My Life Is Murder (2019) s02e04 – Look Don’t Touch

It may just be the museum setting or Lucy Lawless making fun of a woman with a dog in a stroller at the beginning of the episode, but I’m really on board with this season of “My Life is Murder.” The actual big difference—besides giving Lawless some backstory to drive her character and the move to New Zealand—is turning Lawless and sidekick Ebony Vagulans into roomies. They can’t avoid one another (more precisely, Lawless can’t avoid Vagulans), and so there’s a lot more banter.

Including Lawless dropping backstory bombs. She had to pick mom over dad and Australia over New Zealand—Vagulans doesn’t seem surprised to hear Lawless has a brother, even though it was new information for the audience last episode, so maybe she already knew. There’s a nice bit of implied gravitas to the relationship, though Lawless is still a jerk whenever Vagulans talks about her own family. Or to hottie restauranteur Joe Naufahu about almost everything. Though whenever Lawless and copper Rawiri Jobe meet up—including a chemistry-filled stakeout sequence—she’s nicely softer.

There’s no question of whether or not the case is foul play this episode—museum curator Josh McKenzie ends up dead in a river with blunt force trauma to the head—Jobe just can’t figure out motive or opportunity. Lawless and Vagulans head to the museum, where Lawless spent lots of time as a tween and has lots of memories, and start interrogating the staff. There’s working partner and ex-girlfriend Manon Blackman, helpful and flirtatious security guard Matariki Whatarau, and then head curator (or something akin to it) Anna Hutchison.

The mystery solution is relatively obvious (does Jobe even do his job) once all the facts come to light, but Lawless has to find them all. There are some missing security tapes, a mysterious symbol, and a lover’s quarrel or three.

Once again, the show leverages Lawless’s widow backstory to help her bond with Blackman, which becomes a slight character development arc for both of them. Blackman’s not in the episode very much—she’s the obvious prime suspect, and she bungles a North by Northwest alibi—so instead, flirty Whatarau and grieving mentor Hutchison get the most material. Both of them are good; this episode’s acting, down to bit player Wesley Dowdell, is quite good.

Plus the museum. Director Mike Smith really captures the grandeur of the open interiors while Lawless does an excellent job of being nostalgically touched.

It’s early, but I’m already hoping “My Life is Murder” gets another season. Especially if they stay in New Zealand.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011, Drew Goddard)

I didn’t have much hope for Cabin in the Woods; though, I mean, director and co-writer Drew Goddard… he’s gone on to stuff. Good stuff. Right?

But if I’d known it was written in three days—it shows—and cost $30 million—it actually looks pretty darn good for $30 million, saving the money shots until the final third or so. And I guess it’s well-paced? Like, it’s terribly long and exasperating as the film threats the various unlikable cast members but then once it gets into the “final girl” sequence, it’s a lot better. I foolishly even had the wrong final girl picked; I thought Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon were going to do something interesting with genre. Or maybe I just assumed they were going to try to do something interesting. Maybe feign something interesting.

I didn’t expect them to mix together a few standard sci-fi tropes, the Evil Dead, a not-Ace Ventura Jim Carrey vehicle, a pseudo-gory Texas Chainsaw knock-off, Whedon and Goddard’s celebrity “Lost” fanfic, maybe two other things I recognized and forgot, plus all the horror in-jokes and references I didn’t get. I got the Hellraiser one, of course, because that one was peculiarly… not desperate but maybe wishful. Like for a moment it became a different movie. Though I was confused the whole time because I thought it was supposed to be the merman not the Hellraiser guy. Cabin is often very talky and very fast and it’s not clear during the first half they’re ever going to painfully detail the big secret with a special genre guest star (if you’re willing to stretch genre). It’s a solid guest star “get,” but it would’ve been better with just a voice over and maybe just been Jamie Lee Curtis.

Even getting past the bad writing—because it’s not just a string of tropes fit into very specific, very literal boxes, it’s still terribly written—the acting is all atrocious as well. Cabin creates a role just for Bradley Whitford—paired with Richard Jenkins like they’re Lemmon and Matthau or something—and it’s bad. Like, the part’s bad and Whitford’s obnoxious. Jenkins is better, but definitely not good. He too is obnoxious, with a more explicit misogyny thing thrown in for good measure.

But the leads—Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, Chris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Fran Kranz—they’re bad. Hutchison, Hemsworth, and Kranz are really, really, really bad.

It’s bad writing on the characters and all, but the acting’s still bad. If Connolly and Williams were really good, there might be some relief but they’re not. They’re just not as bad as the rest of them. They don’t get actively worse. When it seems like Connolly might be getting better but then doesn’t, it’s not a negative. It maintains. Hemsworth, Kranz, and Hutchison get worse throughout.

Good photography from Peter Deming, okay editing from Lisa Lassek (Lassek’s cuts are fine, the content’s just bad), strangely unmemorable score by David Julyan. I remember a lot of emphasis music but not any of the specifics about it, which is probably for the best.

Goddard’s direction is confused for the first half, when he’s homaging left and right, but it’s at least a low competent for the second half, as the film movies into a new realm.

The second realm is… technically more interesting than the first and the film definitely doesn’t get as bad as it sometimes threatens. But there’s only so good it’s ever going to get given the leads. And the writing.

Maybe it would’ve been better as a TV show? They could’ve called it “Lost in the Woods” or something.