Revisiting Mike Flanagan’s Absentia

Revisiting Mike Flanagan’s Absentia

Sometimes it’s worth looking back. I’ve been so impressed by Midnight Mass, and basically be everything Mike Flanagan has done so far, that I took a couple of hours on a quiet Friday afternoon and re-watched Absentia, his first (available) feature film...

Winchester is just … a waste

I just waded through Winchester on Netflix and … I am at a loss. At a loss to explain how so much money and talent could be wasted on such an utterly uninvolving, derivative, boring ‘haunted house’ movie. This shambling, unfeeling, tedious thing has beautiful...

The Stranger is pretty good, but Harlan Coben? Meh.

Harlan Coben makes a few jillion dollars a year on his suspense novels (though ‘suspense’ seems like a pretty strong word for his stories. Maybe … “tension novels”?) Generally speaking, I find they have great premises, great hooks, but...
Why doesI Am Not Okay With This feel so incestuous?

Why doesI Am Not Okay With This feel so incestuous?

Seriously, who are they kidding? This moderately engaging Netflix mini-series smells so strongly of Carrie and IT that it makes your nose twitch. So why are the producers claiming complete astonishment at the parallels? Don’t get me wrong — it’s well...