What movies did you see last week? (1/22-1/28)

Wind River (2017) -- A solid enough procedural. I still think that Sheridan's writing is pretty weak, but as a genre vehicle, the suspense worked well on the director's side. I'll never understand the Sheridan hype, but this is definitely the best I've seen from him. 7/10

Certain Women (2016) -- Kelly Reichardt is everything wrong with "artistic" indie movies. She ain't half bad (as compared to other filmmakers in her vein), but her films are long, empty stretches of watching people stare out at vast expanses of nothing. If you enjoy that sort of thing, Certain Women has a lot of it, split into 3 separate stories so you never get too bored watching the same character. Laura Dern's segment as a career woman losing herself in despair is by far the best; Michelle Williams as an opportunistic creep doing the same is nasty and unpleasant; and Lily Gladstone speaking about 3 words total as a woman with a crush on Kristen Stewart delivers a decent performance in an overlong segment. As a whole, it works out okay, but Dern's is the only real special piece of storytelling here. 6/10

Transformers: Beast Wars (Season 1) -- Season 1 takes its time. Introduces the characters, introduces some important plot points and themes, and slowly gets us into the groove of this show. It can get into a little bit of a rut, but looking back, it did a great job of developing the characters in the background of whatever silly exploit of the day was going on. When the last few episodes kick in with a bang, we're invested. And what a finale that was! I haven't been so thrilled about a season finale of television in ages. Those final three episodes stand among the greatest thrill rides of television, in my book. Season 2 is less compelling for me at the moment (it feels like those final 3 episodes all of the time, instead of taking time to breathe and let the viewer sit back), but I'm shocked at how much fun I'm having with this show. 8/10

Maborosi (1995) -- Kore-eda was clearly influenced by Ozu here. And by influenced, I mean that he tried to copy Ozu instead of making his own film. What we get is a cipher of a character that lacks opacity, surrounded by an environment that is meant to communicate her inner state to us, but instead communicates that the director thinks that the color grey = unhappy. Which is far too simplistic to base our whole understanding of the character in. 4/10

Green Zone (2011) -- Don't you love it when Hollywood expects to be patted on the back for its politics instead of creating characters with actual motivations, plots that are comprehensible, or action scenes that you can follow? Don't you just love being preached to instead of being told a story? 2/10

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922) -- A silly supervillain movie that is so ridiculous that it's pretty fun for a while... but it loses steam over the 5 hour run time. 5/10