Sleepless

For most of “Sleepless” (2017), I was on the edge of my seat. Partially because of the tense action surrounding crooked cops and a Vegas drug deal gone bad. Mostly because I couldn’t hear the clenched-jaw mumblings of Jamie Foxx and his cast of mush-mouthed costars. It wasn’t me. I’m old, but I don’t listen to Fox News all day with the sound turned up to 11. This was the worst dialogue sound of any movie I’ve seen recently. There are also way too many plot elements straight out of “How to Write a Modern Hollywood Action Script, Vol. I.”

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Bad Girls

Whores on horses. Westerns changed a lot after John Wayne died. “Bad Girls” is a 1994 revenge/caper/western with brief glimpses of Drew Barrymore’s boobies. Madeleine Stowe plays a butt-kicking madam with a dark past who shares undertones of homoerotic chemistry with Mary Stuart Masterson (Where is the Skinemax remake when you need it?). Andie MacDowell plays herself. James Russo channels Tom Sizemore playing a psychopathic bandito (which would be a great name for a rock band). Robert Loggia gets whacked (Doesn’t he always?). There are big guns (besides Barrymore). And no, Dermot Mulroney is not the dude from “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Jobs

I’ve always felt Apple products were a triumph of style over substance. They sell a perception that makes you feel cool but their products don’t perform any better than their cheaper competitors. In a twisted way, it’s a quintessentially American success story. That fascinating story is told well in “Jobs” (2013), but it left me with the same empty feeling I get when I see people camping out for an iPhone. A guy with a warped mind rises, falls, lies, is lied to, but, ultimately, wins. Because, for all his talk, winning is all that really matters. How unironically American.