Thankfully, the wind.

Shogun — 3/5

There is a breed of content that is highly acclaimed, and so when you watch it, you have high expectations, and you watch it and you think it's fine, but there's something about it that makes you want to give it a higher rating. As if the problem is you, you think. I will push against this feeling. I think in the center, there is a streamlined show half in size, half in characters. In a society bound by rules, proper exercise of the rules will break it. "Their grip on power pried apart by just one frail human being. No weapon, no war machine." Love it, wonderful idea. "A Japanese period piece whose central climax revolves around a poetry contest." Yes, give me more. But around this wonderful idea, people we need not know, people we need not be exposed to. They make you think you're watching a larger thing, expansive, many seasons long; which in turn makes the wonderful idea at the center feel smaller. I think I might just be upset that this is a TV show instead of a movie?

We don't mourn the number of people;

we mourn the size of the bombs.

This

used to be a place.

If you enjoy it, come out.

Will & Harper — 4/5

There's a smallness to the movie that serves it well. Despite starring Will Ferrell, it never becomes as outsized as he makes himself out to be. He's still a buffoon, but quieter, reserved; sad. The movie felt like a true road trip: long stretches of not much happening, the threat of danger in an unknown place, and great conversations that can only be sparked on day 7 of an 8-day trip. Only by creating the familiarity of sitting next to someone for long stretches of hours can you then create the true conditions of saying goodbye, and the need to say what needs to be said before then. I don't think I got through the movie truly understanding the connection between Will and Harper in terms of conversation or similar comedic sensibilities, but you felt the love. A man loves his friend and wants to help her in the only way a famous actor knows how: by turning it into a movie. We can only use the tools we have.

Some of us fracture, others simply deform.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — 2/5

Tim Burton has returned to form, and has forgotten what shape that was. Michael Keaton still has a spark, but he's buried beneath a messy little movie made of too many severed parts. First draft-ass movie. Lazy.