#2,125: Focus

Citizenfour - ★★★★☆
Very interesting to get to see a record of a moment like this as it happens, not 50 years after the death of everyone involved, on a participant's deathbed, or reconstructed from leftover, fading printouts.

Safe - ★★☆☆☆
It's really interesting how not interesting this movie is. Over and over, I'd cotton to the idea of what the movie was going to be about, settle myself in for a story about X, and then this isn't a movie about X. Or almost anything else. I don't feel like I need to know whether her problems are psychosomatic or real, but I guess I want the movie to have an opinion. About anything.

The Fast and the Furious - ★★★☆☆
I guess I never bothered with this movie before because I thought it was going to be dumb. And, it was dumb. But that's okay.

Focus- ★★½☆☆
Luckily, this is better than the trailer. I wonder if now would be a good time to mention that I've been using MoviePass this year. It's a flat fee for almost-unlimited movie tickets. So if you've been reading along and worrying about me as I report back on some of the worst of what 2015 has had to offer so far, then a) fear not, but b) I am somewhat concerned that the Wednesday night ticket taker at my local cinema just thinks that we're a couple of idiots, seeing all these sub-par movies.

Anyhow, Focus plays out pretty much just like you might expect it to, if you're paying any attention at all, or you've seen a con man flick before. It's a little bit of a drag that the most fun scam in the movie is based in complete nonsense, and a little bit more of a drag that it takes place so early in the movie. I thought it was odd that the filmmakers opted to force a needless R-rating. I wonder if it was a kind of excuse insurance against low box office.

If I knew anyone else who had seen this, maybe I'd like discussing with them how many acts they think this movie has.