CriticalRaccoon

I know stuff happened but I'm not exactly sure why or how, possibly because the lead character -- literally named Protagonist -- is one of the worst written and performed action leads in the modern era. It's a weird choice for Nolan to have the lead character be the least interesting piece of a time-bending action epic, but at least it's offset by some supporting performances that mostly make up for it.

No matter how convoluted and messy the movie is, Nolan's ambition keeps Tenet watchable.

Even if "Slender Man" wasn't tasteless in its own existence - coming a few years after a group of young girls stabbed a girl due to a belief that Slender Man was real - it wouldn't change the fact that "Slender Man" is an abysmal piece of cinema.

The real character of Slender Man is sort of a fascinating take on modern myth, the internet and how stories spread in a modern digital age. It could work in cinema in many ways. Unfortunately someone at Sony thought they needed to ripoff "The Ring" but for teen girls rather than do something original.

Four stock small town teen girls having a slumber party decide to summon Slender Man via haunted YouTube video because, um, reasons? Honestly I don't know why they did but hey maybe teenage girls in these days love their psychosis causing monstrosities. This Slender Man is some sort of supernatural being that drives people who look at him insane, or just kills/abducts them, or something - honestly his motivations are never explained other than being evil. How everyone seems to know about him is another question I had but, again, bad movie logic. Of course they brush it off as an internet hoax until they start suffering nightmares and the "get me out of this town" girl Katie (Annalise Basso) disappears on a school trip to a cemetery. Remaining friends Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Wren (Joey King), and Chloe (Jax Sinclair, netting her a Razzie nom) investigate and find out that Katie was into the occult and wanted Slender Man to take her away. Why she needed a group is anyone's guess.

So down one friend, what do our somewhat disinterested teenage girls do? Summon Slender Man again in order to get back Katie, of course! You can see where this film is going. Unfortunately rather than play with the idea of a spirit haunting our teenage girls and slowly twisting reality until they break was beyond the scope of the writers so instead they opted for the most mundane path they could find. This isn't so much a slow delve into insanity, but rather a "make the lights flicker a bit and throw on some kaleidoscope filters" demonic haunting. The film isn't even 90-minutes long but it feels like an eternity.

"Slender Man" is a passionless film. Director Sylvain White has a decent eye for filming but if he took this project with any level of enthusiasm it is painfully absent. There is the fleeting interesting segment that is immediately undone by actors who look disinterested in their apparent terror. No one ever seems invested in their paper thin roles, and not even a patented Joey King freakout can evoke a sense of panic. The titular villain himself is barely menacing due to his seemingly random interest in haunting our heroes. Writer David Birke just grabbed an unused "Rings" sequel script and copy/pasted some generic teen characters in there after watching "Blair Witch", but didn't know how to make anything scary at all.

Not helping matters is the unavoidable fact that "Slender Man" is borderline unwatchable. No, it's not unwatchable as in being a bad movie, it's unwatchable because the lighting it atrociously bad. Never before have I seen a film so devoted to shadowy style that it shoots its leads in darkness on a sunny day. It's as if thick cloud hovers over our heroes despite the sun beaming on all around them. The night scenes in the woods - and boy are there many of those - are so darkly shot that I honestly had a difficult time telling what was going on. It's annoying because there is clearly a decent eye behind the camera with how some scenes are framed, but it's next to impossible to appreciate given its devotion to darkness.

It's also painfully obvious that "Slender Man" was released in an incomplete form. Sony Screen Gems apparently feared a backlash due to controversy and had horrid test screenings so they edited it down and rushed it out after failing to sell it to another studio. Characters and plot points just vanish. Death scenes are off-screen or just assumed to have happened. Several of the horror scenes that made it into the trailer never appear in the final film. Hey you know the terribly acted Chloe who we were all begging to see die like in the trailer? Not shown at all - she just vanishes from the movie midway through. I don't think the film would ever be good or enjoyable if the missing scenes were returned, but at least it could have been a passable horror story rather than the forgettable disaster it is.

"Slender Man" is just a mistake of a movie. It rarely-if-ever attempts to be scary and offers nothing to differentiate itself from the vastly superior films that do similar things. I just don't know how a film as disinterested in its backstory got made. You can quite easily make a movie about Slender Man and have it be unique. Take advantage of its internet-based history and make it a horror story about the original creation of the Slender Man - perhaps its "creator" was manipulated by supernatural forces to spread it online.

I guess the only positive thing I can say about "Slender Man" is it's not quite as bad as "The Bye Bye Man" in terms of terrible attempted franchise starters, though it is easily more forgettable. "Slender Man" is a film that arguably should not have been made, and definitely one that will be shortly forgotten. This is a bare-bones attempt to squeeze some money out of a decade old internet meme that doesn't take advantage of its origins in any way. Slender Man may drive you insane you if you see him, Slender Man's film may bore you to death instead.

Tully ruins "Tully."

That statement will make sense later, I think.

The third collaboration between director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody after "Juno" and "Young Adult," and the second starring Charlize Theron, "Tully" delves into a deeply personal take on motherhood when it's lost its luster. Cody's one-liner snarky style remains, but it's also matched with a far more subtle approach than her previous efforts. Well, until the film decides to get cute with its themes and drives off a bridge, literally.

Marlo (Charlize Theron) is days away from giving birth to her third child - an unplanned pregnancy at the age of 40. Marlo's a former New York hipster that got knocked up and lost her mojo along the way. Her 8-year-old insecure daughter is pretty tame but her 6-year-old son Jonah has a developmental disorder that's getting him kicked out of a private school because he is, as stated multiple times, "too quirky" for his teachers to handle. Marlo's husband Drew (Ron Livingston) is no help due to being swamped with work by day and disappearing to play video games at night. To say Marlo looks overwhelmed is an understatement and a testament to the ability of Charlize Theron to effortlessly glide between roles where she is an ultra-sexy secret agent in "Atomic Blonde" to being a disheveled wreck in this film. Theron nails this role - you can see her desperately trying to cover the cracks and keep it together even as the fissures start getting wider.

Marlo's wealthy brother - married to a younger millennial hipster who had a much easier time with pregnancy and who had the joke subtlety of a sledgehammer to the uterus - offers to pay for a night nanny as a baby shower gift. Marlo refuses at first, but once her new kid arrives and the realities of 24-hour, zero sleep mothering take their tole on her she relents. Then, one night, Tully arrives.

Tully (Mackenzie Davis) is a manic pixie dream girl of the nanny variety. A millennial Mary Poppins, Tully descends into Marlo's life and gives her exactly what she needs. Tully is a no-fuss, energetic, young beauty who is there to look after Marlo in every manner one can. Her entire job is to make Marlo feel alive again. Marlo and Tully have an instant connection which is solidified by the absurd chemistry of the two leads. They are a joy to watch together.

Marlo's life immediately becomes better and it benefits the entire family. Marlo becomes more active, is better socially and even has the outward appearance of a parent who has it all under control. It's a rather shocking transformation; that one single person can affect another life so greatly is remarkable. Then, um, Tully happens.

Not to give away the details, but for some absolutely absurd reason Diablo Cody decided a film about a mother needing help wasn't enough and had to get cute with a twist ending. Up until the last moments "Tully" was a pretty decent movie about accepting help and the need for self-care; unfortunately Cody must have just finished watching a certain other movie when writing the twist that wrecks "Tully." It's one of those twists that is sort of hinted at throughout the movie but does make some scenes make zero sense in retrospect. It's also a twist just for the sake of having a twist - you could easily have this movie exist without it. Maybe if "Tully" handled this better rather than just slapping it on I'd be okay with it, but Cody's choice does leave a rather abrupt sour taste in my mouth about a subject matter that could have been handled a lot better.

I'm not the biggest fan of Diablo Cody's writing style but for the most part "Tully" worked well because it was so much more reflectively honest rather than trying to be a comedy. You can instantly tell "Tully" came from a very personal perspective. Theron's immense talents make Marlo relatable even without knowing much about her, and when she finally gets to act opposite Davis the screen becomes alive with these two ladies learning what drives them. There's a lot of good stuff here that illuminates a subject few films touch on. Well, it works as a character/theme piece, not so much a film about mental health. I wanted more of the parts that made "Tully" good, and less of the parts that accidentally turn serious mental health issues into a whimsical thing. Marlo is clearly a character who is struggling immensely - quite visibly at times too - yet Cody/Reitman treat this as hidden from everyone other than the audience and Tully.

"Tully" is also unexpectedly short. Most of the many subplots just get dropped about halfway in, with characters just vanishing and seemingly important developments left hanging. Marlo has the weight of the world on her shoulders as evidenced by how many subplots she juggles in her busy day, but the second Tully shows up these multiple plot threads either get forgotten or resolved in ways that are comically fast. The abruptness of the conclusion is almost shocking; it seems like it's missing a final act. "Tully" is barely 90-minutes and it needed another half-hour to feel like a whole movie.

It's hard to fully recommend "Tully" without a few caveats, but it's worth a watch to see Theron and Davis' wonderful chemistry. I personally don't think "Tully" quite reaches the heights its pedigree would indicate, but it's still a worthwhile exploration of an aspect of parenthood that movies rarely touch on. Reitman and Cody give us an intriguing portrait of modern motherhood, but can't quite get the whole to reach the sum of its parts.