Late Night/The Dead Don't Die/Child's Play/Anna

Late Night: An enjoyable movie. Emma Thompson is very good. Mindy Kaling, who I sometimes find overbearing, is charming. Like a lot of movies about comedy, the material that is presented as brilliant comedy is really not. I mean, characters get standing ovations here for stuff that is at best mildly amusing. But as far as behind the scenes movies go this feels pretty authentic.

The Dead Don't Die: I'm all for deadpan comedy, but Jim Jarmusch's zombie comedy is mostly just comatose. It has an eclectic cast that's mostly wasted. There are some meta jokes that fall incredibly flat. There are a few laughs but the film has just zero energy. And I can't believe Jarmusch trotted out the old "consumers are the real zombies" moral, as if that wasn't used in Dawn of the Dead 40 years ago.

Child's Play: No, we did not need a remake for a horror movie whose goofy sequels.are still being made(although I think Bride Of Chucky was the last one I actually watched), but this one isn't bad. It finds a fairly clever new spin, although obvious budgetary constraints kept it from being fully taken advantage of (the climax is especially abbreviated). Much of the enjoyment I got was just picturing Mark Hamill in a recording booth doing some of these Chucky lines.

Anna: I suppose nobody can get on you for making a ripoff if you're ripping off yourself. Luc Besson's new one is basically a glossier version of his own La Femme Nikita. It's pretty forgettable. The timeline is jumbled up for no real reason other than to trick you into thinking it's smarter than it is. The lead actress, Sasha Luss, is a Russian supermodel with exactly the amount of acting talent you would expect.