Scorched (2003)

★★★
Scorched came and went so fast it passed virtually unnoticed in the public's eye. At first sight, that doesn't seem like a big deal. Receiving top billing are Alicia Silverstone and Rachael Leigh Cook, two actresses who delivered terrific performances in their respective breakout movies but have since slipped into obscurity with few successes after their initial brush with fame.

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

★★★
Good for Nicolas Cage for making oddball movies like Willy’s Wonderland. One could argue that his peak years are behind him, but… are they really? A combination of financial issues and perhaps a desire to seek out imaginative projects has led to an interesting late-career trajectory into low-profile high-concept territory. Though many of these efforts have gone straight to video and are of variable quality, there are hidden gems to be found. The path he has taken is the complete opposite of Bruce Willis, who has appeared in such a staggering number direct-to-video garbage that a rare theatrical appearance at this point would be an accident. Cage, on the other hand, still displays a passion for acting, and we can all benefit from his decision.

A Quiet Place Part II (2021)

★★★
A Quiet Place Part II picks up right where the previous film left off, carries over the strengths of that movie, and expands its world to include other survivors. It opens with a fantastic sequence that reveals the origin of the aliens and establishes how they quickly took over the planet. It leaves a few breadcrumbs behind for a potential sequel, which will hopefully delve more deeply into how the aliens got here. There are still questions that I had when it was over, but I’m confident Part III will tackle these and more when it comes around. This movie is better than the first one and shows that writer/director John Krasinski has a good idea of where to take this story.

The Raid: Redemption (2012)

★½
The Raid: Redemption is a con job. It’s like the friend who buys a new car and takes you for a spin to show it off only to have it break down on the freeway. The story involves an elite police squad in Jakarta that descends on a 15-story apartment building to arrest a drug lord, all the while contending with his henchmen the whole way up. It’s an interesting concept, but the movie emphasizes its fight scenes so much that it capsizes. The story just wasn’t developed well enough to provide any compelling reason for this risky mission. As a result, there are lots of fights, lots of deaths, lots of bullets, but it adds up to nothing.

Jawbreaker (1999)

★★
A black comedy fusion of Clueless and Heathers, Jawbreaker falls short of both. Darren Stein’s tale of high school murder and revenge isn’t nearly as clever as it thinks it is and relies on a heavy dosage of in-sync dialogue delivery and creative cutting to carry the day. It isn’t boring, and sometimes it’s amusing, but once the subterfuge wears off, all that’s left is a forgettable story of insignificant impact. Only two weeks after this movie’s release came Cruel Intentions, another twisted high school tale, but one that was much more satisfying, with an ending that worked because that movie’s villainess was fully fleshed out, while Jawbreaker’s Courtney is the result of a script run amok.