Venturing to the movies

As the pandemic has been finally and thankfully waning, I've started to venture back to the movies as theaters have been creakily reopening. Most of the movies out there seem to be things that are already showing on HBO Max, though, but I still managed to find a couple theater-only exclusives that caught my eye.

Back in April I caught The Unholy, a creepy PG-13 possession thriller that I found to be a little better than simply watchable. The clever gimmick here is that the possessing spirit disguises itself as the Virgin Mary and initially inspires people with healings and other miracles. Why? The answers are creative enough to keep you watching.

Even better is the film I caught this Memorial Day weekend: Here Today, starring Billy Crystal (who also directed) and Tiffany Haddish. He plays Charlie, a veteran comedy writer who still has a cool job writing for TV well into his senior citizen-ship and she's Emma, a singer whose modest career in New York has been taking off lately.  The film is about their unlikely friendship and how Emma ultimately helps Charlie through some personal and health issues. 

Don't worry, Here Today is not too heavy, is often very funny, and as a bonus includes many interesting scenes showing how television sketch comedy is created (Charlie works for a show not unlike Saturday Night Live).

Both The Unholy and Here Today aren't huge hits, but both are still in many theaters due to the fact that new films are still slow to appear.  This will probably change as we hit June and July and fresh material arrives more regularly.  But for now these two movies are worth your time if you run across them.