What I'm Watching: Killers of The Flower Moon, The Jewel Thief, Tales From The Crypt, and More
On five horror comics, two movies, two shows, a book, and a podcast appearance.
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon, Apple TV/Paramount
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With that squared away, here’s a rundown of everything I watched, read, and wrote about this week:
The shows:
I’m once again trapped in a weird embargo limbo with a few upcoming shows that I can’t talk about yet, but you know what I can talk about? Tales From The Crypt. After catching a few stray episodes before, I sped through the short first season of the ‘80s-’90s horror anthology this week and had a blast with it. My favorite episode so far might be the first one, a darkly ironic story about capital punishment directed by Walter Hill. Season 1 has an unusually high hit rate, though, with tales by Mary Lambert, Tom Holland, and even Robert Zemeckis. Unfortunately the show isn’t on streaming, but it’s worth seeking it out on home media if you like creative, often morbidly funny horror.
The movies:
I came out of moviegoing hibernation this week to see Martin Scorsese’s latest, Killers of the Flower Moon, and I really admired it. I’m not sure if it was the source material or the cast (Lily Gladstone! Jesse Plemons! Tantoo Cardinal!) that first drew me to this movie, but I’ve been itching to see it since the second it was announced, and it was worth the wait. I do think the third act could’ve tightened up a bit, but Flower Moon’s deliberate pace is also essential for its stomach-churning exploration of the slow creep of moral rot, greed, and white supremacy. Personally, I think it’s the film’s coda – a short but deeply meaningful scene that knocked the wind out of me – that makes it a masterpiece. If you’ve already seen the movie, I also recommend checking out the crowdfunding page for Long Knife, a documentary that hopes to shine light on what’s happened with the oil on Osage land in the decades since the events of Flower Moon.
The recent true crime documentary The Jewel Thief, which is on Hulu, is a totally wacky story told in a pretty standard talking head doc way — albeit with the titular thief as one of the talking heads. The less I spoil about this twist-filled saga the better, but in short, it’s about a very smart and reckless dude who seemed physically incapable of stopping himself from planning heists. Funny, wild, and not too serious.
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