January Movies Are Fun. So Much Fun.

Ah, January, that notorious cinematic wasteland. The repose of the How Did This Get Greenlit? movies. The repository of the Are We There Yet? flicks. The refuge of the Will Never Win Anything But Razzies pictures.

So yeah, this list isn’t exactly a rave. Heh. We’re just gonna dive right in (click the images for the reviews).

Miller’s Girl

My absolute least favorite movie of the entire month, Miller’s Girl is about a teacher who becomes entangled in an almost-affair with one of his students after he gives her the midterm assignment early. Yeah, it’s a bit implausible. Just a bit. It’s also sleazy and clunky to a fault, going too far where it shouldn’t and not far enough where it should, if that makes any sense.

I saw this movie in an almost-empty theater. One guy came in during the previews and proceeded to talk to the screen for the first half of the movie, and I found myself thinking, “If I wanted to hear someone talking to the screen I would go see The Room again, only The Room is way more fun.”

Night Swim

Night Swim is supposed to be a horror movie. It’s not, really, although it has jumpscares and a mysterious menace in a family’s backyard swimming pool. Problem is, it also has logic leaps galore and tries to make things that shouldn’t be scary scary, such as the pool repairman leaning on the diving board and slipping a little. For some reason this is framed as a jumpscare. Kind of funny in a movie produced by James Wan, but to be honest, it’s doubtful Wan had much to do with this film, as there were a lot of producers attached to it.

On the bright side, Night Swim is a short hour and a half. That’s good, I guess.

Lift

Oy. Lift is already dated, and it’s a brand-new movie. That’s not good, people. Maybe they shouldn’t have had some of the characters stealing NFTs at the beginning of the first act.

Other than that, we’re talking about a heist that takes place on an airplane in flight, which brings on all sorts of obvious challenges. Lift had a lot of potential but unfortunately falls short because it doesn’t give the audience enough reality to anchor things while the more improbable stuff goes on. There’s also a tacked-on romance and some pretty impossible stunts with airplanes and physics. Oh, and the cabin is remarkably spacious for an airplane and no one experiences any turbulence, ever. All in all, Lift is pretty boring and unmemorable.

Mean Girls

Mean Girls isn’t bad. It’s not great, either. Based on the Broadway show which is based on the 2004 movie, the new Mean Girls is an almost point-for-point remake starring some of the same actors who were in the original movie, such as TIna Fey and Tim Meadows. It’s bright, colorful, and fancy, with lots of recreations of the original movie. The only things that hold it back from being bigger and better than it is if the characters didn’t rely on social media so much and actually talked to each other more.

Look for a cameo by a very familiar face and plenty of e.l.f. cosmetics, the prominent placement of which inspired this follow-up article.

I.S.S.

I.S.S. is probably the best of the five. It’s about a crew of three Russians and another crew of three Americans, and when nuclear war breaks out on earth, each team gets separate communiques ordering them to take control of the International Space Station, by hook or by crook. Suddenly everyone suspects each other of duplicity, where there had only been team spirit just a day before. While it doesn’t do as much with its premise as it could, it’s still a pretty interesting character study of what can happen in isolation when there’s no help coming from the outside. Or inside, as the case may be.

Some parts of I.S.S. got a little goofy, but it’s watchable and occasionally enjoyable.

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Now, the month wasn’t all bad. In fact, it ended on a great note when my son and I went to a repertory screening of The Wizard of Oz, which looked absolutely beautiful. I happily noshed on a pepperoni pizza while chuckling and oohing and aahing at everything with my fellow audience members, one of whom was a little three-year old girl who was making her inaugural trip to Oz. I can’t recommend watching Oz on a big screen enough; it’s like seeing it for the first time.

All right, on to February, which I know is going to be fun. What will I be seeing? Well, keep an eye on my Substack page and find out. 🙂

A new post is coming out a week from Saturday. Thanks as always for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…

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If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please subscribe to my Substack page, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only reviews of mostly new and newish movies, documentaries, and shows. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.