“Maddie’s Secret” is probably not what you are expecting. Comedian John Early’s directorial debut, ostensibly a pastiche of basic-cable TV movies, is not a parody, or a satire, or even a comedy.

The secret of “Maddie’s Secret” — or maybe it’s the central joke — is that the movie’s creator and star, comedian John Early, takes the whole thing seriously. A tongue-in-cheek critique of influencer ...

As a professional critic, one of my deepest, perhaps most deranged delights is to be wrong about a movie. Basically, I've seen so many that I have a pretty good feel for how a film will hit me, based ...