Legos & Order: BFTW 5/30/25

In my experience, there were two popular reactions to the trailer for Piece By Piece, last year’s Pharrell Williams biodoc/Lego movie. The most common was, “who the hell is this movie for?” A small minority, myself included, gasped “my kid is going to love this.” Finally, they’d made a pop star hagiography for the littlest music nerds. Kids who would hypothetically imagine their own Legos dropping beats and being interviewed about their creative genius. Kids who’d want to see a Lego Snoop Dogg hear the “Drop It Like It’s Hot” backing track for the first time. Kids like mine.

The best compliment I can give Piece By Piece is that it actually succeeds as both hagiography and Lego movie. I can’t imagine an adult Merry Melodies or basketball fan being particularly satisfied by a Space Jam movie, but Piece By Piece comparatively delivers on both aspects of its peculiar synthesis. Millennials eager to reflect on the Neptunes’ glory days get charming interviews with Pusha T and N.O.R.E., while the Lego-mad see a toy Chad Hugo and Pharrell float through a whimsical brick kaleidoscope.

Non-visual cliche isn’t transcended in the slightest. There’s constant discussion of chasing dreams, and zero references to the Korg Triton keyboard. But if you’re going to watch a movie where Pharrell gets emotional about his career drift between “Frontin’” and “Get Lucky,” better to see montages of elaborate, aquatic animation than a shot of Pharrell crying irl. If your little music-nerd is a little mini-me, the film will remind you to play them that one Clipse or Kelis single you can’t believe you forgot about. I need to check if there’s a clean edit of “When The Last Time”… FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Further evidence I may be the lamest Criterion Channel subscriber that doesn’t ignore it entirely: all I’ve seen of late is Christopher Nolan’s 2002 remake of Insomnia. It’s probably not the best movie where Al Pacino plays a detective so loony you can’t tell if Pacino’s lost it or the character’s lost it or both. That could be Heat. It’s probably not the best movie where Robin Williams plays a creepy serial killer. That could be One Hour Photo. It’s not the best movie named Insomnia about a loony detective chasing a creepy serial killer in the frozen, nightless north. That’s definitely the original Norwegian film, starring Stellan Skarsgard. But Al Pacino almost drowns under a bunch of logs in the remake, and if Skarsgard had a similar scene, it wasn’t as memorable. This was Nolan’s first film after Memento, and I’d like to think it’s where he discovered he loved filming snowy vistas. FOUR BAGS OF POPCORN.

Desperate for more TV horror anthologies, I finally swallowed my pride and indulged in some Ryan Murphy. While I’d seen the first two seasons of American Horror Story, it was clear Murphy, Brad Falchuk and company were far more interested in horror as another outlet for their blithe, topical, all-star camp than as…well, horror. But listicle investigation suggested American Horror Story: Roanoke was atypically focused on jump scares and gore, and I’m happy to say that’s true. Audiences experiencing it on a weekly basis were frustrated by the format: the first half of the season is faux-docudrama about a haunted house, the second half a found footage thriller about the filming of the doc’s sequel, featuring both the actors playing the victims and the actors playing the actors playing the victims. But I found the hall of mirrors legitimately amusing, particularly Kathy Bates as a long-suffering ham who refuses to give up her belated star turn. For once, the campy, knowing hijinks don’t come at the expense of crude thrills. There was one dull sequence late in the game I correctly guessed was a Sarah Paulson-verse easter egg, but it was the exception to the rule.

I also watched the solitary season of Grotesquerie, where Niecy Nash-Betts is a damn good murder detective (according to herself and her supervisor) playing cat-and-mouse with a cliche gothic serial killer whose ornate tableaus are somehow connected to the detective’s past. It’s unclear whether Grotesquerie will ever have a second season, and I’m ok with that. Not because the Murphy/Falchuk show satisfactorily resolves at the end of season one, but because it’s unlikely Grotesquerie could satisfactorily resolve. At the risk of spoiling, it’s almost as if Murphy/Falchuk wanted to make their own Mulholland Dr., with layers upon layers upon layers of narrative, until the theme is simply “layers of narrative.” Everyone sweaty, proud and resentful, the dream-logic drama had me curious enough to make it through, Taylor Swift’s boyfriend somehow less surreal than how thrilled Lesley Manville came off to be on a Ryan Murphy show. Dressed like she beamed down from Planet Sirk, groaning with unapologetic lust or hissing in fear, I’d honestly believe she crawled in Murphy’s window at night, begging to be part of his troupe. Watching a Mike Leigh regular in a catty love triangle with a Reno 911 regular? Worth it. The one-off American Horror Stories episodes written by Manny Coto are also good for an easy, Hulu-available thrill.

Still hungry for anthology, but not willing to see anything starring Lady Gaga or Emma Roberts, I checked if detective procedurals would scratch the itch. Poker Face is an artful spin on the Columbo thing, but you don’t need me to tell you about that. I’ve also been enjoying Criminal Minds: Evolution and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but discussing them feels like describing my adventures in pizza purchase: I’m not looking for the best out there, just the right mix of cheap, filling and nearby. Both are shows I found repulsively exploitive in the past, but I’ve accepted the occasional torture trope and grotesque banality to enjoy the camaraderie of the detectives and modicum of mystery.

Criminal Minds: Evolution, for me, is about two wry Amazon goddesses (Paget Brewster & Aisha Tyler), their goofy widower mentor (Joe Mantegna) and some other pals trying to keep their hi-tech, hug-prone Mystery Mobile afloat despite the government not realizing just how many sickos are out there licking knives and shit. Zach Gilford, from Friday Night Lights and several Mike Flanagan shows, plays a young dad/second-generation serial killer that began leaving starter kits for other murderous creeps during lockdown. It’s absurd and obscene, with little to redeem it, but everyone’s just trying to deal with these modern times the best they can.

The overwhelming majority of Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes are also absurd and obscene, but with big, fragile Det. Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) and tiny, assertive Det. Eames (Kathryn Erbe) enjoying a glorious platonic work marriage built on mutual trust, acceptance and faith. If you’re a big, needy weirdo, or love to be appreciated by a big, needy weirdo, the adventures of Goren & Eames are sweet fantasy. I won’t watch the episodes in seasons 5-7 involving apparent sex creep Chris Noth as the prodigal Mike Logan from Law & Order, even though I really want to see Alicia Witt’s brief run as his partner (Noth is why I’m denying myself a revisit of Michael Moriarty’s epic L&O tenure, too…I just can’t look at Mr. Big Rapist). But when Noth was replaced as D'Onofrio's alternate (Vince couldn't handle being on the edge of a scream for 22 episodes a year) by Jeff Goldblum (who I hope is just a dog with the ladies and not a monster), oh baby. For season 8, Criminal Intent hopped between two wildly different types of inscrutable, humorous ham: Goldblum’s self-enamored, slinky jazz one episode, D’Onofrio’s sudden whimsy and intense hysterics the next. It’s like Steely Dan sharing the stage with Pere Ubu. 

Goldblum leads the entirety of season 9, the show now about a piano-playing hepcat getting in every lady’s personal space while solving crimes and taking…unexpected pauses. The episode where Goldblum, during a lovely date on the promenade in London, describes solving a murder involving a palimpsest owned by the rich, reclusive father of his Ophelia-like ex-girlfriend, is possibly my favorite unquestionable Shark Jump of the 21st century. There was zero reason for Dick Wolf to have produced such a pretentious, indulgent fantasy, but I ain’t mad. (The episode is named “Palimpsest,” by the way. If you know what a palimpsest is, tell Jeff Goldblum, and you’ll get a free backrub.)

D’Onofrio and Erbe come back for a brief season 10, rightly acknowledging that their dynamic is the show. It’s a touch anticlimactic (I wish they’d found a way to include Nicole Wallace, Goren’s wild-eyed bete noire played by Olivia D’Abo), but I’m glad the USA Network respected fans and/or Dick Wolf enough to push it out. Now if only Goren could face off against the Kingpin… My eyes are rolling back in my head just thinking about it.

The popcorn ratings are explicated here. All grody anthology recommendations, Criterion Channel recommendations and palimpsest recommendations should be sent along to anthonyisright at gmail dot com.