Quickie wiping-the-dust-off-the-Netflix movie reviews

With Life taking up our usual Netflix-watching time on Sundays, we let two movies sit far too long:

In the Loop: Dark. Funny. The modern comedy version of the mid-90s British TV drama The Deal. Where has Anna Chlumsky been all these years?

Wendy & Lucy: Methodical -- I think that's a good word for Kelly Reichardt's style. Sad movie that never quite goes where you think it's going to go, a bit like Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who made Half Nelson and Sugar, movies that come dangerously close to obvious turns before taking the story somewhere completely new. But Wendy & Lucy lacks the -- I don't want to call it hope, but maybe optimism -- that Fleck and Boden bring to stories about a drug addict and an illegal immigrant baseball player.