Tag: Christine Woods

When you build a website on a willingness to watch anything, you have to actually watch a lot of random shit. And it gets harder when you get behind, because then most of your reviews end up being the films that everyone is already going to watch or already know about. Not the real hidden gems or hidden turds out there.

And yet somehow, I found a new Netflix original film that wasn’t very advertised and one they are probably just trying to make and hide. A hidden title, still with their Netflix original sticker on it. Not only that, but the title is Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie. It has Netflix in the fucking title? What’s up with that? That’s weird.

This movie has so little information about it that I couldn’t even find out why they went that route. Is it just a double form of advertising? Does it take place INSIDE the Netflix head quarters? I DON’T KNOW.

But I need to know, and now, I am watching a movie not many people have noticed to exist yet. Hooray!

The fireworks are a metaphor.

Gene Handsome (Jeff Garlin) is a detective, getting old, maybe he will retire, maybe not. But he is lonely. He lives alone on his street, with one of his neighbors (Eddie Pepitone) being a PI with a younger accordion playing wife (Leah Remini) and they are eccentric. But he has new neighbors! And on the way over to introduce them and give them cookies, he finds Heather (Hailee Keanna Lautenbach), the baby sitter instead and she doesn’t trust him. That’s fair.

But then the next day, Heather is found dead and cut up on a famous actor’s lawn. Talbert Bacorn (Steven Weber) has no idea who this lady is or why his lawn, but Handsome and his partner, Fleur Scozzari (Natasha Lyonne) are on the case! With almost nothing to base it off of.

Thankfully, he can now meet his new neighbor (Christine Woods) and her daughter (Ava Acres) under a weird set of circumstances. Maybe it can lead to a less lonely life. Oh sorry, that is creepy, given the circumstances.

Also featuring Timm Sharp, William Stanford Davis, and Joe Kenda.

That bathrobe is also a metaphor.

Handsome is a hard movie to categorize. It isn’t laugh out loud funny, it is more just peculiar. My wife described it as quirky. I would also describe it as overexagerrated while also somehow down to earth.

There isn’t necessarily anything in this film that feels unreasonable. All of the plot details are fine. It is just that everyone is a bit odd, a bit out there, I don’t know if there is a single “straight character” in the movie. All of the characters seem to have their own stories and inspirations and this is just us caught up right in the middle of it.

In fact, this movie sort of feels like a pilot episode. Maybe that is why Netflix is in the title? This was a test run of a television show, or a many episodic movie series that are really easy to make and produce.

And if so, it is going to be something that someone can put on an enjoy and half pay attention to, like a lot of mystery/crime television shows. This is not a movie that you would rush out and recommend to your friends, but there is nothing inherently awful about it. It is just safe. A safe and easy movie.

Good on Garlin, who decided to write, direct, and star in this movie. A passion project for him and one that didn’t crash and burn.

Hey! A new movie, on Netflix! That means this bad boy didn’t go to theaters, it just appeared in our lives, and in some film festivals. Because I had quite a few critic friends talking about it, and I had no idea why.

When I heard the words I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, I groaned. Last thing I need to see is a bunch of twenty-somethings bitching about the tiniest inconveniences and quoting Futurama. I then assumed it was some indie movie opening in five theaters across the USA, and only decided to watch it when I got on Netflix and the film slapped its dick in my face.

And even then I had reluctance. It was that little boy from those ring movies that made me want to watch it.

Actual footage of man me and girl me glaring at the movie from afar. In my car.

Ruth (Melanie Lynskey, indie movie princess) is pissed off at the world. She is a nursing assistant, but that doesn’t matter right now. She lives alone, has some friends, and people piss her off. People cut in front of her at the supermarket, dogs shit on her lawn, people spoil the book series she is reading, and someone broke into her house, fucked it all up, and stole some of her things.

Oh yeah, that is a pretty big one. She is shaken up about the whole thing, even more upset that the police (Gary Anthony Williams) seems to not give a shit about it, taking her statement and not giving her hope for restitution.

So she sets out to finding the culprit on her own, footprints and all. And after a brief tiff, she enlists the help of a neighbor, Tony (Elijah Wood), who is upset over theft in the neighborhood. They have hacking skills, ninja stars, and they are pissed off at the world. They will find out who took her stuff and there will be some sort of payback. Maybe a stern talking to.

Also starring Christine Woods, David Yow, Devon Graye, Robert Longstreet, and Jane Levy.

Nothing like book spoilers to spoil ones appetite as well.

Despite my rantings about indie films, I really didn’t know what to expect. Elijah Wood has been doing a lot of this darker, trippy stuff in his post Hobbit career. There was Sin City, there was Wilfred, Cooties, and now this. And of course Tobey Maguire was in The Details, which is kind of the same thing since they are similar. I didn’t expect this film to be a dark comedy, but once it started, it delivered hand over feet.

It has a few shocking events, sudden escalations, death, violence, and a bit of realism. If there is a fight, both sides are getting hurt and in unexpected ways, as they realize they are NOT superheroes. There is real danger for the characters involved and a lot of morally gray areas as well. And morally very very black areas, but we get through those as well.

This has got to be Lynskey’s best work to date. I am not going to call myself a super fan of hers or anything, and I have only seen a handful of roles, but most of them are side characters, reserved, and forgettable. In this film, it is HER movie, she grows as a character, she starts to take charge, and it is a good change.

If this film had problems, it would mostly just involve the ending. How everything ends up resolved might not match the tone from the rest of the film. It also took me awhile to really get into it, the build up being necessary, but still unexciting.