September Stew: A Haunting in Venice, The Inventor, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

September featured an assortment of random films at the movie theaters and so now here's an assortment of reviews for your perusal.

A Haunting in Venice: Apparently Kenneth Branagh has decided that all he is doing from here on out is Hercule Poirot movies. And frankly, I’m not mad about it. Are these movies works of art? No. But am I a massive Agatha Christie fan who enjoys any adaptations of her work and is pleasantly surprised at the set pieces Branagh conjures up for each new film? You betcha.

In this installment, writer Michael Green has adapted the novel, Hallowe'en Party, which is set in a quintessentially English village, and instead moved it to midnight at Venice. This film is absolutely *brimming* with ambiance. And yes, it's a typical Poirot murder mystery where someone will get killed and our Belgian detective must employ his little gray cells to figure out who the killer is. But there are a lot of mystical and fantastical elements at play as well, which make this quite a spooky movie. It isn't quite horror, but it certainly features a number of jump scares and an eerie score by Hildur Guonadottir that will keep you on your toes. 

Like the previous films, this is a stacked cast, featuring people like Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Kelly Reilly, and Michelle Yeoh. They all look like they're having a whale of a time running around this creepy palazzo, trying not to get murdered, while a storm rages outside and Venice is flooding. It's a fun, creepy, entertaining film, and definitely one of your better options this weekend at the theater. 

The Inventor: I'll be honest, I watched this movie a few weeks ago and have already forgotten most of it. Which is not to say that it's bad, but I was sitting next to a very noisy family with young children, and as such it was a little hard to pay attention. Word of advice: while this is an animated film, it is probably too high-concept to keep a child entertained for 90 minutes. 

Directed by Jim Copobianco, this is a movie about Leonardo da Vinci (delightfully voiced by Stephen Fry) when he moved from Italy to France, and pursued a vision of designing the ideal city. It is gently funny but still informative, and would delight anyway who is into history, art, da Vinci, or just beautiful stop-motion animation in general. But it is also weirdly a musical. Which was very funny because Fry would just speak-sing his bits, while it turns out Daisy Ridley, who voices Princess Marguerite, has a rather lovely singing voice. Apart from that though, I can't say anything else really stood out. This is the kind of film that might be great to nap to during an afternoon because it is so soothing and beautiful. I know that's not much of an endorsement, but I know there are people for whom this is exactly the kind of thing they are seeking, so there you go! 

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3: Yes, I know, I was really scraping the barrel in my need to watch movies on the big screen this month. I'll say it right off the bat - this is not a good movie. But given that it is officially fall and it has been cold and rainy for a week, you might greatly enjoy escaping to the sunny climes of Greece for an hour and a half and getting hungry at the lashes of food featured in nearly every scene. But that's about it. 

Nia Vardalos still stars as Toula, but she also wrote and directed, and oof this script is a hot mess. It was honestly laughable how it would move from one scene to a completely unrelated next scene, and the dialogue felt like a kindergarten play. There are lots of little side-plots, none of which are remotely fleshed out, and they all get tied up neatly with a bow almost as soon as they are presented. Everyone looks like they are having a grand time, because they are in Greece after all, but other than that, this movie is so shoddy. But to be clear, it's bad in a bewildering way, not in a frustrating way. I didn't leave the theater feeling mad about wasting my time, I just left feeling very bemused about what the filmmakers were even thinking. Because again, there's nothing else to watch these days, and at least I got to vacation in Greece for a bit. So, the bar is already pretty low, and yet this film does not manage to clear it. Opa!

Bottoms: A New Kind of High School Movie

It's slim pickings at the movie theater right now, which is all the more reason you should run over to watch Bottoms. Directed by Emma Seligman (whose first feature, Shiva Baby, should be the first thing on your streaming watchlist if you haven't seen it already), this is a raucous film that heralds the evolution of the high school movie genre for our current generation. 

Rachel Sennott (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Seligman) and Ayo Edebiri star as PJ and Josie, two losers who are at the bottom of their high school's social hierarchy. They are both lesbians with crushes on Isabel and Brittany (Havana Rose Liu and Kaia Gerber), two pretty cheerleaders, and they simply do not have a shot. But then, a series of events transpire, and they come up with the idea of starting a self-defense class for the women of the school. They hope that Isabel and Brittany will join, of course, but turns out there are a lot of random girls in the school who want a taste of female empowerment. All of a sudden, they have a female fight club on their hands.

I would like to be clear, this movie is spectacularly dumb. But it is spectacularly dumb in the best way, the way that we love about all high school movies we harbor a nostalgic fondness for. The cast is wonderful, the friendships and heartbreak and unrequited love all feels earned and true, and there is oh so much adolescent queer angst. But also, there is a lot of over-the-top violence and bloodshed, and a diabolical plot with a rival high school that certainly escalates to extreme levels.

Bottoms is a thoroughly entertaining and raunchy ride that is almost exclusively about women and written and directed by women. The most significant male characters are the douchey quarterback, Jeff (played hilarious by Nicholas Galitzine, who was just playing a very prim and proper prince in Red, White & Royal Blue), and Mr. G, played by Marshawn Lynch, who does a wonderful job as the teacher who serves as the club's advisor and starts to get really into feminism as he learns more about the struggle to be a teenage girl. Also, this movie is only 88 minutes long and has a blooper reel over the end credits. Seriously, how could it not be worth your time? 

September Scams: BS High & Telemarketers

Are you in the mood for a very specific binge? Well, I've got two compelling scammer documentaries that you might want to dive into.

BS High: This is a fascinating movie about Roy Johnson, a man who essentially created a fake high school called Bishop Sycamore High that purported to be a football powerhouse. He recruited young athletes who didn't get football scholarships out of high school or were otherwise disenfranchised, and promised to prep them for a year to play at an elite level and get the notice of college recruiters so all their football dreams would come true.

As you can imagine, this is a terrible story about a con artist and the families he swindled. What's fascinating about it is that Johnson is the star of the documentary, willingly talking to the filmmakers about his scam, and displaying an almost pathological intensity to lie...but in an honest way? The man is an absolute piece of garbage, but you know what's worse? The fact that he got away with this whole scheme and didn't end up in jail. Because the things he did were deemed so nuts, that no one thought you even needed to write a law to say "hey, don't do that." 

This is a very American tale about football, hubris, lack of opportunity for disadvantaged youths, and the complete unwillingness of government bureaucracy to do anything to right a local wrong unless something is broadcast on television and gets a national spotlight. I can't promise you will feel good after watching this film, but it is certainly compelling viewing.

Telemarketers: This is a three-part documentary series that was filmed over the course of two decades by Sam Lipman-Stern, a man who worked at a New Jersey office of Civic Development Group (CDG), a telemarketing company. He joined CDG as a wayward teenager, a high-school dropout who needed a way to make money, and CDG was known as a place that would hire anyone as long as they could make sales. Sam started filming the shenanigans that went on at this inane office, a place that was the stuff of HR nightmares. Many of the employees were former prisoners or drug dealers, but Sam befriends a man named Pat Pespas. While Pat was a heroin addict, he was also an expert salesman and would rack up commissions daily even if he was almost falling asleep at his desk. But when Pat realizes that his calls and scripts where CDG purports to be fundraising for various charities feel bogus, he and Sam embark on an epic years-long investigation to discover just how deep this conspiracy goes.

The show is definitely shaggy and not terribly well-edited. Sam never quite made it as a filmmaker, and bits of footage are repetitive and cobbled together haphazardly. But the central tenet is still fascinating, a vast conspiracy between the police and telemarketing companies designed to fleece people (mostly elderly folks who are the only ones who answer their phones anymore, and immigrants who are terrified of the police) of money that ultimately goes to line the pockets of greedy businessmen. And as with BS High, this is yet another example of folks who get by without breaking any major laws and therefore periodically get a slap on the wrist before they just start the whole scheme up again under a new name.

Again, this is not a movie designed to make you feel good about anything that's going on, and again, it will leave you with plenty of distaste for the American political system and the bureaucracy that impedes the ability to actually protect citizens from scam artists. But the beautiful thing about both these movies is that you feel like they are going to get results simply because now these stories have been broadcast and lawmakers will be subject to the most motivating feeling of all...shame. So go ahead and watch Telemarketers. The more eyeballs we get on it, the closer we might be to shutting down these fraudsters for good. 

Comedy Binges: Jury Duty & Deadloch

Are you in need of a new show to binge through in one epic afternoon? Well I have two excellent suggestions for you. 

Jury Duty: The premise is simple - there's a man named Ronald who has been called in for jury duty. A film crew is present and he has been told that they are here to film a documentary about the jury duty process. Unbeknownst to Ronald, however, this is not a documentary, this is a set-up. He is the only regular person on this set. Everyone else -- the judge, the lawyers, the plaintiff, the defendant, and his fellow jury members -- are all actors. And for the next week, he is embroiled in a fake trial that has been fully scripted, with the only outlier being that the actors have no idea how Ronald will react to their shenanigans and will have to improvise accordingly. Oh also, one of the actors, is the very recognizable actor James Marsden, who plays "himself" except as a blowhard who keeps trying to get our of jury duty and puts Ronald into very compromising situations.

This show had the potential to be a prank show that mocked the unwitting Ronald. But what makes it so truly excellent is that the crew are committed to ensuring Ronald is the hero of the show. They let him drive decisions, and there is always a Plan A and a Plan B based on his reactions to ensure that if anything they do makes him feel bad, they immediately rectify the situation. Yes, he is put into some uncomfortable situations, but he rallies like a champ and over the course of jury duty, you can see how a true camaraderie builds between Ronald and the other actors because he is genuinely such a sweet and accommodating guy. 

Created by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, Jury Duty is a wonderful hybrid reality-sitcom with a lot of heart and humor. It is constantly funny and surprising, and the final episode, when all is revealed to Ronald, further emphasizes what a massively well-orchestrated show this is, where so many things could have gone wrong at any minute, but somehow miraculously didn't. This is a show unlike anything you've seen before, and it will thoroughly entertain you for eight short episodes. What are you waiting for?

Deadloch: Speaking of shows unlike anything you've seen before, strap in for an incredible gruesome Australian murder mystery that is somehow also insanely funny. Honestly, I do not know how the creators, Kate McCartney and Kate McLennon, developed the tone for this show, but it is absolutely remarkable how a show about a serial killer in a sleepy town in Tasmania where everyone has lots of angsty secrets also manages to be a hysterical comedy about a town that is overrun by a bunch of lesbians.

Yeah, this is a very queer show and it is spectacular. The senior sergeant of the local police station is Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) and she is a very reserved and logical woman. Unfortunately, when the dead body shows up, management sends in Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami), an extremely brash detective from Darwin who is the polar opposite of Dulcie in terms of her approach to following police procedure. But of course, while this unlikely duo initially butt heads, soon enough they join forces to investigate this crime as the body count starts to go alarmingly high and the inhabitants of the entire town are spiraling out of control with doubt and suspicion.

There are plenty of red herrings, lots of personal drama, and I promise the resolution of the mystery is satisfying but somehow also elicits a wry chuckle as the killer and their motives tie back to this show's overall feminist, queer ethos. I love mysteries, I love feminists, and having a show where for eight episodes you watch two complicated but determined women solve a gruesome murder case despite all the obstacles thrown their way by cis het white dudes is a pure joy. And lest I forget, there is a whole other storyline on colonialism and the Aboriginal land that this town was built on in the first place. So yeah, Deadloch really checks all the boxes and is quite possibly going to be the best thing you binge all year. Get to it.