UNSANE

Sometimes a skilled director can elevate material that would otherwise be routine.  This is not the case with Unsane, a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh that aims for psychological drama but is pretty superficial.

Sawyer (Claire Foy) is a young, independent woman with a good job in the city.  When she freaks out during a date, she looks up victims of stalking online and takes a trip to a mental institution.  She fills out some "standard" forms, talks to a therapist -- and finds herself involuntarily committed there for seven days.

Sawyer wants to get out as soon as possible, but her tendency to get in fights (sometimes physically) with the other patients and the staff makes this unlikely.  She befriends patient Nate (Jay Pharoah), who advises her to keep her head down and let the seven days pass quickly; he also has an illegal cell phone, which Sawyer uses to keep in tough with the outside world.

Sawyer really freaks out when she sees employee David Strine (Joshua Leonard), who Sawyer is convinced is her stalker, a man who traveled several states to follow her and kept harassing her at her work and home.  No one believes her, though, and she has no evidence that David is anything other than another worker at the mental institution.  Is Sawyer insane?  Is David playing a long and deadly game?  Does it matter that Unsane was shot entirely with an iPhone?  (The answer to the last question is no.)

Unsane is a disappointment.  While protagonists don't have to be perfect, Claire Foy doesn't give us much to make us root for Sawyer, even when everything seems to be stacked against her.  (Nate says she's in her situation because healthcare tricks patients into being committed for as long as their insurance will pay for it.)  The is-she-or-isn't-she-insane isn't that interesting, and it eventually degenerates into grindhouse-level luridness.  And Soderbergh can't do anything to improve any of this.  Unsane is a big disappointment.

Overall grade: D
Reviewed by James Lynch

LOVE, SIMON

High school has seen plenty of improvements and still has its share of angst and navigation.  Love, Simon is a movie that explores this world through the eyes of someone's big secret.

Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) is a high school senior with a very typical life.  He has a good family with with his therapist mom (Jennifer Gardner), always-joking dad (John Duhamel), and little sister (Talitha Bateman) who's always experimenting with cooking.  Simon has a nice social life at school, hanging out with his friends Leah (Katherine Langford), Abby (Alexandra Shipp), and Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.).  Simon is part of the school play, gets invited to parties, and seems well liked.

And Simon is gay -- something he doesn't tell anyone, friends or family.  When Simon reads an online confession by a closeted gay teen calling himself "Blue," Simon starts corresponding with him, using the pseudonym "Jacques."  Soon Simon is obsessed with getting messages from Blue, as they chat about what it's like being gay but not letting anyone know.

Pretty soon Simon is looking around his high school, imagining that something Blue mentioned might indicate means a classmate is Blue.  Unfortunately, annoying theater nerd Martin (Logan Miller) comes across Simon's correspondence with Blue and threatens to post them to the school unless Simon helps Martin get with Abby.  This puts Simon in a rough spot, since Nick is interested in Abby.

Love, Simon is a mix of drama and comedy, and it's a nice movie.  The movie takes a pretty even-handed approach to Simon's several dilemmas (though the ending may go a little over the top with the high school's acceptance) and it's a fairly realistic look at the teenage dramas that are part of high school.  Nick Robinson is quite good as the regular guy with his one big secret, and the rest of the cast is solid.  (Kudos to Tony Hale as the vice-principal trying way to hard to be cool and fit in with his students.)  Love, Simon is a sweet, good movie.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

DRAGON FARKLE

What happens when a popular push-your-luck dice game adds in player-to-player combat -- and a dragon?  You get Dragon Farkle, a game from Z-Man Games for 2-5 players where players work the dice and combat each other to raise an army and attack a dragon.

Players use their six six-sided dice, plus an Event Die, to raise an army or combat each other.  Players also get a Companion card (which affects the turns) and a Magic Item (which helps the player, but is discarded after use; players can also only have one Magic Item at a time).

To recruit soldiers, a player rolls their dice and Event Die.  If a player's dice combination earns them soldiers, those soldiers are placed over the player's mat and the dice used are set aside.  If a player didn't get any soldiers, they Farkle, losing any soldiers and Magic Items earned that turn and ending their turn.  If the Event Die came up blank, nothing happens.  If the Event Die shows a Dragon, it eats any soldiers earned that turn; if a player didn't get any soldiers, the Dragon lets them ignore the Farkle and either continue or end their turn.  And if a Rally side (represented by axes) shows up, a player can either double the number of soldiers they'd get on that roll, or get a Magic Item.

 If a player earned soldiers, they choose to either end their turn or continue.  Ending the turn means all the Soldiers and Magic Items earned move onto the player's mat.  If a player continues, they roll any remaining dice, possibly earning more soldiers -- or losing all the soldiers they earned that turn if they Farkle.

Attacking another player is very similar to recruiting soldiers.  The attacking player rolls the six dice and Event Die, earning soldiers (unless they Farkle).  The defending player rolls five dice and the Event Die, earning soldiers.  After both sides roll, the side with more soldiers steals soldiers from the losing side equal to the difference in the soldiers earned that turn; the winning side also gets 500 soldiers from the stockpile.

When a player has 5000 or more soldiers, they can try to win the game by attacking the dragon.  The dragon takes three damage to kill.  A player rolls the six dice and the Event Die.  A Dragon on the Event Die does one damage to the dragon, a Rally does two damage to the dragon, and the blank side does no damage.  However, the results of the scoring dice are subtracted from the player's soldiers.  If the player Farkles, or runs out of soldiers, their turn ends, the player loses their Companion card and gets a new one, and the dragon heals all damage.  A player who hasn't lost all their soldiers can choose to stay and attack the dragon again on their next turn, or they can recruit soldiers or fight other players.  The first player to defeat the dragon wins!

Dragon Farkle is enjoyable, if not radically different from its source game.  The sword and sorcery aspect of the game works well, and the push-your-luck element remains intact, whether recruiting soldiers, fighting other players, or trying to slay the dragon.  This is a nice game, moreso for people who like both Farkle and Dungeons & Dragons.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch