Us - Like Get Out before it, extremely overrated by many. It was okay. It has some positives (quality performances, creepy atmosphere, compelling visual style, score), but suffers from thinking it's a lot smarter than it really is. It takes quite a long time to really get going with very little benefit from doing so. Once things do play out, things get less and less interesting, and the threat/tension falls, as more is revealed, and goes the way of being kind of dumb sometimes. The twist at the end does offer some insight into the characters, and might have been significant except for the fact that I just didn't care about any of them at that point.
Captive State - A slow burn with a predictable and unsatisfying payoff. Not as terrible as some are calling it, though. Something to watch on Netflix (or wherever) in the future when you're bored and there's nothing else.
Vox Lux - The first half of this was 100% not at all what I was expecting and was pretty compelling and interesting. Then it time jumped, Natalie Portman showed up, and it was a completely different movie that was just grating to listen to. Two halves that were extremely different in style and execution. One was pretty good, the other pretty terrible.
The Wife - Pretty good performance by Close, but otherwise not all that great of a story. Basically, just someone who made some less than stellar choices and then got kind of mad when she got tired of living with the consequences (that they had to know about). It's a little more complex than that, but it still comes down to those basics.
The Favourite - I was hoping for something a little more witty. There are moments of it here and there, but for the most part it's just a period drama about subterfuge and backstabbing and a few other depressing themes. The performances are good, as you'd expect with several oscar noms, though I think the nominations were not correct. There is no question to me that Emma Stone was the lead of this film. Weisz and Colman do share much of the heft, but Stone is definitely the most prominent and kind of the glue to the whole thing IMO. Colman should have been up for best supporting, not the lead that she won for.
Captain Marvel - Saw it a second time. The issues I had with it before were more pronounced on second viewing with more examples, and other problems that I didn't catch the first time rearing their ugly head as well. This went from possibly the lower end of Marvel's mid-tier to firmly in the bottom tier. That makes it still enjoyable, but extremely flawed.
