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An efficient assassin traveling the globe tries to reconcile her damaged family relationships and fight her own superiors for survival when the tables turn against her.

Writer-director Armando Iannucci has proven himself an exciting creator of raucous, vulgar, profane comedy with the dark historical parody The Death of Stalin from 2017 and the brilliantly insulting TV series Veep (2012-2019) which concluded last year. His latest film is still funny, but with a PG rating The Personal History of David Copperfield is decidedly less obscene than Iannucci's other work...

The Binge was released on August 28th and is currently available for personal streaming on Hulu. Set in the not too distant future, when all alcohol and drugs are banned from everyone in the United States, The Binge focuses on the stressful lives of 3 teenage boys trying to attend an exclusive party on the one night of the year when all drug and alcohol consumption is legal for everyone. It's like...

The Secrets We Keep is a patient psychological mystery set in a quiet post-WWII suburb where a housewife (Noomi Rapace, Prometheus, 2012) starts to unravel when she suspects a new man living in her town is a Nazi who tortured her during WWII years ago. This suspicion leads to kidnapping, interrogation, and blood. And when suspicion grows into an obsession with vengeance, nobody walks unscathed.

Oscar-nominated director Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, 2017) is evidently still enjoying his obsessions with complicated action sequences and non-linear storytelling.

Tesla is a historic, biographical drama on the life of pioneering engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla, whose ideas changed the world at the turn of the 20th century and beyond (his work included the alternating current electricity system, a thermo-magnetic motor, and the Tesla coil.)

Waiting for the Barbarians is a historical period drama based on the award-winning novel of the same name by South African writer J.M. Coetzee first published in 1980. This newly released film (premiered on August 7th) tells the story of a Magistrate, played by a soft-spoken and dignified Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, 2015), who manages a small settlement in a foreign, quiet desert on the far edg...

Aren't weekend getaways a blast? They're especially fun when they have dangerous secrets, hidden cameras, a hot tub, and dead bodies. Actor Dave Franco, mostly known for light-hearted comedy and action films like The Disaster Artist (2017) and Now You See Me (2013), has his feature-length directorial debut with The Rental currently playing in select movie theaters throughout Utah after its nationw...

The Old Guard was released on July 10th this year and has become one of the most popular original films streaming on Netflix this month. Adapted from a graphic novel series by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez that was first published in 2017, The Old Guard follows a group of expert, world-weary (and refreshingly diverse) mercenaries who travel the globe killing terrorists, hiding their identities,...

One half crime procedural and one half Shakespearean tragedy, Blow the Man Down tells a contemporary, noir-inspired drama of two twenty-something sisters who cover up a murder in a small coastal town of Maine. But their cover-up leads them into unexpected secrets, money, and danger. Lobster traps, fishmongers, and chowder are clever bits of decoration that portray the calloused lives of Down Easte...

Palm Springs was released July 10th of this year and is currently available for streaming on Hulu. This R-rated comedy is set in the magical desert of Southern California where a man and a woman meet at a Palm Springs wedding and become eternally linked to each other...and to the same repeating day. The leading stars Andy Samberg (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, 2016) and Cristin Milioti (Brea...

When a young loving couple visit a pristine suburb looking for a new home, they become trapped in a mysterious world of quiet isolation turning their casual visit at a possible starter home into an endless nightmare. The title is a real word meaning a living space where plants or animals are kept under observation (hint hint), and just like this fancy word, this film is not for everyone.

Irresistible is a satirical comedy about an out-of-touch political strategist (a predictable Steve Carell, Beautiful Boy, 2018) who moves from Washington D.C. to rural Wisconsin to help a conservative farmer (a laconic Chris Cooper, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, 2019) run for mayor.

When the opening shot of a film is a close-up of a young woman's face screaming an expletive slightly above the camera, it's a good sign viewers have started a crass, biting comedy that will keep them mostly entertained. Actress Zoey Deutch (Zombieland: Double Tap, 2019) plays a loud, street smart hustler determined to get out of her blue-collar life in Buffalo, New York through her passion for mo...

I usually address a newly released film in my weekly reviews, but this week I'm writing about a brilliant 2018 film called The Kindergarten Teacher currently available through Netflix. Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight, 2008) plays an unsatisfied kindergarten teacher in New York City who thinks one of her students is a gifted prodigy of original poetry. But the teacher's nurturing guidance slowly...

Actress Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man, 2020) appears to be on a mission continually portraying serious female roles in dark, emotionally arduous films (like The Invisible Man from earlier this year, The Kitchen from 2019, Us from 2019, and The Handmaid's Tale TV series from 2017 to today). And like a contemporary Greta Garbo, Elisabeth has succeeded again diving bravely into a richly complex,...

The Painter and the Thief is a documentary released on May 22nd of this year and available on Hulu. When two expensive paintings are stolen from an art gallery in Oslo, Norway, the artist privately reaches out to one the convicted thieves to try and locate her paintings. But the thief does not remember anything about his crime.

When watching the R-rated comedy, The Lovebirds, it starts out with a very romantically casual mood, but that mood is soon smashed like a cockroach under a boot as a loving couple (a.k.a. lovebirds) is launched into a dangerous mystery of dead bodies, hot bacon grease, and a secret sex cult.

Sometimes a film gains attention for great acting performances or for new special effects technology, and sometimes a film gains attention for controversy. Adam has made a mark as a controversial film.

Although the weather outside is sunny and breezy right now, it makes for an interesting time to watch a film full of snow, ice, and terror.

Oftentimes film critics describe what they see by categorizing films into genres or styles. But then films like Give Me Liberty come along that achieve such a uniqueness it's difficult to specify any genre boundaries. First released in August 2019, and now available through Netflix, Give Me Liberty is a gem of independent filmmaking that takes viewers on a hectic, crowded, one-day journey.

Writer-director Trey Edward Shults (It Comes at Night, 2017) is successfully spreading his roots in telling interesting, rich, current stories. Waves is Shults' latest entry in the independent film canon, and like a hot slice of lasagna, it is layered, filling, and wonderful.

Recently, I watched the drama Tigertail. Growl! But everybody calm down. This film has nothing to do with the documentary miniseries Tiger King currently on Netflix.

Lost Girls is a dark murder mystery based on a true story and adapted from the 2013 non-fiction book by Robert Kolker called Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery. This film was released in March 2020 and is currently available through Netflix as part of their original content.

This film started at Sundance in January 2019 and was fully released to the world on March 13th this year through the personal streaming platform Hulu. Big Time Adolescence is an R-rated, coming-of-age comedy about an awkward teenage boy and his friendship with a pot-smoking, aimless, college dropout in his twenties.