Writing's a fight and this boy needs a battle
Paul Thomas Anderson captures the feral exuberance of the early seventies, as the precocious 15-year-old child actor, and natural hustler, Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) pursues the 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim), “the woman he’s going to marry”.
Inspired by the life of Anderson’s friend Gary Goetzman, the story bubbles up rather than unfolding. It’s joyous in many ways, full with the kind of optimism none of us can feel anymore.
The Devil’s Hour is a quantum riddle. Writer Tom Moran twists the strands of a nightmarish murder-mystery into a tight rope, wraps that into a ball, then slices open the ball. The story lives somewhere on that cut. Worth seeing.
Old clashes with new as veteran stand-up mentors opinionated writer, blacklisted for an “inappropriate” message on Twitter. A charming character based funny, worth an afternoon of your time.
A grim collection of vigilantes, with a single-minded hatred of soops, try to hold the “out of control” super-humans to account, as well as the corporation that runs them. It’s bloody and gruesome and hilarious, with a politically satirical soul.
Good versus bad simplicity plays out as you’d expect, with an obvious reversal at the end of the second act. There’s a reactionary tone to the plot that adds to the heroic logic.
A couple, one manic the other melancholic, torment each other with masochistic love. It’s two hours that feels like three, with a dark and twisted soul from Adrian Lyne of Fatal Attraction (1987) fame.
Darrin // Nightingale 