What do you do when your friend asks you for a favor above and beyond what you would normally do for them?  For example, “Would you look after my dog after I’ve checked out?”  That kind of request can affect your life dramatically, especially when that dog is a Great Dane, you live in a small studio apartment and the building has a no pets policy.  How do you turn down your friend’s dying request?  And more importantly, what does the dog think about this arrangement?

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If you enjoy watching well-made movies about beautiful people doing all the wrong things, The Housemaid is for you.  The trio of Amanda Seyfried, Sydney Sweeney and Brandon Sklenar make this trashy psychosexual thriller a blast.  Recommended. Continue reading The Housemaid

If grief appeared before me as a gangly, foul-mouthed, eight-foot tall crow who spewed insults, I’d assume I was done for.  Which is what makes The Thing With Feathers so oddly compelling.  The crow doesn’t appear before the Sad Dad in this film (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) to harm him, but help him.  The crow wants to shock him out of his grief so that an even worse creature doesn’t do him in, Despair.  As far as therapy options go, this one beats Yoga and keeping an “emotion journal”, either of which would push me off the deep end.

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WWII movies fall into two categories, those that following tradition and those that chart new territory.  Those that opt for the former envelop you in their warm, cozy familiarity with the genre, like your favorite quilt.  They don’t challenge you, but they’re entertaining.  WWII Movies that eschew tradition in favor of bold and daring choices are more admired than loved.  They’re the quilts you receive with a polite “thanks” that currently reside in the dark recesses of your closet.  Nuremberg is solidly in line with the first approach, a direct descendant of the WWII movie from the Forties or Fifties.

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Raising children is expensive.  Combine that with how difficult it can be for veterans to find suitable work after leaving the military and you have the origins of Roofman.  The movie is about a thief who earns his nickname by chopping through the roofs of businesses before robbing them at gunpoint.  Since Channing Tatum is in the leading role, I’ll confirm what’s most important to his fans: his trademark abs and glutes are prominently on display.  That said, Tatum is far more than a beefcake actor, and this movie provides him with an opportunity to showcase his seldom-used range.

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Blue Moon is an engrossing snapshot of the artist in free-fall, with a delightful performance by Ethan Hawke at its center.  Its insistence on shrinky-dinking Hawke down to size is a humorous distraction, but not a fatal one.  Margaret Qualley radiates glamour as his potential love interest and lifeline.  Recommended. Continue reading Blue Moon