Producer Liz Metzger recommended the movie Maddie’s Secret when it hit theaters earlier this year, but now that it’s available on VOD, I’m here to double down on her rec. Writer/director John Early is a sweet-natured LA foodie whose dream of becoming a culinary celebrity comes true, even as it triggers a relapse of her childhood bulimia. Now: You’re thinking, from that description, that you know what you’re gonna get here, right? I mean, Early’s a comedian who specializes in ruthlessly satirizing the vacuous and self-involved, and he’s zeroing in on the melodramatic excess of the cheesiest TV movies. But you won’t find broad camp or withering irony here — Maddie’s situation is played absolutely straight, and her mental health is never milked for laughs. Yet the film itself is very funny, because Early’s ear for intonation — the precise, affected manner in which characters deliver dialogue in “issue” movies — is hilariously acute. — Glen Weldon
You’ll have to seek out the documentary Black Zombie, which starts rolling out in select theaters this weekend, but it’s worth the effort. Filmmaker Maya Annik Bedward examines the zombie as pop culture phenomenon from a fresh and intriguing perspective — as the story of America: Both ideas have their roots in the exploitation of Black men and women (the zombie began in colonized Haiti, as a personification of toil and servitude). And that idea swiftly got co-opted by Hollywood to symbolize two of our country’s ugliest aspects: 1. voracious consumerism and 2. the conviction that hordes of faceless, mindless invaders threaten polite (read: white) society. Bedward tracks the evolution of these notions with plenty of footage of zombies in pop culture, but also takes the time to respect the beauty and dignity of Haitian spiritual and religious practices. It’s a thoughtful, clear-eyed cultural history that’ll give you plenty to chew over. Um. As it were. – Glen Weldon
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