Lance Dutrizac

The Mule falls prey to weak formula traps but is well worth the road trip because Clint Eastwood's rural country experience, advanced age & understated country gentelman wit make this adapted true story work well enough. Rare visits to family, lots of flower farming, & eventually dangerous drug running from cartel dens in his old pickup keep Earl Stone busy. His advanced age & relaxed 'free-man-on-the-land' thought process twarts DEA agents & even one determined police dog when Earl decommissions the sniffing animal with a quick sneeze cream snout rub before it exposes his cargo. Earl's cartel boss has a soft spot for his success but frustrated insiders who take power of the cartel rule the outcome. .

Holmes & Watson is a fresh feast for clueless & clued in clown lovers of the absurd. Laugh out loud set pieces deliver one zinger after another which is not easily sustained from start to finish. But the Holmes Watson close relationship is traditionally ripe material for spoof writers & this script tirelessly exposes their odd partnership for laughs from start to end. For best results, this mad crime case solving caper by two clowns in period setting is best not taken to seriously.

Moments of brilliance mixed with moments of vanity make this remake both real interesting & sometimes eye roll uninteresting. We must believe Lady is a rough dimond, not actually the established entertainer she is. Her cowgirl persona goes a long way to build her earthy character which evolves later in the film to the more familiar high brow Lady we know off screen. A Star Is Born is worth seeing. It is one of the all time remarkable on screen/off screen persona transformations by any music performer.

Dry, sentimental, Mortal Engines script grinds to a hault on predictated path toward unstable character building.

Fantastic contemporary troll vs human love story unpeels slow so we smell then taste every ugly & beautiful layer in this everyday fabricated mythology. Ever fantasize about domestic or sexual relations with a troll? Or two trolls? Border (Gräns) is a must see. Acute sensory investigation, human predator capture by feel, exposure by non human, animal detection & difference are at the heart of this dark, often humorous tale.

Conceptually strong horror story set in visually rich brutalist tomb location revisited each night for Hannah's one by one kill off of unsuspecting lab staff. This below grade level hospital storage for dead people is the coolest motion sensored death chamber in the city. Silent concrete corridors echo crisp chared demon host flesh which crackles as she lives, dies & lives again in this minimalist tomb. Less is more in this visually stunning work so extra bumps & scares are perhaps over kill which distract a bit from our deep disturb.

The fleeting highs & painful lows are great entertainment due to mindfully scripted well supported acting.