Back when Kristen Wiig first left "SNL," I had high hopes that she'd adapt her comedic voice from sketches into loopy, silly movies like Will Ferrell had. And while she's had a pretty good film career, it hasn't quite been that -- obviously Bridesmaids was funny but I think it speaks volumes that it did way more for Melissa McCarthy than the ostensible star. So I was a little surprised back in February when people were actually paying to see a Wiig VOD release and raving about it, but Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar is absolutely what I had been waiting for, Wiig and longtime collaborator Annie Mumolo playing a mundanely familiar type of person in a campy heightened reality along the lines of Anchorman, and it's hilarious. The whole thing was good but I particularly liked the first 10 minutes where I just consistently had no idea what was going to happen next. 

Ilana Glazer exuded such a star quality on "Broad City" that I also kind of assumed she'd quickly go onto big things after the show ran its course. But her standup special last year got such a weak reception that I never checked it out and I was surprised to see that her first real film vehicle that she co-wrote and starred in is an A24 horror movie. There's some clever aspects to the premise and Pierce Brosnan has a lot of fun chewing the scenery as a suspicious, ambiguous antagonist, but the whole thing didn't quite hold together. 

Wild Rose is the kind of movie that makes me want to go into an Armond White-style rant comparing it to a more successful movie and explaining why it's better in every way. I think it's far more likely that Jessie Buckley and Wild Rose would have gotten Oscar nominations last year if Lady Gaga and A Star Is Born hadn't been up for awards the year before. And that's a shame, because Buckley's performance is just incredible. And while I feared that Wild Rose would be yet another predictable feelgood movie about a talented singer being discovered and becoming an overnight star, the story is in fact (mild spoiler) more of a rejoinder to those kinds of cliched show business fables.

I think maybe I've taken Kate Beckinsale for granted when I watch a movie like this. She started her career with Shakespeare and Jane Austen adaptations and then became an unlikely action hero, but I always found the Underworld movies and Van Helsing a little dour. Jolt, though, is a solid action comedy that makes a case for her as an action heroine on par with Charlize Theron, the story and the action are a bit familiar, but the dialogue is fast and witty, director Tanya Wexler builds on the strengths of her entertaining but flawed 2019 comedy Buffaloed. 

Maybe I'm just an easy audience for action movies headlined by women, because Gunpowder Milkshake has been panned but I'm happy to just watch a movie where Karen Gillan, Carla Gugino, and Angela Bassett play assassins. We've all seen this particular brand of stylish hyperviolence a hundred times before, but I think it works pretty well here -- there's a fight scene in a bowling alley where Gillan fucks dudes up with bowling balls, that's just good cinema. 

The fact that this movie exists makes me happier than the movie itself. I was a little headbanging brat when the first two Bill & Ted movies came out and will always have a soft spot for them, especially the second one, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. But I never expected a third movie after Keanu Reeves became an action star, and I find it heartwarming that he remained friends with Alex Winter all these years and wanted to do another one of these. Face The Music has the same screenwriters as the original and gets the tone right and I loved seeing William Sadler as the Grim Reaper again. But it's one of those mildly amusing sequels that was more like a fond reunion than a satisfying follow-up, although the robot played by Anthony Carrigan from "Barry" is really funny and Brigette Lundy-Paine from "Atypical" does an entertaining Keanu impression as Ted's daughter. 

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