Maggie Moore(s) (2023)

Maggie Lee Moore (Mary Holland) fled in terror while screaming for help.  She ran down a dead end and her assailant approached.  In the morning, Sheriff Jordan Sanders (Jon Hamm) and Deputy Reddy (Nick Mohammed) examined the corpse.  When her name is mentioned, both look surprised.  Cut to 10 days earlier.

Maggie Moore (Louisa Krause) screamed at her husband, Jay (Micah Stock), so loudly that the neighbor, Rita (Tina Fey) heard some of it.  Maggie kicked Jay out of the house and threatened divorce and exposure to the police.  Jay hired a goon, Mike Kosco (Happy Anderson), to scare his wife straight.  Instead, Kosco killed her.  Now Jay was in the crosshairs of Sheriff Sanders.  However, he learned by happenstance that there was another Maggie Moore in town.  What if she was murdered?  He went back to Kosco to make arrangements.

There is no mystery here, just dark comedy that is not funny.  There are a lot of cringy interactions, where people humiliate themselves in awkward conversations.  The deputy frequently makes inappropriate comments regarding the sheriff's love life.  The budding romance between the sheriff and Rita had all the chemistry of a flat soda.  Jay Moore practically screams "I'm guilty" in every scene, though the sheriff happily goes down the wrong path.  Micah Stock makes Jay amazingly pathetic and unsympathetic.  Fine.  However, he's somehow got money to burn on a hitman and payoffs but can't afford to keep his restaurant stocked with non-moldy food.  Was moldy food meant to be funny?  Why are there customers here when the mold is beyond obvious?  Really, the sandwiches are polka dotted with mold.  The normally smooth and suave Hamm is here a man without moves.  Okay, so he's a widower and out of practice, but women are tossing themselves at him and he's got no game.  Yeah, this was not the role for Dan Draper.  Ditto with Tina Fey.  Her character has lots of undesirable traits, from busybody neighbor to self-loathing.  She says her ex-husband broke her, but she still has sex with him regularly.  Is that dark humor?  Why is the sheriff attracted to this woman?

The movie was inspired by the murder of two women named Maggie Moore in Houston within a week of each other.  Those murders were never solved and may have no relation other than the coincidence of the victims' names.

Skip this one.

Megamind (2010)

As the story opens, Megamind (Will Ferrell) plummets toward the ground and his imminent death.  As he falls, he ponders his life.  Like Superman, he was sent to Earth as a baby during the destruction of his planet.  He was not the only one.  Metro Man was simultaneously sent to earth during the destruction of a different planet.  While Metro Man was raised by wealthy adoptive parents, Megamind was raised in the local prison. As kids, Megamind and Metro Man attended the same school for a time and became rivals.  Once he was an adult, Megamind embraced a career as a supervillain!  Of course, he had no powers beyond being a genius.  Despite his genius, Metro Man defeated him again and again, sending him back to prison for the next clash.

In his latest scheme, he has once again kidnapped Roxanne Richi (Tina Fey), a standard tactic that always lures Metro Man to certain doom. Well, ideally it would be his doom, but usually not.  Metro Man is not the only opponent for Megamind.  There is also Tighten (Jonah Hill), a hero that Megamind created with his genius. Oh, that may not have been wise.

It is easy to see the similarities of Metro Man to Superman, Roxanne to Lois Lane, and Megamind to Lex Luthor.  Metro Man is more of a showman than Superman, eagerly pumping up his fans in a display of his powers at the grand opening of his museum.  Likewise, Megamind stalks the streets of Metro City with a soundtrack playing, often dancing to the tune.

Ferrell is often hit or miss with his characters.  Megamind is a definite hit.  He is great in the role, which is several roles thanks to his disguise watch.  That Megamind has a character arc that few supervillains are ever given was quite entertaining.

Great popcorn fun.  Highly recommended.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The story opens in 2006 at a party in Kabul with all the Western journalists when an explosion rocks the building and sees them all getting into action to cover the story.  Kim Baker (Tina Fey) is soon in the streets of Kabul and finds herself groped by a passing Afghan.  She rebukes him with a stream of clumsy profanity in Pashto.  And then the movie backs up to 2003 where we find Kim in an office in New York, writing an article about corn starch or something like that.  During a meeting, the news agency is seeking people to cover Afghanistan now that the veteran foreign correspondents have been moved to the Iraqi theater.  Feeling her life is dreary and empty, Kim volunteers.

Though the movie takes place in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006, little is learned of the war.  This is a movie about Kim.  She likes the risks and is often more concerned with getting a scoop than staying safe.  This gung-ho attitude wins her admirers.  Most scenes are played for comedy but there are stretches of drama and violence.  Several times through the movie, it is intimated that war correspondents are adrenalin junkies who put themselves at risk to get high.  Kim certainly takes some risks.  Is this a movie about an addict who recovers?  Maybe.  It isn't a movie of the Afghan War, the Taliban, or Osama bin Laden.  Beyond learning a smattering of military jargon and a flavor of Afghan culture through the eyes of a Westerner, there isn't anything educational here.

 

Among the supporting cast, only two really merit attention.  Billy Bob Thornton is excellent as the cucumber-cool general.  His best moment was probably when one of his marines blew up a Toyota with an $80,000 rocket.  Martin Freeman plays a Scottish photojournalist and love interest for Kim.  He was the most important character besides Kim.  Like her, he was eager to put his life in danger for the sake of a good story but, unlike her, he accepts that as a normal part of life.

 

Entertaining movie.