"Cracked Window"? Steven Soderbergh delivers only a semi-interesting flick in “Kimi,” which promises early on to be a pandemic take on “Rear Window”—then takes some cheap, easy shortcuts. Streaming on HBO Max, “Kimi” is much smaller than Soderbergh flicks like the “Ocean’s” series; tighter in scope, perhaps this is something of a return to his early years (career-making “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” hilarious literary mashup “Kafka,” mad societal satire “Schizopolis”).
If so, it’s a half-baked, cracked one, as “Kimi” lacks the creative energy with which Soderbergh burst on the scene. Much like its titular character, an Alexa/Siri knockoff, the movie feels derivative, failing to bring a fresh dish to the thriller party.
Zoë Kravitz (daughter of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz) gives a consistently quirky performance as a Seattle tech worker with issues who stumbles onto a recording of a possible crime.
She might be pixie-sized, but she can handle a nail gun.
On the potential-binge front, two new shows flash potential: “Inventing Anna” and “Pam & Tommy.”
In the Netflix show, Julia Garner, looking way glammier than in “Ozark,” plays Anna, a high-rolling society girl who may be fabulously wealthy…or just a fabulous scammer. Anna Chlumsky is the journalist coming off a humiliating failure trying to figure it all out and recover her career.
Garner is weird and audacious, but the producers stretch things ultra-thin to make nine episodes. Great and intriguing start….I tapped out after two episodes.
Ditto “Pam & Tommy.” I went into this Hulu show with zero expectations, expecting a quick click-out.
Surprise: the first episode is quite good.
A svelte Seth Rogen gives a great performance as a carpenter assigned the dubious job of redesigning a room for the ultimate party boy, rocker Tommy Lee, and new bride Pamela Anderson—the celebrity-shock couple of the Nineties.
For me, the romance between the Motley Crue drummer (played by Sebastian Stan) and “Baywatch” actress (Lily James) was boring and cheesy; so I didn’t stick around long enough to see how Rogen’s character helps hustle the infamous Lee-Anderson sex tape…
