Movies I Watched in April, Part 1

OK, it’s late, I’m lazy, and blogs are done. But despite all that, here’s the first part of the recap of the movies I watched way back in April. Enjoy?

Showed this one to Allie after Amy and I watched the first episode of the (also excellent) FX TV show. Holds up beautifully, delivering a combination of hilarious comedy and surprising, low-key warmth (with well-staged gore and a handful of dirty jokes as a bonus). I wasn’t kidding when I said on some social media platform recently that it’s my favorite vampire movie.

As a big fan of (a) Jordan Peele’s debut effort, “Get Out” (it made my best of list for 2017) and the trailer for this movie (it made my “lookingforward to” list a couple of months ago), I knew this was one I wanted to see (a) on the big screen and (b) unspoiled. And I loved it, even more than “Get Out.” I heard criticism online that when you break down the story and think about it logically, it really doesn’t make sense, and I can’t argue with that. But as a counterargument, I’d point out that the primary goal of horror movies isn’t to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle upon reflection, it’s to terrify you while you’re watching it. And from the opening credits, with all those unexplained rabbits, to that last twisty revelation, I was in 100 percent. To me, “Us” works as a family comedy, a social drama, a home invasion thriller and, finally a mind-blowing, semi-surreal apocalyptic nightmare. It looks great, it’s creepy as hell and the cast is top-notch across the board, playing what essentially amount to dual roles. (Lupita Nyong’o is especially strong, but in a much smaller role, I want to highlight how Tim Heidecker manages to play his classic “asshole” character as both a joke and as a genuinely scary threat.) Cannot wait to watch this one again.

I don’t know what’s going on in Tom Cruise’s personal life at any given moment (apparently he’s involved in some sort of religion?), but I can always rely on the guy to deliver everything he can when it comes to his movies. I think “Mission: Impossible Fallout” is one of the best action movies of the last decade (at least), and “Edge of Tomorrow” is one movie that I will watch anytime it happens to be on and wind up thoroughly entertained. I’d heard good things about this 2017 fact-based portrait of an all-American drug runner, so when it showed up on Cinemax, I gave it a look. Not great, but not half-bad either. It wears its influences pretty blatantly on its sleeve (“Goodfellas,” “Boogie Nights,” “The Wolf of Wall Street”) but manages to put enough spin on them to make the movie worth a look. Best of all, it takes Cruise’s megawatt charm and turns it into some sort of satirical point, showing Barry Seal as a guy who’s either too confident or too oblivious to realize how dangerous his occupation really is. Nice period vibe throughout, and bonus points for finding a role for Domhnall Gleason, the man who is in every single movie made these days. Well, almost.
Up next: A genuine courtroom classic, a modern forgery drama and one of the greatest comedies in the history of film.