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Wednesday (Netflix, 2022)

Wednesday (2022, Netflix)

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Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is no average teenage girl.  With her pallid complexion, black attire, matching pigtails and a personality overflowing with misanthropy, she’s every parent’s nightmare, except for Morticia and Gomez.  They love their little viper, storm cloud, etc. and would do anything for her, including keeping her out of trouble when she exacts revenge on her brother Pugsley’s high school tormentors.  When Morticia confronts her with the possibility of having attempted murder on her record, Wednesday replies, “Terrible.  Everyone would know I failed to get the job done.”  If you love droll humor, Wednesday (character and series) has plenty more where that’s coming.

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Emily the Criminal

Emily the Criminal

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To paraphrase the late Charles Bukowski, nobody suffers like the working poor.  Emily (Aubrey Plaza), the eponymous character of Emily the Criminal, is a perfect example of that truism.  She works for a food delivery service, making just enough to afford her car and room in someone else’s apartment.  Emily is a heads-down, hard-working type, and needs a better-paying job to do more than exist.  Unfortunately, an old felony conviction for aggravated assault keeps her shackled in place.  That incident ended her college career and left her on the hook for $70k in student loans.  Basically, Emily is trapped.  She can’t get an office job because of the felony on her record, and without a better paying job she can’t pay off her debt.

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Severance – Season One (Apple TV)

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In a future that’s closer than you think, a company called Lumon Industries has invented a technology known as “severance”.  Enabled by a chip that is inserted into the brain, it effectively severs your mind into two selves, referred to whimsically as “innie” and “outie”.  Your “innie” is who you become when you’re working on Lumon’s “severed floor”.  That self has no awareness of who you are outside of work, but it does remember everything else you’ve learned (how to walk, talk, eat, etc.)  When you leave work, you transition back into your “outie”, who has no knowledge of what transpired during the day.  Think of it as compartmentalization on steroids.  If this technology had been invented by Apple, I’m confident they would have called something catchy like “iDissociate”.

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Lyle, Lyle Crocodile

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile

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What would you do if you stumbled upon a crocodile who could dance and sing? If you’re hapless magician Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem), you would make it the centerpiece of a song-and-dance act. Lyle definitely has the singing and dancing chops to be a star, but he suffers from paralyzing stage fright. Before you can say Michigan J. Frog, the act flops on opening night. Having used his home as collateral, Valenti goes on the road to pay off his debts, leaving Lyle a first generation iPod to keep himself company.

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See How They Run

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In 1950s London, Angela Christie’s Mousetrap has just completed its one hundredth performance.  American director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody) is in town ostensibly to hash out a screenplay with Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo), but the two cannot agree on how to turn the stage production into a movie.  At the afterparty, Köpernick hits on the lead actress (Pearl Chanda), implying that she can get the lead role in his movie for…favors.  This naturally upsets her lead actor and husband (Harris Dickinson).  After a fight, Köpernick is attacked and killed backstage.  Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) and Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) are put on the case, and together they unravel just how many people had a reason to kill Köpernick.  It’s a classic whodunnit, but like Christie’s stories, the murderer may surprise you.

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Minions: The Rise of Gru

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In this prequel sequel, Gru (Steve Carrel) is intent on joining the Vicious6, a group of super villains who have deep-sixed their leader, Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin).  Even though the minions have given Gru nothing but unwavering loyalty and dedication to his cause, he doesn’t believe that the minions are ready for prime time.  What 11 & ¾ year-old kid doesn’t need some help becoming a supervillain?  As for Wild Knuckles, he’s furious that the team he founded tried to kill him.  If you haven’t guessed, Minions: The Rise of Gru is about loyalty.  Well, it’s about loyalty in those moments when it isn’t hilariously funny.

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Elvis

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Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis tells the story of a performer who, if you’re versed in American popular culture, needs no introduction.  This movie, however, is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill biopic.  While the movie does a decent job of recounting the key events of Elvis’ life, it intends to remind us of how exciting Elvis was as a performer.  Mission most definitely accomplished there, as Austin Butler and director Luhrmann amazingly channel the electricity of Elvis on stage, when he was at his best.  The movie also tries to refurbish Elvis’ image by addressing criticisms of racism and cultural appropriation.  Even though the movie’s attempts were made in good-faith, I doubt they will likely win over any new converts.

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The Black Phone

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Set in 1978, a child killer nicknamed The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) has been terrorizing a Colorado suburb.  Under the guise of a hapless magician, he snatches kids in broad daylight, spraying an intoxicant into their faces before cramping them into his black van.  A middle-schooler named Finney (Mason Thames) eventually becomes his target and finds himself trapped in a soundproofed basement.  When Finney is alone, a phone on the wall rings.  This is curious as the phone is disconnected.  On the other end is the voice of another boy Finney knew.  Subsequent calls are from the other boys who’ve gone missing, five in all.  Initially they give Finney advice on how to not play The Grabber’s “game”, which has been lethal for them.  They then proceed to coach him on things he can do to try to escape.

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Jurassic World: Dominion

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In Jurassic World: Dominion, humanity is beset by two man-made disasters: dinosaurs running amok and gigantic locusts devouring the food supply.  The former is fallout from the previous movie, where the baddie had the brilliant idea to hold a dinosaur auction in his mansion.  The latter is the result of some nefarious genetic engineering on behalf of Biosyn, run by ruthless tech bro Dodgson (Campbell Scott).  Not content with controlling the world’s food supply, Dodgson is searching for Maisie (Isabella Sermon), a genetically-engineered clone who is now the ward of Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard).

The supersized locusts catch the attention of Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), who promptly recruits old flame Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to visit the Biosyn headquarters at the behest of mutual friend Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).  (They need a locust sample to prove that Biosyn is behind the big bugs.)  The headquarters doubles as a dinosaur sanctuary, and you just know the dinosaurs won’t be kept under wraps for long.  After Dodgson’s henchmen kidnap Maisie and Blue’s baby raptor, Owen and Claire head for Biosyn to retrieve their children.  After running from dinosaurs separately, the two casts unite so they can run away from the dinosaurs together.  

Dominion is not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination.  Its plot is driven by coincidences and contrivances.  The dialog is mostly perfunctory.  In spite of its limitations, I enjoyed it.  In the sixth entry of this franchise, the filmmakers can still rely on a solid performance by Pratt and a tolerable one by Howard to anchor the proceedings.  The dino-action is, as always, top notch.  The movie avoids the unforced errors that sank Fallen Kingdom, in that nobody does anything glaringly stupid.  I’m not sure if the reappearance of OG trio Neill, Dern and Goldblum was a panic movie to regain fans after that disastrous sequel, but it ultimately disappoints, with the gentlemen tossing gutterballs.  (Dern emerges unscathed.)

Fortunately, the chances director/writer Colin Trevorrow took with the story succeeded, and turned the movie into something better than the sum of its parts.  He thankfully moves the franchise beyond the tired “dinosaurs as entertainment” angle into interesting new territory.  He shows us what a world where dinosaurs and humans coexist actually looks like.  Then, he explores how the genetic engineering used to bring dinosaurs back to life could make things dramatically worse for humankind.  Finally, he turns the question of dominion on its head for a theme of cooperation and collaboration.  The movie also introduces several intriguing new characters, including DeWanda Wise’s tart cargo pilot Kyla, Dichen Lachman’s henchwoman Soyona and Mamoudou Athie’s Ramsey, an heir-apparent to Goldblum’s Malcolm.  Omar Sy is also back, and if this series will continue with another trilogy, he should be given the leading role.  Dominion takes risks when none were expected, and for that it earns my respect.  Recommended.

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