Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976)

 Former preacher Marjoe Gortner and soon to be Wonder Woman Lynda Carter, cavort around New Mexico and Texas in better then expected crime spree flick, featuring Lynda Carter nudity. **

Outbreak (1995)

 Uneven medical thriller about the outbreak of an Ebola-like virus in a northern Califorina town, improbably has more helicopter scenes then any other movie I can think of. I'd wanted to see this for more then 30 years and was disappointed; 2011's 'Contagion' does this kind of thing better, but at the same time is even slower. **

Sheep Detectives (2026)

 Combination of 'Babe' and 'Midsummer Murders', two genre types that you wouldn't think would work well together, but here they do. Remarkably well constructed screen play. ***

Carbon Copy (1981)

 Businessman George Segal finds out he has a black son and everyone over reacts. Major misfire was a major flop, and got seemingly everything wrong except the casting of a young Denzel Washington, who gets an "Introducing" credit. *

Happy Happy Joy Joy (2020)

 Documentary on the troubled production of hit 90's cartoon show 'Ren & Stimpy', as well as it's troubled creator John Kricfaluci. Very informative. ***

Miller's Girl (2024)

 Prime example of "High Tash". Jenna Ortega is the daughter of rich, absentee parents, who is just starting her senior year at a middle Tennessee public high school. Jenna is passionate about literature, and bemoans that she is not very interesting; she aspires to be a writer but fears she dosen't have anything to write about. After the idea is jokingly planted in her mind by a friend, Jenna sets out to seduce and ruin the life of her English teacher Martin Freeman, a failed author with one unsuccessful book to his credit. 

The minimalist story feels like a once salacious  stage play in the tradition of 'The Children's Hour', which flirts, teases and implies but never quite crosses the uncrossble line. Fine performances make the movie watchable, but it's never as deep and probing as it wishes it were. A meta tale about cliche and failed writers, that gilds a trawdry story to demonstrate the pain of not quite measuring up, and ironically succeeds in so doing. **1/2

Housekeeping (1987)

 'Housekeeping' is based on the award winning 1980 Marilynne Robinson novel of the name same and both adapted and directed by Bill Forsyth, a master of both melancholy and whimsy and my favorite Scottish director. Set in northern Idaho during the 1950's, the story follows sisters Ruth and Lucille (played as teenagers by Sarah Walker and Andrea Burchill, both give impressive and understated performances).

The two girls are deposited in a small mountian town with a grandmother they don't know, just before their mother abandons them to commit suicide. The two are raised by this loving grandmother until she dies, then briefly taken care of by two great aunts, before their mother's sister Sylvie (Christine Lahti (I'm always happy to see her)) is more or less forced to take over their care.

Sylvie is a kind, pleasant woman, but deeply eccentric, a horder, with little sense of time and decorum, she is cagey about her past and no doubt suffers from various mental illnesses. The whole movie is about growing up in a family that is haunted by the specter of mental illness, and how the two girls very different reactions to their aunt eventually drives them apart. The film is beautiful and muted, contrasting the gorgeous exteriors of the mountians with the troubled interiors of people with deeply held feelings they don't know how to process. ***1/2