Blue Ruin Is Astonishingly Absorbing

At the start of the 2010s, crowdfunding through websites like Kickstarter really broke through as a way to get films financed without relying on the money of corporations that could creatively stifle the production. The ideal use of this financing source would be to get off-kilter original indie movies like Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin made, though the biggest of the films benefiting from crowdsourcing were extensions of already-existing franchises like Veronica Mars: The Movie and Super Troopers 2. As the decade comes to a close, it feels like the bloom is off the crowdsourcing rose thanks to a whole bunch of controversial Kickstarter campaigns that have diluted the reputation of the idea of crowdsourcing a movie. At least we'll always have Blue Ruin!

Like Anchorman 2 And Zoolander 2 Before It, Super Troopers 2 Is An Unfunny Retread of A Superior Comedy

Toss Super Troopers 2 onto the tragically large pile of long-in-the-works comedy sequels that failed to bring the laughs, following in the footsteps of Anchorman 2, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Zoolander 2. An extended length of time between installments didn't help that trio of comedy sequels and it certainly hasn't helped the lackluster Super Troopers 2. The majority of the film consists of either references to its predecessor's most memorable gags or just a handful of new unfunny jokes constantly being rehashed. Oh, and lots of screaming, there's an incessant amount of shouting in this movie that ended up making me feel like an old man asking his next-door neighbors to turn their dadgum loud music down.