Movie Reviews

Argylle

  • Title: Argylle
  • IMDb: link

Argylle

Argylle is bonkers. The latest from director Matthew Vaughn, in his collaboration with screenwriter Jason Fuchs, contains more than a little Kingsman DNA in an over-the-top tale of a best-selling author who discovers the characters and stories she has been writing about are real. As a one-time experience, Argylle may be worth a viewing. As a film, the over-the-top tone is inconsistent for both the serious and comedic sequences it is constantly applied to. When the film leans into its inherent goofiness ratcheting up to levels that make Kingsman: The Secret Service look like a spy documentary, Argylle can be fun, but when it attempts to be serious about a story we simply can not take seriously the entire movie grinds to a screeching halt.

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American Fiction

  • Title: American Fiction
  • IMDb: link

American Fiction

American Fiction would be a fun paring with The TV Set or Yesterday as a double feature. Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a lonely professor and struggling novelist whose work is often dismissed for not being black enough. After a dust up with a student forces an involuntary leave from the school, and while trying to avoid family drama he’s not ready for, an angry and bitter Monk writes a novel under a pseudonym mercilessly parodying the worst black stereotypes only to find publishers and even movie producers lining up for My Pafology.

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All of Us Strangers

  • Title: All of Us Strangers
  • IMDb: link

All of Us Strangers

Writer/director Andrew Haigh offers a stylish and delicate tale of early romance between Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal as neighbors in a mostly empty apartment building featuring great performances from both its leads. So where does my problem with All of Us Strangers lie? Without giving too much away, it’s the shaky base of the film presented entirely from Adam’s (Andrew Scott) point of view which gets problematic as we learn he’s got a complicated relationship with reality.

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The Holdovers

  • Title: The Holdovers
  • IMDb: link

The Holdovers

From director Alexander Payne comes this tale of an unlikely group of miserable people spending the holiday break together. In a Summer School-esque setup, we get Paul Giamatti as a frumpy history teacher at a prestigious New England boarding school dragged into filling in as the faculty member necessary to stay around while the rest of faculty and students return home for the winter holiday. Everyone’s least favorite teacher, Mr. Hunham (Giamatti) is paired with one of the school’s most unruly students (Dominic Sessa), abandoned by his family at the last-minute, and the school’s head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) still grieving the loss of her son.

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