"Thor: Love and Thunder"

I really don't know what to make of this.  It starts out with one joke after another.  Thor (or is it Hemsworth?) is a little over the whole hero thing and bumbles about, being reckless, and careless, in his work.  Then comes a serious threat and an old love with a secret.  The jokes continue.  And then they don't.  The film twists into a sad seriousness at the last minute and stays there.  I typically love the work of Taiki Waititi, who wrote and directed the latest entry in the Marvel universe.  "What We Do in the Shadows" is one of my top comedies of all time and "Jojo Rabbit" was f-ing brilliant.  ("Wellington Paranormal" is also very funny and worthwhile).  The laughs are there but the balance is not.  There should be a subtlety to the humor, a kind of weaving of story elements and the ridiculousness of it all.  This movie entertains but seem to be a little all over the place.  It's your run-of-the-mill superhero tale but it doesn't resonate.

"Spencer"

Honest-to-goodness, it has been a long (long, long) time since I hated a movie this much.  First, there is the unending opening where the director has the camera stare at trees for an interminable amount of time, then we see Diana in a car.  She gets lost, she wanders into a cafe where everyone stares at her, she is overwhelmed.  She is overwhelmed throughout, and, as portrayed by Kristin Stewart, she is a simpering whisperer who seems to be evoking the spirit of Marilyn Monroe as she experiences weird visions of Anne Boleyn.  There is little dialog, just lots of artful, lingering shots of unhappy people staring at each other.  The images have, perhaps, intent, but it's all kind of lost under a thundering and inappropriate musical score.  This is one of those situations where the director had a story he wanted to tell in some sort of avant-garde way, the facts be damned.  And there are few facts here.  Did Diana make a final trip to Sandringham the Christmas before the infamous divorce?  Yes.  What occurred there?  Who knows?  Not this.  So, my issue isn't just with the "let's make the movie we want to make regardless of whatever" but the fact that Diana was a real person and her sons, still alive, have to deal with this nonsense.  It's disrespectful and gross.  If you have the chance to see it, refuse.  For the sake of Diana's memory, and that of Will and Harry.

"In the Heights"

Nowhere near "Hamilton" this is a small-scale story.  There is love -- of a boy and a girl -- but it is also about love of a people, a culture, a place.  It's a gentle, quiet tale.  You have a young man trying to make a decision, who is looking around his community for guidance.  Song and dance ensues.  It's all quite lovely and has a fresh feel, even though there is a faint reminiscence of "West Side Story".  I enjoyed it.  But, strangely enough, it wasn't memorable.  It didn't "stick" with me.  I wasn't humming the music after I heard it.  It's very worth the two + hours, which fly by, just don't expect it to be a classic you return to over and over again.

"Ender's Game"

It's easy to see why this film didn't make it.  It did have a good cast, Asa Butterfield in particular, but the script just didn't work.  For readers of the books there are too many departures, starting with the fact that they couldn't cast a seven-year old in the role.  For those who didn't read the book it's a fast-paced mash-up of the events without the foundation of the relationships.  Ender's journey as an outsider, his connection with the team he assembles -- there just isn't enough time, in a two hour format, to unfold.  We are left with some random battle simulations without much of an understanding as to why they are so important in the tale.  Should this ever be re-made, it needs to be a mini-series. 

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"

The strangest part of this film is that it isn't really a movie about Doctor Strange.  It's a movie about the Scarlet Witch aka Wanda Maximoff.  Her grief, as seen in the Avengers films and "WandaVision" is a palpable thing and the resolution of that is the real focus here.  Which leads me to the following -- this film has some fun raging through various realities (not as well as "Everything Everywhere All at Once" I suspect) but is just a bit plotless.  I love the actors and enjoy the witty repertoire, but I'm getting a bit tired of every Marvel film existing for no other reason than to set up for the next Marvel film.  So, yeah, it's a needed coda for Scarlet Witch but it clearly leads into a new storyline with a dozen unfinished threads.  And I'm almost at the end of my rope with these unending Marvel sequels.

"WandaVision"

Loved this.  Loved loved loved this.  It's weird, it's unexpected, it's kind of brilliant.  A lot of it, of course, has to do with Elizabeth Olsen, who gets my vote as one of the most underrated actors of our time.  She has a full range of emotions which play across her face, over and over, making every viewing a new experience as you try to understand the kaleidoscope of feelings playing out inside of her.  The concept is terrific and will leave a smile on your face if you, like me, are a long-time TV viewer.  It's a great way to address Wanda's pain and loss, and does a real honor to the roots of the character.  The end ... well, no spoilers ... but it did not go where I thought it would.  I binged the whole thing in a couple of days but kept thinking about it long after I had viewed it.  By all means, indulge.   

"Encanto"

Fun and clever, this is one of those Disney films the kids will enjoy, and most likely will want to watch over and over and over, but there isn't a lot of depth here.  Cute magic stuff, cute songs, a mild point or two ("be yourself" I guess???) and that's it.  It's not one of those clever movies where grown-ups can see stuff the kids don't.  It's not nuanced.  It's just, well, "nice".  And "We Don't Talk About Bruno" will haunt you a bit but not in the earworm way.  It was entertaining.  That's about all I can say.

"Wedding Season"

I thought this Netflix production was a series, not a film.  It might have been better as a series.  Or not.  As it is, there is a major montage in the middle to make up for lack of storytelling.  In typical Hallmark fashion there is a career-minded woman being pressured by her family to find her Mr. Right, and she and an handsome Indian fellow agree to a faux relationship to get their parents off their backs.  You know what happens next, right?  The acting is good, the plot is on the light side -- predictable and boring, and the portrayals of Indian culture is fun and engaging.  So, like any televised rom-com, it's worth having on in the background while you are doing something else but don't expect to have a deep connection with it.

The CW. Again.

So.  As it goes up for sale, the CW has done what it has never done -- cancelled, like, everything.  A fond farewell to "DC's Legends of Tomorrow", "Batwoman", "The 2200" and more.  And it's time to evaluate the new tries.  

First, there is "Bump", cementing the CW as a network of imports.  This one, from Australia, features a thoroughly unlikeable teen who has a baby.  The child's arrival is unexpected and the father isn't the girl's long-time boyfriend.  Complications abound.  Despite the half-hour format, it's not a sitcom and it's not generally funny.  But it's not bleak, either.  It's kind of ... real?  And compelling.  

"The Great Chocolate Showdown" is a game show from Canada.  I generally don't watch these competitive things.  Most weeks I hate how a chef I like, who has previously done well, is booted off for a single fail.  But there is chocolate.  A lot of it.  'Nuff said.

"Leonardo" comes from British actor Freddie Highmore's production company, paired with an Italian broadcaster.  Examining the early life of Leonardo da Vinci it does a nice job of mimicking the art in the filming and taking a subtle approach to a very complicated man.  It's not historically accurate, hardly at all, but it does create compelling characters and spins an intriguing tale.  The cast is strong and the only one fail, in my humble opinion, is trying to convincingly to fit a 40-something actor into a group of 20-something art protegees and make them all look like contemporaries.  I'm willing to overlook it and see where this goes. 

"Turning Red"

This f-ing brilliant animated film does an incredible job capturing the struggle of leaving tween years and becoming a full-on teenager.  Not as popular as "Encanto" I have to say I enjoyed this one more.  It's smart and layered.  The choices by the characters are nuanced, the resolution more real than idealized.  Just a terrific movie for young folk -- and their parents -- to watch.  Wraps Chinese culture into the story a lovely way and respects both the traditions and the struggle of younger people growing up in these cultures.  The characters aren't all good or all bad and even the lead can be irritating at times.  This one I would watch again.

"Look Both Ways"

This Netflix film sits somewhere between the NBC show "Ordinary Joe" and the film, "Sliding Doors".  It's not as depressing as the Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle but it's not quite as well-done as the NBC show.  Like James Wolk, the lead character here, Natalie, has a seminal event (pun sort of intended) at the end of her college career.  It sends the young woman down two completely different paths.  In each life she has a five-year plan which doesn't go as planned.  There is "a guy" in each iteration although they both do and don't have a major impact on Natalie's choices.  There is an attempt to portray her as an independent woman and she has the spunk for it but in typical rom-com fashion the men must be part of the equation.  The film is good but not great.  The ending is muddled -- in part because the beginning wasn't clear on location and how that location plays out in the final events.  Everything is wrapped up neatly.  Perhaps too neatly?  Almost rushed?  It is as if those who produced the movie didn't want to offend anyone and so they just made everything "okay" without passing anything even close to judgement.  It's tricky times to portray a woman in America who may or may not pregnant.  You can try to focus in on the film but may end up thinking about a woman's choice -- or lack thereof.  

"Perry Mason" (2020)

This ain't your parent's Raymond Burr version of the famous fictional lawyer.  It's a completely new take.  Gritty, dark and hard to watch at more than a few points, it's an origin story, and it is done in the style of film noir (not my favorite).  Set in the early 1930s, the violence is visceral and graphic.  Perry is an alcoholic, chain-smoking veteran with no small amount of PTSD from the Battle of Argonne.  He works for a lawyer who has chops, but is fading.  The lawyer manages to keep it together with his smart and sassy assistant, Della Reese.  Paul Drake is now a Black police officer who struggles to walk the line of an impossible existence.  The eight episodes of the first season cover a single, brutal crime.  You want to know all the who and why?  You have to watch all eight episodes.  In true film noir fashion, even the ending isn't a real ending, not in the sense that everything is tied up in a neat bow.  Things come to a natural pause, but a happy path is not in the cards here.  Besides wanting to know what it was all about, I stuck in for two of the leads.  Matthew Rhys can do nothing wrong, in my humble opinion.  And Tatiana Maslany, continuing her tradition of being a chameleon, is transfixing, as usual.  To make the story go eight episodes there are a lot of convoluted plotlines, most of which end up unfinished.  The film-making here is outstanding but I don't know if I will watch season two.  Ms. Maslany will not be back and the whole thing is just way too moody and dark.  But I can't say the first season was bad.  Not at all.  So, it's a dilemma.