what i watched

A cold has kept me out of commission for most of the week, and turned my brain into mush. Here are some brief notes about two movies I watched.

Film Fatales #140: The Second Mother (Anna Muylaert, 2015). An effective combination of comedy and drama, with a performance from Regina Casé that is perfection, perhaps especially when her character is irritating. A film about class that sneaks up on its subject.

Geezer Cinema: The Adam Project (Shawn Levy, 2022). I have a fixation on Ryan Reynolds that has nothing to do with his movies. In fact, this is the first time I saw a movie where he was the star. Nonetheless, I'm aware that he has fans, that he is appealing, and he tends to play the same character a lot. I can't say this is a typical Ryan Reynolds movie, given I haven't seen most of them, but I get the feeling that is exactly what The Adam Project is. Reynolds slides right into his character, Walker Scobell is a solid teen actor, and a few of my favorites also turn up (including Mark Ruffalo and Catherine Keener). It doesn't amount to much, and the sappy ending is definitely not up my alley. Also, it's a time travel movie, and as is usually the case with such films, if you think about it at all the entire thing falls apart. (If a future You kills a present You, and future You dies because you were never born, how did future You exist to come back into the past to kill themselves?)