MOVIES THAT SUCK. “Desire.” / “Swimming Home.” / “Invasión.” / “Everyone's Going to Die.” / “Don't Tell Larry.” / “Black Lotus.” / “Windfall.” / “Save Yourselves!” / “Valley of Bones”

“Desire” (2026, Netflix) Mexican drama. in July 2026. A lawyer has an affair with her daughter's swim coach, threatening her marriage. 

       The only lure of this stereotypical drama are the steamy scenes, which aren't so erotic to me, anyway. An unconvincing plot and characters that are difficult to like. And a finale twist that is uhh far-fetched and lame. Too bad the talent of Jose Maria Yazpik is relegated into a sorry supporting cliche. 🎥💻📽

“Swimming Home” (2024, Fawesome) black comedy-drama. The film revolves around Joe and Isabel, whose marriage is dying when Kitti, a naked stranger, is found floating in the pool at their holiday villa. 

       First-time director Justin Anderson may have gained some admirers in the arthouse joint with this attempt at avant-gardish cinema. Besides the involved performance of Christopher Abbott as the moody writer Joe (writers are moody, right) this movie's dark/surreal ministrations didn't work for me. 

       The first sequence is frontal nudity by an uninteresting Kitti (a not-so-interesting Ariane Labed). Then there's more frontal, males this time. And those esoteric theater scenes. I suspect Mr Anderson was pursuing sexual tension of some sort here? Yet all those are so unsettling or un-erotic to me.

       Meanwhile, Mackenzie Davis’ Isabel is supposedly haunted by inner pain as an ex-soldier but I didn't feel it at all. I also don't get the sense of the presence of another woman (family friend) in the entire exercise. 🎥💻📽

“Invasión” (2024, Amazon Prime) Dutch action/thriller. When neighboring country Veragua suddenly attacks Curaçao and Aruba, the Dutch government is taken completely by surprise. The conflict escalates rapidly. Three young Dutch Corps recruits must figure out what is the right thing to do.

       In reality, Veragua is not a country. It could refer to Veraguas Province in Panama or the Veragua Rainforest in Costa Rica. This movie didn't clarify though. The Veraguans simply attacked with guns blazing.

       Why did these dudes attack? What's going on? Sure, I get the little sequences about the trainee soldiers and the siblings drama, and all that. But I was totally lost that I didn't even notice that the movie had already ended. I must have slept? 🎥💻📽

“Everyone's Going to Die” (2024, Amazon Prime) British psychological thriller. An entrepreneur is attempting to reconnect with his daughter on her birthday. The party is interrupted and they are taken hostage by two masked female robbers.

       Obvious. This movie attempts to shudder in us a #MeToo or anti-patriarchy lecture. I have no problem with that at all. But this indie is a silly, clumsy way of message delivery. A stereotypical home invasion sequence starts it all, and then here we go with the sermons. Plus the fact that the subversion bit is implausibly ridiculous. 

       But quite a morbidly catchy title, isn’t it? 🎥💻📽

“Don't Tell Larry” (2023, Amazon Prime) dark comedy. Susan, an ambitious corporate worker, lies to her eccentric, truth-obsessed new coworker to exclude him from the CEO's retirement party. This small lie triggers a fatal chain of events involving a mysterious workplace death, forcing Susan and her cubicle-mate into a chaotic cover-up. 

       Are some critics just shallow? Easy to please? They say: “A blast of fresh-air comedy.” “Loaded with laughs, gasps, and cringes.” “A delightfully demented black comedy.” “A perfect comedy when all is said and done.”

       As for me, I'm on the contrary. Enough said. 🎥💻📽

“Black Lotus” (2023, Paramount+) action-thriller. About an ex-special forces operative fighting through Amsterdam to save a friend's daughter. 

       The lead actor is kickboxer Rico Verhoeven, who couldn’t act at all. He's a mumbling oak tree. The presence of Frank Grillo as a villain was the only semblance of performance in this awfully predictable jam.

       "Black Lotus" supposedly refers to BlackLotus Malware. Per Google, it is a sophisticated UEFI bootloader security threat detailed by cybersecurity researchers in early 2023. Or black lotus is also an underworld metaphor for a magical flower. I don’t know. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, what the hell was black lotus. 🎥💻📽

“Windfall” (2022, Netflix) crime thriller. A burglar, a wealthy tech CEO, and the CEO's wife during a high-stakes standoff at a remote vacation home. Stars Jason Segel, Lily Collins, and Jesse Plemons. 

       The awesome cast is enough reason to “waste” 1 hour and 30+ minutes of this implausible movie. And Mr Plemons has been scoring performance wins lately. Yet this pseudo thriller is woefully bereft of creativity or imagination. Everything in this exercise, directed by Charlie McDowell and scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker and Justin Lader (of them?!?) is incredibly unbelievable yet it is not even a supernatural flick or Marvel superheroes fare.

       The message, by the way, is corny and exhausting as how it is tackled. 🎥💻📽

“Save Yourselves!” (2020, Pluto TV) science fiction comedy. A Brooklyn couple unplug from technology at an isolated cabin and completely miss an alien invasion unfolding on Earth. 

       Cinema criticism has indeed changed through the years. I really don't know if movie reviewers these days “critique” or they simply type up superlatives and then get paid by film producers. You know what I mean? 

       Aside from an “end of days” premise that now irritates me, the two actors here–John Paul Reynolds (think “Search Party”) and Sunita Mani–are such unexciting performers that I am perplexed that I got to the end credits of this one-trick joke.

       Yet based on Rotten Tomatoes, critics  say this movie is “generally favorable.” Whatever. 🎥💻📽

“Valley of Bones” (2017, Fawesome) adventure/crime thriller. A disgraced paleontologist struggling to raise her son is tipped off to a groundbreaking dig site in the Badlands. 

       Beyond the robust Western vibe and Michael Alden Lloyd's deft desert cinematography, this movie's attempt at neo-noir thrill gets lost in a weird paleontology backdrop of a Mexican drug cartel joint. 🎥💻📽