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Reviews
Beneath the Surface (2022)
Not really what it says
Beneath the Surface is a very low budget drama dressed up with a minimal shark theme to make it more marketable. Once you get over the disappointment, it's not a terrible movie, but it's not the least bit original aside from the bait and switch scam to convince you to put the time into watching it. It's basically a not-very-clever murder mystery. If you're looking for the next Bait or even the next Sharknado...keep looking. This ain't it.
Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown (1981)
Oh Dear
I love Peanuts, and this is a well-written special from 1981, but oh my has it not aged well at all. Honestly, I'm not even sure how well it played then. In 2021, it's pretty creepy. Charlie Brown sees a little girl on TV while watching a baseball game and immediately "falls in love." So far, ok. It's Charlie Brown. But then he enlists the help of Linus to find her-going to city hall to get the address of people in that row and then going to the houses of several little girls, where Charlie Brown, as usual too nervous to talk to girls, sends Linus to screen them. It's Emmy nominated, so I guess the gender politics of it didn't really bother anyone at the time, but I was a kid in 1981, and I'm pretty sure that, even then, I knew it was creepy to track down a stranger to tell them you love them.
I normally bristle at the idea of judging older shoes by contemporary social norms, but this is a rare exception: a better title may have been "You're a Stalker, Charlie Brown." Fine for adults nostalgic for their Peanuts fix, but if you're going to watch this with young children, you might want to follow it up with a conversation.
Malignant (2021)
What the heck happened?
James Wan is a proven talent, but this feels like a b-horror film written by a teenager. I'm not sure if the movie is supposed to be serious or a satire, but there are moments of soap opera parody level acting, poor score choices, and a completely impossible monster that even a basic internet search will tell you makes zero sense. I'm glad I streamed this instead of going to the theater. It wasn't worth getting dressed for.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
Maybe it's time to let Jigsaw go
If I could convince myself that this movie was self-aware enough to be poking fun at the franchise and the genre, I would think much more of it. But this movie isn't smart enough to be making a statement. Some of the "cop dialogue" sounds like it came from one of the cutaways on Family Guy-cops who are loose cannons and (they literally say this in the film) are "too close to this." Rock can't resist riffing at points, which absolutely does not fit the tone of the film. Samuel L. Jackson isn't much more than an extended cameo. The traps lack any of the poetry of the better Saw installments, and the punishments done always seem in line with the crimes. The acting is actually pretty terrible-like knock off Law & Order on budget cable. Even the cinematography is flat and dull. I had hoped this was going to breathe new life into the franchise, and normally I'll sit through just about every half baked sequel to a horror film, but this is so bad I hope they just stop making Saw films. At least for a good whole-15, 20 years, maybe?