b) The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
I enjoyed The Lego Batman Movie was more than the original The Lego Movie, so I was happy that the sequel to the latter was also very heavily a continuation of the former. I was also amused by the meta narratives I made up in my head about a) how obvious it was that Will Ferrell gave them like 5 minutes to record a few voiceover lines so that they could write him out of the sequel as much as possible as an absentee dad, and b) the echo of the Infinity War theme of Chris Pratt ruining everything and letting everyone else down, and c) whether it was a reference to have Wonder Woman voiced by Colbie Smulders, who Joss Whedon wanted to cast for his unproduced Wonder Woman screenplay. It was fun, though, I liked how the story ultimately ended up being about siblings sharing toys, which genuinely is a lesson my son needs to learn.

c) Upgrade
I feel like this movie was poorly marketed, because the ads didn't quite make it appealing as a batshit high concept Jason Statham-type action movie, or as a cerebral sci-fi movie like Ex Machina, when honestly I feel like it's a really enjoyable fusion of both. Logan Marshall-Green gives a great performance, the way his face reacts while his body is winning a fight without him controlling it is so hilariously entertaining, and there's some good twists and turns to the story.

d) You Were Never Really Here
Much as Upgrade was like a smarter Jason Statham movie, You Were Never Really Here is kind of like an art house version of a Liam Neeson vigilante movie, a more realistic look inside the head of an ex-military guy violently doing whatever it takes to rescue trafficked girls. It's really violent and a little overwhelming but it kind of makes you think about what a hero in that situation would really have to go through and be capable of.

e) Ride
A trashy little millennial thriller about a Uber/Lyft etc. driver who picks up an odd talkative client who eventually turns out to be a psychopath who holds him hostage and manipulates him into committing crimes. It turned out to be a little better than I thought it would be, the tension is gradually ratcheted up effectively and Will Brill was an excellent villain. And this scene was pretty memorably ridiculous.

f) Big Legend
My wife and I have an annual tradition of watching horror movies on Valentine's Day, and after lots of scrolling through the on-demand menu, we decided to go with this bigfoot movie that had an intriguing poster image. Ultimately, we kind of regretted it, the Great Value Bradley Cooper leading man actually made me think more of Bradley Cooper, and some of the production values left something to be desired, particularly the blood being way too red. But I kind of enjoyed some of the monster scenes, it won me over a little before the cheesy set up for a sequel.

g) Tag
This was pretty fun, kind of works well as a lesser companion piece to Game Night in terms of being an action comedy where a friendly game gets out of hand. I don't like Jeremy Renner much in actual action movies. but he's a good choice to play the faux action movie badass in a comedy.

h) I Feel Pretty
I think of this movie as belonging to a lineage of comedies that try to say something thoughtful or progressive about how people treat women based on their looks and how that effects them, but the resulting movie still comes out a little flawed both in terms of humor and message. This movie has maybe more problems than The Truth About Cats And Dogs and fewer problems than Shallow Hal, but it's somewhere between those two.

i) The Peanuts Movie
I didn't see this when it came out 3-4 years ago, but my son likes to watch it, and I kind of forgot how much I loved Peanuts comics and cartoons growing up until I saw my kid enjoying these characters too. It really kind of blows my mind how well this stuff has aged and translated across generations since the '50s. This movie did kind of an impressive job of doing modern digital animation that maintained the aesthetic of the comics, and I loved that for the Snoopy and Woodstock voices they used archival recordings of Bill Melendez voicing those characters in the old cartoons. Trombone Shorty doing the teacher's voice was great too. And it was unexpectedly emotional to finally see kind of a happy ending for Charlie Brown and the little red-haired girl.