Entertainment Round-Up—Death, Darkness, and Elementary

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous—Is mediocre. Decent enough watch with my boys, but

AND she shoots bow?

even they had issues with some of the silly/dumb choices the characters made. Camp counselors seem more concerned about who is in charge instead of watching out for the children who are more concerned about their various nonsense issues to worry about personal safety. (Netflix)

Anna Karenina (2012)—Is beautiful. It’s also very dark, but then it’s Russian. Two hours really isn’t enough to do justice to Tolstoy’s story, but Tom Stoppard’s adaptation and Joe Wright’s directing make an incredible effort, especially setting much of the story as if it were a play in a theater. If I had one complaint, it’s that Aaron Taylor-Johnson Count Vronsky is far, far too pretty to be likable. (Netflix)

Enola Holmes—Is so fun! Entirely in keeping with the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adding a teenage sister, Enola, to the Holmes family. Although Mycroft is slightly off, everything else is a reasonable facsimile, the acting is a delight, and the mystery is laid out for viewers to decipher on their own without any esoteric knowledge. (Netflix)

Tournament (2018)—Isn’t terrible. A lighter shade of “Clerks.” for the die-hard card-gamers. There’s some really good, witty dialogue, and then there’s some ham-fisted stuff. The camera work is passable, although sometimes wonky. I felt like the plot could have used one more rewrite to really knock out the third act. (AmazonPrime)

The Courier—Nope. I think they were going for a kind of Die Hard in a parking structure. All

I don't have a machine gun yet, but Imma get one!

the right elements are there, and I really wanted to like this. Olga Kurylenko does a worthwhile job with what she’s given, and Gary Oldman and Calli Taylor are respectably evil together. The plot and the bad guys are dumb when they should be smart, or at least smarter. (Hulu)

Quest of the Muscle Nerd—Doesn’t suck. It’s an interesting look into a sub-sub-genre of Dragon Con attendee—the cosplayer who also lifts an outrageous amount of the time. I wish there was a bit more focus on cosplay and the nerds who lift to cosplay, rather than just folks who lift and showed up for this particular event. Still, it was an interesting look. (AmazonPrime)

The Good Place (Season 4)—Rocks. It’s so much goodness I can hardly believe it. I know I’m late on this one, especially a series that I loved (mmmm, Kristen Bell!) but I kept waiting for it to show up on one of my streaming services. I finally had to get the disks, and DVD at that (yech!). I wish I hadn’t waited this long. If you haven’t started this series, do so. It’s hi-freaking-larious. (DVD—because I guess BETA wasn’t an option)