A holy warrior on the warpath
Fear the fanatic. The stylish and disturbing horror movie St. Maud introduces us to Katie, a meek nurse who turns to Christ after failing to save the life of a patient. Her conversion also inspires a name change: Maud. With her new faith and identity, she accepts a job caring for a dancer dying of cancer. The pair form an intimate bond that is broken, sending Maud down a path to madness. Unless she isn’t mad? God spoke to Moses and Joan of Arc. Maud yearns for connection and purpose and He hears all prayers.
Director Rose Glass’s debut feature…
First came the jab, then the crying jag
The good news is it has been two weeks since I got my second jab of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and I can’t stop crying.
That’s the first side effect. I have become hopelessly sentimental. I tear up for no good reason. There are other side effects, like a sore arm and for some reason, my freezer is full of frozen pizzas. But my main reaction to the vaccine is sudden, involuntary, weeping.
After the nurse gave me the needle I looked at her with tender eyes welling up with tears and said “thank you” and without saying a word she…
The late-night host hates movies that make him uncomfortable
Does Bill Maher know Fox News just launched a new late-night comedy talk show?
Because he looks like he’s auditioning to be host. Last night on his HBO talk show, Maher breathlessly scolded liberal Hollywood for being liberal, which is just the kind of courageous free speech programming that attracts medical device advertising dollars on Fox.
The right-wing media machine provides a service to their viewers who return the favor with total attention and fealty. …
The pros and cons of the drinking life are explored in the movie “Another Round’
There are so many words in the English language for drunk: wasted, trashed, sloshed. But my favorite is probably ‘lit,’ because it perfectly describes that first swallow of liquor. It burns going down and ignites the senses.
And then some of us turn into full-on wildfires.
The four main characters in the new movie Another Round are middle-aged men who have lost their spark until one of them makes a modest proposal during a particularly dull 40th birthday dinner: they should drink during the day at their jobs as boring high school teachers.
It would be an experiment based on…
It’s a rare prank movie with a heart
The joke is on comedian Eric André in his new hidden camera movie Bad Trip. The plot is not the point but there is one: André’s lovesick Chris and his best friend Bud (Lil Rel Howery) hit the road in a stolen car. The ride belongs to Bud’s sis, a pissed-off Tiffany Haddish. The rest of the movie is a string of prank sketches where real people react to fake chaos.
In these kinds of comedies everyday people are usually the punchline but not in Bad Trip. André is always the fool. The gags themselves frequently require Andre (sometimes naked)…
I’m just asking
Answer: Yes. Alien is a horror movie. It’s also a science-fiction movie set on a spaceship. And a monster movie, which is a subspecies of horror. I also think it’s a deeply political movie about class: in the future, workers are even more disposable than they are now. The unseen executives in Alien don’t lay off their employees, they secretly get them impregnated by mysterious, and potentially lucrative, extraterrestrial bioweapons.
But let me circle back to the very important question: Alien is a sci-fi horror movie. The reason I asked the question is that I made the mistake of looking…
Gage Skidmore
It’s sordid and kind of depressing…
Here are the rules to the alleged “sex challenge” game Rep. Matt Gaetz played with other lawmakers in Florida ten years ago.
According to sources who spoke to the Tampa Bay Times, It was a point-based contest, and whoever earned the most points won. Sleeping with a lobbyist earned you one point. Two if you slept with a statehouse staffer. Three points were awarded if you bedded another legislator and six points if that legislator was married.
And then there’s the ‘snitch,’ which should be a word familiar to fans of Harry Potter.
There’s a new doc about the coworking startup that gave me flashbacks
The new Hulu documentary WeWork: Or The Making And Breaking Of A$47 Billion Unicorn wants to expose the coworking startup as a fraud, much like billion-dollar biotech company Theranos. But unlike that notorious startup — which was run by charismatic charlatan Elizabeth Holmes who lied to investors repeatedly about a breakthrough device that could analyze blood — the controversy at the center of WeWork is co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann, a touchy-feely bullshit artist whose main crime was getting high on his own supply.
He was a dude addicted to the sound of his own pitch; a skilled salesman…
Amazon Prime’s animated adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s superhero series soars
I was a fairly faithful reader of Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel The Walking Dead for many years until the George Romero-inspired zombie apocalypse book settled into a predictable formula that usually ended with a beloved character dying in a truly horrible, sadistic way.
But I couldn’t make it through two seasons of the hit TV show The Walking Dead. I know it’s wildly popular with fans so it’s my problem. And I’ll admit that the show could have improved over the last, what? Ten years? It’s been on the air for ten years, right? …
Maybe I should shave my head?
Gennaro Savastano is the boss’ son in Gomorrah, the Italian-language crime drama adapted by Roberto Saviano from his 2006 international bestseller of the same name, a riveting, gritty look at modern-day organized crime in the streets of Naples. I have been binge-watching it all week. It’s inspired me.
If you haven’t seen Gomorrah, all four seasons are currently streaming on HBO Max. Now is your chance. Go on. I’ll wait.
You back?
Okay, let’s get back to it.
Gennaro, or Genny as his friends and family call him, is loved by his father, Don Pietro, the violent leader of a…
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