hoytyhoytyhoyty

I'm happy that Ethan Hawke is getting good projects now. Black Phone one and two were worthy, and this, The Lowdown, was an absolute surprise out of nowhere.

It's like another Thomas Pynchon detective romp but without the pretense. This is more like a deep Big Lebowski.

The Lowdown is by turns funny, gripping and moving - it's everything a good story should be. And in a final act of astonishment, it has a tight arc that actually concludes, violating modern studio policy.

It has an excellent set of characters played with commitment by good actors, playing out a really well constructed script.

Hawke is just awesome as the determined, disaster prone (but guardian angel'd) Lee Raybon.

Tim Blake Nelson is mesmerising as the mysterious Dale. Seriously gave me goosebumps whenever he appeared.

Kyle MacLachlan leaves Costner in the dust as a scary power-hungry kingpin, Keith David is wonderfully resolute through the storm of ridiculous, Jeanne Tripplehorn is a fantastic femme fatale and carries a couple of the best moments in the series, Paul Sparks just excels himself as a pscyho cult leader, the episode with Peter Dinklage is one of the funniest things I've ever seen from US TV, the list just goes on.

I hope The Lowdown gets the recognition it deserves.

Out of the blue, out of the park, off the charts!

If you can't get it moving by episode 4, you can't do it. Goode continues to be the kiss of death, poor guy. Get him a decent agent.

I kept wondering if it was just me. But it wasn't. It was Netflix, doing it again. Their padding and pretense.

Maybe this has some kind of masochistic appeal, where nothing happening whinily produces a pleasure we dare not name?

Dept Stultify was recommended by an intelligent colleague and when I see them again I'm going to try and delicately probe why.

Black Phone 2 is much slower than Black Phone. But it's not boring. It's just a time commitment.

The pivot is from one type of supernatural, to another. And it works. This sequel gradually shows you how its game is played, and the stakes are high long before our villain shows his memorable face.

Ethan Hawke is lovely cold in this, but he's kinda swamped out by a field of other excellent performances.

There aren't a lot of jump scares, but the storm that builds doesn't really need them.

If I could complain, a little more exposition and a little more pace wouldn't have hurt.

It's a good film, a good sequel.