So since The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t dark enough (honestly give us something, show writers), I also started watching Mare of Easttown (HBO Max) and over the weekend watched The Woman in the Window (fine, gritty anti-heroines are my thing, I guess). Mare is so far reminding me a lot of Broadchurch, another not-very-uplifting but great show, and Kate Winslet is going all-in on the accent and the look.

But wow what a disappointment The Woman in the Window was. It has an all-star cast (Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Mackie) and a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts, based on AJ Finn’s 2018 novel (which BY THE WAY, read the bonkers backstory about that guy). It follows the mostly successful (but sort of irritating) trend of movies based on books about unreliable female narrators who get caught up in criminal activity (Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train). It even has the bones of the Hitchcock classic Rear Window.

Maybe it’s just one of those books that doesn’t translate well to the screen, or maybe the reshoots undid too much, but the movie felt like it just couldn’t figure out what it wanted to be; a thriller, a mystery, a story about devastating loss, or something else. And why underuse that great supporting cast?! Unfortunately, I think it was too predictable, and not helped by weird pacing and a twist at the end that was more annoying than surprising.

On to this week’s trailers:

The Green Knight

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, one of the Knights of the Round Table from King Arthur lore. The film is based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight but the movie version looks a bit more sinister than I remember. What we see in the trailer hews pretty faithfully to the Middle English poem: The Green Knight challenges Gawain to strike him, provided Gawain will let the Green Knight strike him back in a year and a day. Gawain beheads the Green Knight, who picks up his head and saunters away. See you in a year, buddy! The Green Knight is in theaters July 30th.

Wish Dragon

I needed something a little cute and funny because this week’s lineup seems kinda gruesome otherwise. The Wish Dragon is an Aladdin-like tale of a magical being who can grant three wishes, but instead of being bound in a lamp, he’s trapped in a teapot. He’s freed by a young man named Din, who’s searching for his childhood friend Lina. John Cho, Constance Wu, and Jimmy Wong star in The Wish Dragon, which was released in theaters in China earlier this year, and will debut on Netflix June 11th.

Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage

Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock and he seems to have come to an understanding of sorts with the Venom symbiote, who cooks him an absolutely disgusting-looking breakfast and has to be reminded not to eat people. This is another of the many films whose release was delayed by the pandemic. Venom 2 is slated to be in theaters September 24th.

The Forever Purge

At some point doesn’t the purge run out of people to purge if it is “forever”? It’s quite convenient that most of the baddies wear scary masks so you can easily identify them, I guess? This is the fifth Purge film, and may be the final one (in which case the “forever” makes more sense). It picks up after The Purge: Election Year and stars Ana de la Reguera, Josh Lucas, Tenoch Huerta, Leven Rambin, Will Patton, and Cassidy Freeman. The Forever Purge will be in theaters July 2nd