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Oct 8, 20201 min read
Stranger Than Fiction
Will Farrell learns to love cookies in Marc Forster's odd and enchanting comedy. Or is it a tragedy?
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All You Wanted Was to Know What to Watch On
NetFLIX
I Found Out For You
Enola Holmes
Enola Holmes is the first of many Netflix film reviews on this site. I have seen Netflix films, and have come to expect the highest possible production value, polished acting, and not a thing done half-ass. The flaws, and many abound in Enola Holmes, can be attributed to the fact that it isn’t a Netflix film but was slated for theatrical release and came to Netflix as a result of the Covid 19 crisis. But it masquerades as a Netflix film quite well in terms of production value, acting, and an ‘A’ for effort.
Enola Holmes tells the story of Sherlock Holmes’ sister, played by Millie Bobby Brown, who investigates the disappearance of her mother against the wishes of Sherlock. If you thought Millie Bobby Brown, from Stranger Things, really was just a brat, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by her performance in Enola Holmes. The film engages the audience and the characterization is spot on.
On the side of negatives, there are some. You may find some stilted dialogue, such as the time honored, “Do you trust me?” Enola and the romantic interest, Viscount, don’t bond nearly enough for their reunion to feel so full of yearning and subsequently love-struck. And you may become bored of Enola Holmes. You surely won’t be riveted. But if your looking for a well-done escapist journey, and you don’t feel like being nit-picky, the film presents an altogether welcome departure.
Eli
Eli is a 2019 horror film made by Paramount Players and distributed by Netflix. It tells the story of Eli Miller, a young boy coping with a rare disease that forces him to live his life indoors. His parents take him to a home where they are conducting an experimental treatment that could cure him. With the “everyone is suspicious” sort of creepiness, and some “pseudo medical intervention,” combined with all the standard horror movie trappings, and in the beginning you’ll find Eli to be a well-done run-of-the-mill fright fest. Fans of horror movies in general are the target audience for Eli. But what the film has in store is special. The kicker is this: Eli is a religious movie. And that is what makes it so cool.
If you’ve read this review you will enjoy Eli more than if you haven’t. It takes a little faith to let the film draw you into it’s world. The twist the film has in store is worth the wait. You’ll expect a haunted house set of jump scares and apparitions. The problem with many of these type of movies is that the protagonist is dumb — passive, cowardly, and gullible. Eli isn’t. He’s smarter than what he’s up against. Bottom line? Stick with this one until the end. It is one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. 4.5 out of five stars.
You
Season 1
You is a series on Netflix, which originally aired on Lifetime, about a bookstore manager named, Joe Goldberg, who becomes obsessed with a woman he meets named Guinevere Beck. He begins stalking her, killing her acqaintances, and forming a relationship with her. In order for me to enjoy such an immoral character, the production quality has to be extremely high, and the intrigue has to be even higher. In You, it’s like watching a car accident in high resolution and slow motion. You can’t look away.
If you’ve seen Dexter, who kills only bad people, and you enjoyed it, than You is for you. Although, be warned, Joe Goldberg is an even worse person than Dexter. I have a high tolerance for immorality in characters being a big fan of Ozark and Dexter, both of which showcase violent protagonists. And if you want to enjoy You, you can’t be squeamish. As the first season progressed, I went back and forth between being riveted and mildly entertained. But it’s a glossy, brilliantly directed, fantastically stylized work of art. And that sustained me.
Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger than Fiction is 2006 film, directed by Marc Forster, who you might know from Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace, or the quite unpopular, Stay, of which none of the flaws are on him. The direction in Stranger than Fiction is masterful. Every shot looks great, great care and attention is given to each detail, such as the grids, numbers, and diagrams on the screen as Harold Crick’s thinking is voiced by narrator Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson).
Harold (Will Farrell) is an IRS agent. He counts everything in his life including toothbrush strokes. When he starts hearing Karen Eiffel talking about him the film become extremely meta. Is Harold in a comedy or a tragedy? It appears he’s in a tragedy. He doesn’t even like cookies. But if he can learn to love life, and even win the heart of Anna Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), he may find the narrator wants him to live.
Dustin Hoffman plays a professor who gives Harold the help he needs and Hoffman lends just enough eccentricity to his character for us to go along with him believing Harold’s crazy story. The film starts to feel self-important towards the end. A small issue that is totally forgivable. And it contains some great lines like, “I don’t need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes.”
Stranger than Fiction is a great film. Four of five stars.
The Sleepover
Benji
Benji, who you know from the franchise that started in 1974, is a lovable dog who is just shy of a genius, and solves problems for the people he cares about. In this 2018 reboot released by Netflix, Benji escapes from a dog catcher and would be homeless were it not for two kids who want to adopt him. The kids are then kidnapped while foiling a robbery and Benji uses his powers of deduction to save them.
So you know what to expect. You may, however, wonder if the filmmakers pull it off.
The acting is fairly solid. The emotional setups are frequent. It is beautifully shot. And Benji himself should be nominated for an Oscar. That being said, all of it is incredibly cheesy. There is a way of doing this story that isn’t laughable and Benji doesn’t hit that mark. But whether your laughing, or have a lump in your throat, you will admit that Benji is nothing if not entertaining.
The question becomes: does Benji do what we want it to? If the plot description causes you to roll your eyes, steer clear. But if your willing to get what you asked for, Benji may be your perfect dollop of gooey cheese.
The Trial of the Chicago 7
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a Paramount Pictures film that was set to release in theaters but got bumped to Netflix as a result of Covid 19, and began streaming on October 16, 2020. The film portrays the true story of a group of anti-Vietnam War protesters who were arrested and charged with inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Within the first half-hour of the film you will be struck by the ingeniously written script and wonder who could balance so many characters so skillfully. This is, of course, Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin who brings his brand of quick-witted, erudite, and believable characters that he proved he could with The Social Network and Molly’s Game.
Chicago 7 is not one of the best films I’ve ever seen. But it is an absorbing, and satisfying piece of art. I was particularly fond of Eddie Redmayne’s performance as the one of the seven on trial. Sasha Baron Cohen, as well, shows his range and adds some humor to such a serious film.
I felt the same way about Chicago 7 as I did about Molly’s Game. It’s as if Sorkin operates on another level — one all his own. It’s not just a five star film. It’s better than that. It requires something other writers and directors just don’t have. It’s requires a level of care all it’s own.
Rebecca
Upon finding out their mother is in the Witness Protection Program, and used to be a badass snitch, the kids set out to rescue their kidnapped mother and take down the bad guys. This is The Sleepover, a Netflix film released on August 21, 2020.
This is a kids movie, with kid actors, a kid plot, a kid like set of adults, and kid jokes. That isn’t without merit necessarily. But The Sleepover has mostly bad to mediocre acting and is only sporadically funny. Malin Ackerman, who you may know from The Heartbreak Kid, or 27 Dresses, is decent as a Mom with two identities. The father, a Ray Romano look-alike, Ken Marino, is responsible for most of the films laughs. And the kids are only half-decent.
The Sleepover wasn’t enough to hold my attention. I found myself writing this review, and my upcoming novel Hatchet Raisers. The film plays like a check-all-the-boxes action comedy that is uninspired and just sort of lays dead on the screen. I know I’ve said Netflix movies tend to be top of the line. This one isn’t. It strives to be, but falls short. If your under the age of fifteen this movie might be for you. But otherwise, this one is a major snooze.
The Open House
The Open House is a typical horror film that premiered on Netflix in January of 2018. It contains all the standard horror movie ingredients. Bloody noses. Apparitions in the middle of the road. And a creepy basement door that closes from time to time. In the end, none of the ingredients of the plot add up. The apparitions aren’t explained, nor is the bloody nose. It’s just sort of thrown in there because it’s a horror film.
The film is about a kid named, Logan, and his mother, who move to a house that is up for sale and stays open during the day for potential buyers. The neighbors have a go at acting strange, saying things like, “the quiet out here can get real loud.” I found the film to be engaging for the first two thirds. The tension built steadily, and the acting was more than adequate. Then as the third act neared, I realized I was genuinely scared. I even muttered, “Oh my God,” once or twice. As an aficionado of horror movies, I usually find them underwhelming.
The Open House is worth watching just for the third act. Logan is played by Dylan Minnette, who was Clay Jensen in Thirteen Reasons Why. He’s older here, and grieving the loss of his father, so he does every scene as a depressive, all of which is fine. I would recommend this film. For the fear factor, it’s worth more than most horror movies. It’s worth a casual viewing.
How It Ends
How It Ends is a Netflix film starring Theo James and Forest Whitaker. An undefined catastrophe requires them to drive west to find James’ girlfriend before, I don’t know, the world comes to an end. Phone lines are disrupted, flights are canceled, there’s some cloud of dust somewhere, and we never find out the reason why. It’s a script so stupid it’s difficult to believe it ever got made into a movie.
Road trip movies tend to be a hard sell for me. There are some that work — Rain Man, Due Date. But they tend to be episodic, pointless, meandering, and uninspired. What are we hoping for? Why should we care? What is the conflict? What’s the point?
The character relationships here don’t have any parameters set up so we get a clear sense of what the problems are and and what the answers are. They just bond over arbitrary conversational nuggets. None of it has any emotional resonance. There’s no thematic significance. This film could be used in a writing course as an example of what not to do.
Apparently, the audience should care about how well James and Whitaker talk themselves out of various situations. But I didn’t care and neither will you. That is, if you put yourself through the torture of watching this film. This movie was so bad that I felt my intelligence being insulted and it literally made me mad.
Simple conclusion. Don't watch it.
The Possession
The Possession is a 2012 supernatural horror film starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgewick, and a couple kids who, gasp, can actually act. It tells the time honored and unoriginal story of a divorcing couple and their kids who encounter an ancient evil and have their lives turned upside down. In this case, the evil comes in the form of a box one of the kids purchases at a yard sale.
These movies are the same. The adults are confused, they get framed for hurting their children, they figure out their children aren’t crazy, they consult a religious expert to understand an ancient language, and they banish the evil from their lives. However, this is one of the better ones.
I have not yet tired of these cliches. Maybe you haven’t either. The acting here is stellar, the mood is creepy, the scares are riveting, the actors pull it off with flying colors, and I found myself glued to the screen. This isn’t a “you’ll laugh and be entertained” horror film. This is a quality film, that may or may not scare you, but will be engrossing.
I’m not sure why filmmakers insist on allowing every family in these movies to defeat the evil and not leave it at that. I’m not sure why the evil has to survive and go haunt some other family. I found the happy ending of this film to be satisfying and then quickly squelched by the standard horror film final note. But I highly recommend this movie if your a fan of these types of films. Four of five stars.
Rebecca is romantic thriller released on Netflix October 21, 2020 and tells the story of a rich widow, Armie Hammer, who marries a young debutante, Lily James. The problems arise when James grows suspicious of her new husband and his mysterious dead ex-wife Rebecca who may or may not have been murdered. This leads to a lot of tense scenes of investigating the locked chambers in the household, and culminates in a murder trial.
I have read some early reviews of this film that call it unnecessary. But I strongly disagree.
I loved this movie. It reminded me of the TV show Revenge, with it’s trashy, soap opera, sophisticated characters. The difference is that it is more stylized, with more care given to the image, and a brilliant score that keeps the film racing along. The acting is stellar with Lily James proving she can land every scene flawlessly.
When I got to the end of the film I realized there were some loose ends. The film insinuates it is going to be a horror film but never capitalizes on that promise. And in the end, I felt fine with this. It’s a little weird, but there’s nothing especially wrong with that. The Direction is masterful and sustains a level of tension that is rare among romantic thrillers. Highly recommended.
Waco
Waco is a six part series on Netflix about the man and his cause that we all referred to in the early 90’s as “Wacko Texas.” I am speaking, of course, about David Koresh, the religious fanatic that killed numerous innocents with his messianic ambitions. This series is phenomenal. One of the reasons is that David Koresh was not just a wacko. He had legitimate and sympathetic reasons for what he did. This is a tragedy. Good people who wanted something to believe in started down a path as innocents and got too far down it.
The series stars Taylor Kitsch as David Koresh, and not enough can be said about the quality of the performance. If you saw John Carter, you may be under the impression that Kitsch isn’t much of a star. But he thoroughly redeems himself here. Michael Shannon is similarly great as an FBI agent with a crisis of conscience. If you grew up staying home from school and saying to your parents, “God. What a wacko,” you’ll find this series riveting. And if you have no opinion going in, you still be thoroughly fascinated.
Some critics have said that the series is historically inaccurate. Having researched some of these incongruities, I can tell you there are two or three at most. They were instituted to make the story more cinematic. They are negligible. What we didn’t know in the nineties was that Koresh’s premonition for the role God wanted him to play was frighteningly accurate. And while he ends up essentially fulfilling his reputation as a wacko it is different from what we all thought went down.
Grand Army
Grand Army is a Netflix series that premiered on October 16th, 2020 and chronicles the lives of five teenagers as they struggle with issues like sexuality, ambition, loyalty, revenge, and social acceptance. It also includes references to real world issues like terrorism and Covid 19. The series contains 9 episodes that run 47 minutes. A lot is packed into these minutes. Some of it is intense and compelling. Some of it is tangential and sometimes seemingly irrelevant. But this combination makes for a result that feels high brow and sophisticated. In an almost documentary rawness, these characters grapple with problems that feel just as raw. In the first scene a girl strenuously works to remove a condom from another girls vagina in a High School bathroom. However, it doesn’t feel like an indie production. Not all these scenes utilize handheld cameras. The acting is polished and believable. And the product feels extremely well-done.
The series takes a few episodes to get into the thick of drama. So Grand Army does require some patience and faith. Not all of it is entertaining. It reminded me a lot of the film Kids that you might remember from the 90’s with it’s brand of realistic, stylized, teen speak. The story with Joey, who is sexually assaulted and claims rape, was especially compelling. Female issues are a large part of Grand Army. One character even cites the Vagina Monologues. There isn’t much to say about Grand Army that is negative. It’s definitely worth watching and is one of the better series I’ve seen on Netflix. 4.5 of 5 stars.
Startup
3 Seasons
Startup is a drama series that premiered in 2016 on Crackle and is now streaming on Netflix. The show stars a slew of great actors including Ron Pearlman, Martin Freeman, and Mira Sorvino.
It tells the story of a coder who creates a currency called Gencoin and then launches a business, a sort of bank, to regulate the currency. One of the most impressive aspects of this show is the transformation of one of the companies founders played by Adam Brody. Similar to the show itself he becomes more and more heartless. It’s an almost Al Pacino-esq transformation.
Startup is great. That is almost a difficult statement to make because in the second half of the third season the show begins to fail miserably. But the first two seasons are riveting, shocking, and while flawed, well worth the watch. The flaws are minor and easy to overlook. At times the show feels like its trying to be something it’s not. It is undercooked. But I found myself caring about the characters and wanting to see them succeed.
Startup is one of the more compelling shows I’ve seen on Netflix and one of the few that I made it through several seasons of. My advice? Keep watching until you don’t want to anymore. You’ll be on board for a long time.
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