Passages 

A young girl named Hailey Mays sings a country song that is named after the film's title.

I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before. 

I was able to sit down and talk with up and coming producer and director Ryan Polomski who talked about his latest project Raymond Lewis: LA Legend.  It's a documentary about basketball star Raymond Lewis and here is what I found out.

Welcome to Ryan Reynold's world. Dwyane Johnson, Gal Gadot and us are just living in it. Is he acting? I think he is, it's just the question of it's believable anymore.

The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.

As a frequent “the book was better” extoller, this movie was well worth the watch.