Motherless Brooklyn

A hard-boiled noir about a tough-talking P.I. with Tourette’s Syndrome. Ed Norton directed the HELL out of this, and the worst part of it, the only bad part really, is the fact that the main character has Tourette’s. It feels so acty-schmackty and forced. Otherwise, this gumshoe crime drama is solid. It’s long, but that’s okay. It’s really well-shot and well-acted by the ensemble of famous, aging, tough guys. The locations are great. One wonders how the movie would be if the character DIDN’T have Tourette’s, which defeats the whole purpose I think.

Thunder Force

Could have been funnier. The general conceit, that two sort of heavy ladies become superheroes, has potential. But Melissa McCarthy’s character, the tough-talking teamster type, relies on crassness and pratfalls for humor, which gets old. It rebounds a little when Jason Bateman enters with some deadpan surrealism. Otherwise, it’s a lazy goof on superhero movies and is only sporadically funny.