The Little Things (2021) | John Lee Hancock

February 1, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

Set in 1990, Joe ‘Deke’ Deacon (Denzel Washington) is a burnt-out deputy from Kern County, CA, who left working the spotlight of high-profile cases five years ago for quieter pastures, sacrificing the spotlight and his family in the process. Rami Malek is Jim Baxter, a hotshot homicide detective for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on top of the case to catch a serial killer brutally slaughtering young women. Deke has a knack for visualizing crime scenes and cracking cases by observing ‘the little things’ – the seemingly unimportant clues that lead a serial killer to be caught. However, his reputation of following his own guidelines rather than the law has earned him a reputation, especially as events of his past have haunted him to ruin.

Deke travels to LA to deliver evidence for a case from Bakersfield but finds himself drawn into doing additional legwork off the clock because of the similarities between the current murders and one he had been working on back when he was last in Los Angeles that precipitated his exile. The arrogant Baxter initially dismisses Deacon as a loose cannon distraction, but eventually finds there’s a method to his madness that could be an asset to cracking the case. Their clues eventually lead to appliance deliverer Albert Sparma (Jared Leto), though they aren’t quite sure if he did the deeds or if he’s merely drawn close to the case because he is a fanatic for serial-killer crimes and intrigued at being thought of as a suspect. However, the demons that plague Deke seem to be infecting Baxter as he too begins to obsess about the case. John Lee Hancock writes and directs.

Knives Out (2019) | Rian Johnson

November 29, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Set somewhere in New England, the plot of this murder mystery involves the death of the patriarch of the Thrombey family, Harlan (Christopher Plummer). Harlan is a wildly successful mystery novelist who has amassed a small fortune running a publishing company for his and other books. While initially thought to be suicide, several guests at Harlan’s 85th birthday acted quite suspiciously before his death that leaves open the possibility of foul play. Along with the police, an unknown person hires a famous detective named Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to check into the matter beyond the standard police questioning. Our main conduit into the story, however, is Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s nurse that has a strange affliction where she will toss her cookies whenever she lies, making her an instant way to vet the truth, provided that she knows it. With Marta by his side, Blanc finds there may be more to the suicide than he initially thought, though the hows and whys remain elusive. Rian Johnson writes and directs. Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and LaKeith Stanfield also appear.

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (2019) | Quentin Tarantino

July 28, 2019July 28, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Rick Dalton, a Hollywood star who is seeing his brightness fade in the ever-changing and fickle industry. Brad Pitt stars as Cliff Booth, his dedicated stuntman, chauffeur, and overall sidekick in life. The outlook looks bleaker each time out for both of them, as Dalton goes from leading-man roles in films to heavies on TV shows, mulling over advice to continue his career starring in Italian films rather than take a back seat in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Cliff ends up getting into his own kerfuffles on the side, including a spat with none other than Bruce Lee, a young hippie that he flirts with while out driving around the streets of Los Angeles, and dealing with a past that includes questions on whether he might have murdered his own wife and gotten away with it. Quentin Tarantino writes and directs this pop-culture pastiche love letter to Hollywood at the end to the 1960s.