"The Merry Gentlemen"

Talented actors and Chad Michael Murray's surreal abs can't save this holiday movie from being the epitome of every so-so Christmas movie ever.  The meet-cutes, the tropes, they are all there.  Admittedly, there is some awesome choreography but it wasn't enough.  I was checking my email half an hour in.  Love Britt Robertson but not the best project I've seen her in.  Blah blah blah.  Next ... 

"Agatha All Along"

For one of the endless Marvel spinoffs, this wasn't bad, although this one episode-a-week thing really brings down the enjoyment factor.  An incredibly high-end cast and a very neat premise, along with more than a few twists I really didn't see coming, made this a fun go-to.  In some ways it was a great show which could have gone maybe an inch or two more and been spectacular.  A follow-up to "WandaVision" (which ~was~ spectacular), it opened in a way which is both very funny and a terrific homage to the previous show.  It takes a turn, and then, after we settle into the concept, takes more turns.  There are life lessons, reflections, and a lot of learning.  I'm not saying that Agatha finds redemption in the sense of becoming a good person but I appreciate that the creators let her be ... complicated.  Kathryn Hahn is perfect for the role, bringing every sigh, look and verbal intonation one could imagine.  Her performance is so deep she is like a bottomless well.  The only downside is (spoiler alert) an amazing supporting cast which -- sadly -- don't make it through all the episodes.  Totally worth the eight episodes.

No, "Die Hard" is not a Christmas movie

Yes, "Die Hard" takes place at Christmas.  But, unlike "Home Alone", I would argue that absolutely nothing in the plot or the actions would change if it were set, say, during the Fourth of July.  My argument (spoilers ahead):  John McClane travels to see his estranged wife, a rising star in an LA firm, just before the 4th of July.  He brings a really big teddy bear for his daughter (maybe it's her birthday).  He shows up at a staff party and everything goes wrong.  He uses his cop instincts to fight back against the terrorists/thieves.  After he kills the first one, he sends the guy down the elevator in red-white-and blue hat with "God Bless America" written on the guy's shirt.  Throughout, various people hum patriotic country songs.  NOTHING else changes.  The response of the cops (who probably think the gunfire is fireworks), the ulterior motive of the bad guys, the way McClane takes each one down and figures out what's going to happen.  In other words, the fact that it is Christmas has almost nothing to do with what happens or how it happens.  That being said, it's a good film.  Bruce Willis gives his patented funny, grounded, fairly real guy in the middle of extraordinary circumstances thing.  The combination of terrorism/robbery and a kind of riff on "The Towering Inferno" makes the tight film engaging.  Bonnie Bedelia and the whole cast (particularly Reginal VelJohnson, Alan Rickman and De'voreaux White) round out a strong group of actors you want to watch.  And the leading lady isn't a size 0 Barbie girl.  See, women looked like women in films in the 80s!  It's an engaging action film.  But it's not a Christmas tale.  

"Cinderella" (2000)

I love a good Cinderella tale.  From Leslie Caron in the 1955 "The Glass Slipper" to Julie Andrews in the 1957 "Cinderella" TV special, I've been known to spend a day watching one Cinderella after another.  Which made this film ... painful.  Rarely have I seen such a simple story so badly mangled.  Set in the Middle Ages -- or 1920s -- or 1950s -- or 1970s??? it liberally steals from Shakespeare (Lear and R&J), "Beauty and the Beast", "Mary Poppins", "The Wild One", "Misery", the original Grimm tales and more.  It comes off like some weird acid-trip/film noir version of the tale with cheap porn music scoring.  Brilliant actors like Kathleen Turner and David Warner are awful.  She's fake and over-the-top, he's flat.  Not as flat as lead actor Marcella Plunket who, long before Botox, manages to spend nearly the entire film without making a single expression.  Prince Valiant (really) is just as lackluster.  He actually says "Girls aren't cool".  OMG, who wrote this tripe?  Oh, and Daddy never dies.  It's ... weird.  Kind of robs the lady of her raison d'etre, you know?  And don't get me started on what they do to the glass slipper part of the story.  The ball has all the subtley of the 1960s Batman TV show mixed with your average teen horror film.  In the end, the milquetoasts end up together, of course, but it reads more like "The Graduate" than "Happily Ever After".  Tomorrow I'm clearing my palette with "Slipper and the Rose" or "Cinderella" (1965) with Leslie Ann Warren.  I need to forever wipe this atrocity from my mind.

"Fleishman is in Trouble"

Not sure why it took so long for me to get around to watching this series.  I guess I kind of thought it was some dry humor thing set in New York City.  It's not.  Based on a novel, it's a limited series about a man getting a divorce.  It's also about a woman who's not sure she wants a divorce.  It's about raising children, facing middle life, being Jewish, finding happiness, making peace with the life you have chosen, figuring out what love is ... and so much more.  Actors are great (although Jesse Eisenberg's frenetic patter is beginning to feel a little old).  The story is compelling and identifiable and not too dark.  It's just very real.  There are some knowing smiles along the way.  It was a worthwhile weekend binge.

"Madame Web"

(Spoilers) I often like to watch films otherwise trashed by critics.  Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't.  In the case of "Madam Web" the critics are not wrong.  This film fails on pretty much every level.  Casting, concept, direction, script, you name it.  There is Dakota Johnson in the lead role as Cassandra Webb (could you hit us over the head more??)  Her character, with a typical difficult backstory, is emotionally supressed.  Which translates to emotionally flat.  Her whispery voice makes her seem like a drifting waif, not a superhero.  Her flashforwards are "Inception" level confusing and gave me a bit of a headache.  And she drowns.  A lot.  Then there is Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O'Connor who play the rambunctious teens Ms. Webb is supposed to save.  Let's start with the fact that these women are more parodies of teens than actual teens.  They each try to overcome the stereotypes they are given (good girl, bad girl, nerd) but have little success.  There is Jose Maria Yazpik, a Mexican national, who plays a Peruvian with real heart.  But looks nothing like a Peruvian native.  Which is typical for Hollywood, which clearly thinks all Hispanics are alike.  The greatest offense here, however, is Tahar Rahim, a villian who is just ... "huh"?  He starts out evil, he ends evil, and his entire motivation is to stop a future event which is continually built up throughout the film ... but NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENS.  It's just kind of a hot mess.  As an origin story, there is, of course, a lot of exposition.  The typical path of the character having a normal life, then getting the "gift", rejecting the gift, accepting the gift, then beating the crap out of the bad guy.  Squeeze in three more characters and keeping the film under two hours makes it feel choppy.  Events seem disconnected, characters can't develop.  Again, you have to love Hollywood, which clearly feels that a single female character can't carry a film on her own ("The Marvels").  It was also the first Marvel film in a long while without a cute cut-in during the credits.  Which sends the ultimate message:  The studio knew this was a bomb and didn't even bother to try.

"The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade" by Ann Fessler

Yes, I still read books.  But it takes a lot longer than digesting the constant flow of streaming media.  In any case, this book, which isn't new, was a revelation.  It made me think, a lot, about the hew and cry from the right that "all unwanted children can be adopted".  What these narratives show is that the issue is far, far more complicated than one might imagine.  There is the sense by the adopted child that their birth mother didn't want them, that somehow they, as children, were unworthy.  There is guilt and anger and shame from the mothers.  There are few women here who said, unequivocally, that this was the right thing to do.  But most felt pressured, lied to, manipulated.  They felt a profound loss of control.  Many turned to drugs or alchohol and dangerous pursuits.  They felt a sense of being inherently "bad" and that dictated their moods, their mental health, their choices, their lives.  This event, which they were told was momentary, colored their world, and their personalities, for decades to come.  With some facts but mostly stories, it is hard to read these very personal tales and not feel moved.  The role of women in society (then and now) underlays much of the fabric of this book and makes one sit back and wonder about the role of motherhood -- how it is portrayed, how it is in actuality.  A powerful read, this one appeared in my "Little Free Library" and I could not be more appreciative.  Not easy, but perhaps necessary.  Check it out.