Oxygen (Netflix, 2021)

 Le film français "Oxygen" est, de loin, le thriller de science-fiction le plus agréable que j'ai vu depuis des années. (Sous-titres et tout.)

I Care A Lot (Netflix, 2020)

In addition to the kayfabe culture, "turns" were what made pre-Vince professional 'rasslin' great. Face turns -- when villains became the good guys -- were fun, but it was heel turns that were the most exciting. 

When your favorite good guy went bad it hurt, man. It hurt deep into your soul.  

Smart marks could often see a turn coming;. Weeks before, the blonde-haired good guy started showing dark roots, or the villain who always cheated to win gets over by pinning his opponent in the middle of the ring. Most -- but not all -- turns were predictable: fans were never surprised to see Ric Flair turn, but we were shocked when Hulk Hogan joined nWo.

I Care A Lot seemed to have more heel turns in two hours than World Championship Wrestling had throughout the '80s. The turns were fun to watch, and I didn't see any of them coming. 

Project Power

Like many, I spent a large chunk of my childhood fantasizing about having a super-power, and what I'd do with that power once I'd mastered it. 

Flight? Flying would be a neat sensation -- the first few times, anyway -- and get me across town faster. But as my lone superpower? Meh. 

Super speed? I couldn't afford the grocery bill necessary for maintaining the metabolism required for that lifestyle. 

Invisibility? Fantasizing about that super-power always reminds me of a Porky's movie. 

Super-Intelligence? Comic book characters with super-IQs always dress in nerdy costumes (see Mr. Terrific's "fair play" costume branding).

Super-Elasticity? See Invisibility. 

Project Power, the Netflix original starring Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dominique Fishback, shows us what our world might be like if a drug existed that would give you super-powers for five minutes. 

5 minutes. 

Project Power pretends to be a sci-fi flick about super-heroes, and there is some of that in the plot about a pill that gives enhanced animal-based powers to users. But really, the movie is a standard about a man fighting against overwhelming odds to find his kidnapped daughter. The plot is predictable, the script melodramatic, and the whole thing underachieves. The story builds to a dramatic super-powered fight where a character's power is revealed to be that of a  . . .  wait for it . . . pistol shrimp.

I prefer the power of invisibility.