps here, things were still plenty bad for awhile (and parts of the madness linger still). The documentary does a solid job of covering the rise, the fall and the issues that came up while eugenics held sway. Worth seeing