Our Little Secret Review

Look, I've watched a lot of dreck, holiday dreck to be precise, especially around Christmas thanks to the likes of Hallmark and Lifetime, but Netflix's latest Lindsay Lohan romantic Christmas comedy "Our Little Secret" is leagues ahead of anything you'd find on either of those two cable channels. Hell, it's better than the streamer's own previous collaborations with the star ("Falling for Christmas" and "Irish Wish"), and infinitely more watchable and charming than the company's competitor Paramount+ and their recent "Dear Santa." 

Really, "Our Little Secret" is just one or two script polishes away from being something that could do moderate business theatrically. If only, if only.

Lohan stars as Avery, a business person who hasn't quite gotten over the loss of her mother, her father's (Henry Czerny) retirement and attempts at selling her childhood home and, more importantly to a romantic comedy, her ex-boyfriend Logan's botched proposal from years prior. He's played nicely by Ian Harding, able to straddle the line somewhere between being aloof and intelligent.

Avery is worried to meet her new boyfriend Cam's (Jon Rudnitsky) family for Christmas, especially his mom Erica. She's portrayed by the always-wonderful Kristin Chenoweth, who plays her as a something of a villain. She won't accept her dating her son, for whatever reason, criticizing everything from the wine she brings to the jeans she wears. Erica isn't supposed to be a nice person, and Kristin slips into the role of snarky matriarch like hands in a warm glove on a snowy December day.

Logan's moved on too, dating Cassie (Katie Baker), who spends most of the film making "swooshing" noises on her phone. She's taking him to meet her folks as well and, wouldn't you know it, Cassie and Cam are siblings! Oh the shenanigans that follow.

Should Avery and Logan just tell the family that they used to date like ten years ago? Or, just hear me out, maybe, they should lie and pretend they never met. Lying never causes any problems in the movies!

So yeah, the plot is ripped straight from every other TV rom-com and honestly, a lot of the situations that happen, like a botched secret Santa gift-exchange to blaming the dog on eating all the cookies, play out like sitcom storylines, but that's not what's important. There's a comedic sense of energy here, thanks in no small part to a good cast of principal actors, and even bit parts from the likes of Tim Meadows to Chris Parnell; everyone here seems to be having, I dunno, fun

Veteran director Stephen Herek handles the obvious chaos with a sure touch, and the script by Hailey DeDominicis, who IMBD shows is her first and only writing job, keeps the story moving along at a good pace, giving us an actual plot! And jokes! With setups beforehand! It might not be all that funny, but it's charming and a huge step in the right direction for Lindsay Lohan and her very welcome comeback.

Dear Santa Review

Most Christmas movies are disposable, thanks to Hallmark and Lifetime; they leave the collective pop-culture as fast as they arrive. But at least once a year, Hollywood steps under the mistletoe, and the results are usually harmless but just as forgettable. They often (somehow) attract one or two big names and a competent director, but almost always are sanitized from anything memorable by a hokey script. 

But then, eeeeeeeeeeevery once and a while, Tinseltown lets out a real turkey, a cinematic travesty that is remembered only as "that" film, that awful, terrible, and I mean truly terrible film people watched, once, that one chilly winter day that one year. 2004 had "Christmas with the Kranks" (and "Surviving Christmas-" what a bad year for jolly ol' Saint Nick), 2006 had "Deck the Halls," and 2024 has "Dear Santa." And it's not even December yet.

Starring Jack Black and directed by Bobby Farrelly (and co-written by his brother Peter, alongside Ricky Blitt), "Dear Santa" stuns for over an hour and a half as mean-spirited and, more importantly, unfunny jokes limp out of its desperate cast's mouths. Lying about cancer? What about a kid with bad teeth? Or how about the death of a child? All game and all played for laughs, only there isn't ever, and I mean ever, a laugh that anyone could give up. Must all be saving them for a rerun of "Christmas Vacation."

Robert Timothy Smith stars as Liam, an eleven year old new kid at school who's parents Molly and Bill (Brianne Howey and Hayes MacArthur, respectively) are introduced arguing, and continue to do so almost the entire time. His dad thinks he's a bit old to be writing to Santa and that his mom coddles him. She, of course, is worried Liam is struggling to adjust to a new town and all that jazz, especially since he's dyslexic. How very festive.

She takes him into town to mail in his letter, but, since we gotta work that learning disability into the script, somehow, misspells "Santa" as "Satan," who is all too excited to be getting a letter, shows up one night in Laim's room and, well, there you go. There's the plot. It's a great idea for a plot, at least, especially since they got Jack Black to play him, but so what? It's all concept and no execution, as the film labors from one awkward scene about the devil trying to trick the boy into his "three wishes," like making the popular girl (Emma, played well by Kai Cech) go out with him to the next. Oh, sound too rote for you? Don't worry, Satan will concur up a few backstage passes to a Post Malone concert, so you get a movie and a show! BOGO? What a deal!

For his second wish, Liam chooses to fix his best friend's teeth (Gibby, played by Jaden Carson Baker), which is a nice gesture yeah, but what kind of message is that? Liam is white, Gibby is black; a white boy needs to fix his black friend's problems? Oh too topical? Then how about how instead of someone overcoming their physical limitations, just change your appearance? I mean, he needs those perfect chompers so he can get a girlfriend too. Ho, ho, ho.

I would tell you what his third wish is, but that would be mean, and I'm trying to stay on the "nice list" this year. 

Jack Black, who is usually a fun actor to watch, is buried behind makeup, hair and clothing, and looks bored as he forces out lines about poop and creepy uncles. But the worst actor here is our star, Smith; and I get it, he's a kid and I don't mean to be cruel, but he just don't have the charisma to carry a movie. His delivery is awkward and uncomfortable, and I felt icky watching him; eventually anytime he was onscreen, I just stopped looking at him and focused on the subtitles. Problem was, I then was focusing on the inane dialogue.

I guess my real problem with his character was how he just accepts this whole "Santa/Satan" thing far too easily. If a strange man showed up in my room one night when I was young, then I would have ended up on one of those "missing persons" posters instead of here, writing sassy things about terrible movies. Hmmm...

Gladiator II Review

Leave it to director Ridley Scott make a big-budget sword-and-sandals film in 2024. No other director could have made such an indulgent, grandiose, dumb, nostalgic, loud, operatic, luxurious and expensive sword-and-sandals film. It succeeds purely based on its scale, visual design and a handful of truly fun performances, but that doesn't make it one worth remembering.

Paul Mescal stars as, checks internet, Hanno, who's home of, checks internet again, Numidia, the "last city not under Rome's control." We barely get to know him and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) before Rome and it's humongous army of ships launches an attack, let by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal). Pedro is a fantastic actor, able to be simultaneously stoic and sympathetic, and every time he's onscreen I wish the film was about him.

Arishat is killed in battle, Numidia falls and Hanno is enslaved. But it only takes a few minutes of runtime before he's fighting crazed bamboos alongside other prisoners of war. Of course, our protagonist wins not only the er, the match, but also the eye of Macrinus, the head of the gladiators who promises the head of Acacius to Hanno if he keeps fighting. Keeps winning. To never lose his rage, so Marcinus says. He's played by Denzel Washington, an actor the camera just loves. He moves and speaks with swagger and sexuality, speaking like he's always half-soused, (and frequently does have a drink in hand) encrusted with robes and jewelry. Both him and Pascal completely outshine Mesca, who has all the superficial qualities of an actor except charisma. He looks like a background who's accidentally reading the star's lines.

I can't understate how big an issue this is; he lacks any presence, swallowed up by the surrounding scenery and performers. He is convincing in the many fights but so what? Mesca wouldn't even make it in the WWE, except maybe as referee.

Connie Nielsen also stars, as Lucilla, wife of Acacius, but she's given nothing to do except look scared or concerned; she exists purely to move the narrative along to the next bombastic scene. Given Scott's history of strong female characters, it's a shame to see not only just one main woman character but also for her to function squarely to serve the plot along for the boys to play.

Rome is ruled by twin emperor's, Greta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), brothers who are pale and look sickly as they bark orders for their own amusement. They make great villains, with this erotic energy towards not just women and men but also each other. I don't know how historically accurate they are, or anything in this lavish production is, but man, does it make for a great cinematic time.

The rest of the plot is arbitrary gobbledygook, ripped right from other, similar, films, but aside from the traumatic miscasting of the main character, it can't shake this feeling that there isn't much of a point to "Gladiator II," even to someone like me who's never seen the first one. The only thing onscreen, aside from literally millions of dollars, was Scott's fetish for excess. And I absolutely ate it up. There's not one ship, but dozens. Not one army, but three. Why? Why not!? There's even sharks! Everyone walks around with flowy clothes in fantastical sets, the kind meant to keep your eyes entertained for hours. And at just under two and a half hours, just be happy that it doesn't take that long before the credits roll.

Absolution Review

Director Hans Petter Moland and Liam Neeson, who made the very, very funny black comedy thriller "Cold Pursuit" way back in 2019, reteam for a decidedly more morose crime thriller "Absolution," and one only wishes they continued to find silly reasons for the now seventy two year old actor to go around and kill people.

Oh sure, they're very bad people, in a way that always seems to exist so brazenly in a movie like this, but this is a dour experience, with Liam, playing who IMBD just calls "Thug," struggles with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which I of course had to look up the spelling of. He sulks around Massachusetts with a most Charles Bronson of mustaches on payroll for his boss Charlie (Ron Perlman), usually of which results in the death of some background character, dependent on a little notebook full of names, addresses and other things we all remember with ease. Him, on the other hand, is given "a few years, maybe less," as soon as he learns of his diagnosis. 

If all this reminds you of another one of Liam's films, "Memory," where he plays an aging assassin with dementia, then just remember this time plays an aging gangster with CTE. See, totally different.

Anyway, in true "crime thriller" tradition, "Thug" has an estranged daughter (Frankie Shaw) who wants nothing to do with his, despite his newfound interest in reconciliation, as well as a new lover played convincingly by Yolonda Ross; neither of which know about his condition until it's well into the runtime.

The plot's all boilerplate. Writer Tony Gayton hasn't the foggiest about what to do with a story like this; is this a serious character-study about a dying man or another late-career thriller for its star? It tries to be both but doesn't know how to do either; that's an awkward place to be and the whole thing just collapses under it's own grungy weight.

It's a rote movie, filled with cliche dialogue, a brothel, very little action, a double-crossing, at least two dream sequences, this persistent, pensive sadness and a lethargic pacing that I'm sure almost put at least one of the elderly couples in the surprisingly populated theater to sleep for a bit. And that's a real shame, since Liam really goes all-in with playing a diseased man; you can see a man lost when he stars off in the distance blankly, or feel his intense anger as he rages in response to not wanting to admit he doesn't know what's going on. He really is good here, committed to material that isn't committed to him.