SineSupremus Reviews

Death on the Nile (2022)

Presumably some sort of elaborate prank

[5/10 · 28 March 2022]

The movie opens with an elaborate tragic backstory for Poirot's moustache. This is not a joke. I mean, it definitely is, but presumably it wasn't intended as such. We get the feeling that we are supposed to view Poirot's moustache and its tragic backstory with some degree of pathos.

Kenneth Brannagh's clearly a talented guy, and his 1996 Hamlet will forever stand as proof that he's better than his Wild-Wild-West-and-afterwards career, but his Poirot movies are baffling. Having Poirot madly brandish a firearm during the drawing room scene for Murder on the Orient Express was a definite CHOICE. As was hiring both Armie Hammer and Russell Brand for any movie released in 2022.

The movie has polish, and Brannagh is innately charismatic enough to hold the whole affair together at most times, but I'm still hoping this franchise will turn out to have been an elaborate hoax.

Super Hot (2021)

A surprisingly satisfying slacker horror/comedy

[7/10 · 5 August 2021]

I watched this after having read nothing but negative reviews, so my expectations were low, but: for a relentlessly low-budget film, carried almost entirely by the inspired performance of lead Kandace Kale (an actor with no apparent internet presence besides this single IMDb credit, a Backstage profile, and- barring a case of mistaken identity- possibly a felony arrest on a California police blotter) this was a refreshingly well-crafted movie.

It starts slow. It ends slow. It suffers from Ready Player One syndrome- it's purportedly about teenagers, but teenagers exclusively interested in the cultural output of (approximately) the mid-1970s to mid-1990s. It seems to be crafted largely around sustaining a cast that is mostly attractive young women, a cast which it frustratingly refuses to exploit gratuitously. The plot itself seems like a bit of an oversight. But it's got a steady, enjoyable rhythm that suits its comedic tone well, and the moments that fall flat are outweighed by those that settle into a satisfying, low-key groove.

Trumpland: Kill All Normies (2017 TV Movie)

Kinda embarrassing tbh

[3/10 · 9 April 2021]

It's interesting to see how well a polemic like this ages. Like, hey: I'm not an idiot, I'm clearly anti-Trump and anti-Gamergate and anti-alt-right.

But, you know, in 2017 it apparently made sense to use Jesse Singal and Briahna Joy Gray as talking heads to unpack these phenomena.

A few years on, what really jumps out at the viewer is: wow, the people who saw themselves as having something essential to say on the subject- the above, alongside alt-reicht trolls like Cernovich and Spencer and Wintrich- have so much in common. They are all such shallow thinkers. They are all such narcissists. They are all so undeserving of our collective attention.

Just imagine how great our world could be if we could ignore these people forever.

Black Noon (1971 TV Movie)

This review is a spoiler

[7/10 · 11 December 2020]

So... it's The Wicker Man, but in an American idiom rather than a British one, and it came out two years before Robin Hardy's masterpiece.

And it's GOOD. It's really well done for a TV movie, and most of its failings are budgetary in nature- given proper sets and the budget to successfully pull off the few effects it tries for, it's easy to imagine a startling and memorable film. There's a bit of a mismatch in the casting, in that Hank Worden (generally a solid character actor, and Western stalwart) seems to be acting in a different movie than the rest of the cast, his mannerisms cartoonish in comparison to his fellows. And of course it was created as a TV movie, so the writing lacks some polish.

But still: an unexpected gem!

Columbo: Strange Bedfellows (1995) Season 10, Episode 10

Easily the worst Columbo episode.

[4/10 · 26 June 2020]

I know, I know, but Undercover is a great experimental piece, Columbo Likes The Nightlife has its moments (and its one unforgiveable failing- the mob connection- actually has its roots here), and when you really get into the oeuvre, you realize that Last Salute to the Commodore is really one of the great episodes, a clever subversion of tropes in the service of a unique story.

This one should be great. George Wendt does a fantastic turn as a satisfyingly contradictory thug. The murder itself is a clever one. And the first 2/3 of the story is compelling and well-written.

But: Columbo solves this case by having a mob boss kidnap the villain and threaten to kill him if he doesn't implicate himself. What the hell. That's not even a detective show. That's felony assault and extortion, and while the script tries to walk it back a bit later ("I'm a cream soda guy, and you're not") this take on Columbo makes him not a cream soda guy at all.

The episode with the next strongest claim to Absolute Worst would be No Time To Die, but as bewildering as it is to see Columbo completely removed from his customary role, at least he's still Columbo.

(The episode was written by Peter. S. Fischer, a writer responsible for a half dozen classic '70s Columbo episodes, but one who in the '80s was better known for his own creation Murder, She Wrote. This is very much a Murder, She Wrote sort of episode, by which I mean it feels grossly inferior. Fischer still had his touch, though; a year before Strange Bedfellows, he wrote the Butterfly In Shades of Grey episode, definitely a highlight of the later Columbo seasons.)

Renegade: Val's Song (1993) Season 1, Episode 12

Luther McDonald

[7/10 · 7 June 2020]

Gregory Scott Cummins, aka Mac's Dad from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, plays the same unhinged, wild-eyed heroin-trafficking criminal type he does on that show, making this an excellent addition to the larger It's Always Sunny canon.

Renegade: Top Ten with a Bullet (1997) Season 5, Episode 14

Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders, three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail

[8/10 · 10 September 2019]

The episode feels like a blatant ripoff of the 1990 Kiefer Sutherland/Dennis Hopper vehicle "Flashback," but it does feature Arlo Guthrie as an aging Weatherman singing a "City of New Orleans" duet with Bobby Sixkiller, and teaching Renegade about the Vietnam antiwar counterculture: "You could've gotten killed for having hair like ours."

It's all quite glorious in a very mid-'90s sort of way.