If you’re not aware, Hollywood is totes afraid of football players. That is to say, studios treat Superbowl weekend like it is radioactive. And not the good – “oh maybe this will give me superpowers” – kind of radioactive. They don’t release anything of note this week. The “biggest” release is a Kevin James romantic comedy. Yippee.

With that in mind, it seemed like a good time to unload my recent Letterboxed diary. This is something I have done before. A few times, actually. I will likely do it again. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.

Dust Bunny (Available on Demand)

The guy behind NBC’s Hannibal and ABC’s Pushing Daisies made a movie in which Mads Mikkelsen plays a hit man who must try to kill a 10-year-old girl’s bogeyman. It is somehow both exactly what you’d think it would be based on that description and not quite as good as it sounds. Writer/director Bryan Fuller was definitely restricted by budget for this high concept “What if John Wick came for the monster under your bed?” But it isn’t not satisfying and fun. Sigourney Weaver is in it too, if you needed more convincing. I don’t know, it feels like something that I should have really loved but only mostly liked. So do with that what you will. Or not. There’s nothing I can do to stop you either.

Grade = B-

The Testament of Ann Lee (Available on Hulu)

I think I speak for all of us when I say that we are all big Amanda Seyfried fans. Yes, you too. What we are not are members of the Shaker religion, which has only three remaining members. Don’t be too sad, that number increased by 50% in the last year! This quasi-musical about that faith’s founder, played by the divine Ms. Seyfried, has a huge problem. Writer/director Mona Fastvold and writer Brady Corbet yada-yada-yada over the stuff we want to see and take an interminable amount of time showing the stuff we don’t. To be clear: We don’t want to hear Seyfried discuss how she had a bonkers vision about becoming a winged creature and then watch her build a church for an hour. Other way. Other way around please. There is a version of this film that is hallucinatory and captivating, framing Lee as a devoutly sexless witch-for-Jesus. As a great recent Florence + the Machine song says “a prayer is a spell.” Instead, this is a lot of repetitive chatter and a not insignificant amount of horny spanking.

Grade = C-

The Running Man (Available on Paramount Plus)

Hahaha! Oh my God is this bad, y’all. I saw mixed reviews for it. What is there to be mixed on? Are some folks mixed about gargling spoiled milk? Edgar Wright’s “reimagining” of the Stephen King story and “classic” 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, about a reality TV show where the objective is not getting murdered, is hypnotically awful. Glen Powell is flat-out repellant and shockingly uncharismatic. It isn’t just that he’s bad and the lines don’t work. It is like this was his first day as a human being, and they filmed it. Poorly! The visuals are ugly, uninspired, and unfinished. Some horrible series of misfortunes had to befall this production for it to have ended up this awful. Wright’s Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, At World’s End) was perfection. His last three-piece (Baby Driver, Last Night in Soho, and this) is the antichrist to the prior salvation. Who knows where he goes from here? I just know I will be suspicious of following.

Grade = F

Secret Mall Apartment (Available on Netflix)

Here is a perfect, quaint little documentary. Director Jeremy Workman tells the relatively-remarkable-but-simple story of a collective of artists who, as the title more than merely alludes to, found an empty space in a big ole mall in Rhode Island and lived there without permission. FOR A VERY LONG TIME. That’s the truly staggering part. They went undetected for such a huge stretch. What makes the film particularly gripping is its ability to tackle the fallout from gross capitalistic carnage so gently. The artists are all so sweet. They make “paintings” out of masking tape for kids with chronic illness in the hospital, for the love of Pete. At a time when we are all longing for a way to “stick it to the man,” these creative and caring weirdos found a rebellious but heartwarming way to flip the bird to the establishment. It’s so cozy and nice.

Grade = A-

The Great Flood (Available on Netflix)

Much like Dust Bunny, I have to warn you that what I’m about to describe is going to sound infinitely better than it actually is. Imagine The Day After Tomorrow made a baby with The Matrix and Groundhog Day. This Korean flick hit Netflix, and my algorithm may as well have woken me from my sleep to tell me about it. A disaster movie filled with hallucinatory and existential sci-fi that borders on time-travel? I couldn’t click play hard enough. And yet… It’s not that writer/director Kim Byung-woo and writer Han Ji-su got too weird, they got a bit too messy. The ideas are genuinely interesting, and the genre-hopping should be more effective than it is. It’s not even that it was “one twist too many,” so much as it has a distinct “we stayed up all night last night, and here’s our term paper, I guess?” vibe. Still, I am going to think (and talk) about this one for a long, long time.

Grade = B

Sentimental Value (Available on Demand)

Ever watch a movie and you’re like “This is objectively good, I know that. But also, eh, whatever?” This is a quiet Norwegian movie about a not-super-great father (Stellan Skarsgård) reuniting with his daughters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). If you somehow come from a functional family and don’t relate to the anguish of complex paternal trauma, it’s also kind of about Nazis and suicide. There’s something for everyone to feel bad about! Also, Elle Fanning shows up as a kind-hearted American actress, so there’s even a little bit of English for those monsters among us who fear subtitles. It’s good. The chief Skarsgård is good. The younger Fanning is good. The remarkable Reinsve is good. I would be hard pressed to say anything definably not good about it. And yet, I thought it was just okay. I may love subtitles, but apparently, I am a different kind of monster.

Grade = B