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Our Friend

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Actors: Dakota Johnson, Casey Affleck, Jason Segel, Gwendoline Christie, Cherry Jones, Marielle Scott

A trio of thirtysomethings have been best friends for years. Married couple Matt (Casey Affleck) and Nicole (Dakota Johnson) have two young daughters, while their longtime pal Dan (Jason Segel) is one of those guys that seems like an underachiever to others, but has a heart of gold that shines..

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Nobody

Director: Ilya Naishuller

Actors: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Aleksei Serebryakov, Christopher Lloyd

The last few years, it seems Hollywood has been struggling to find the next action hero as the tried and true stubbornly hold on to the mantle well into their 50s and 60s (though Tom Cruise doesn’t count, with his age-defying alien DNA). Silver-whiskered everyman Bob Odenkirk is the last..

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The Undoing (2020)

Director: Susanne Bier

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Edgar Ramírez, Donald Sutherland, Noah Jupe, Lily Rabe, Matilda De Angelis

Grace (Nicole Kidman) and Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant) live the perfect life of the wealthy elite in New York City. She is a successful psychologist, sensitive and kind. He is an oncologist for children, which should qualify him for sainthood. Their cute (but luckily not precocious) son attends an exclusive private..

At HomeDramaMusical

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Director: Lee Daniels

Actors: Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, Da'Vine Joy Randolph

Hollywood loves a good downward spiral tragedy, especially when it involves a celebrity, real or imagined. The beautiful and talented disintegrate in full public view, from drugs, alcohol, or self-destructive behavior. We can’t look away. These stories are also Oscar-bait (look at all the nominations for A Star Is Born..

AdventureAt HomeDrama

Land (2021)

Director: Robin Wright

Actors: Robin Wright, Demián Bichir, Sarah Dawn Pledge, Kim Dickens

While visiting friends in the rural area around Missoula, Montana, I heard about what the locals termed “mountain bachelors”. These were guys who purposely had fallen off the grid, often due to trauma (like Vietnam vets, for instance), living up in a remote cabin away from society. They’d emerge every..

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The Mauritanian

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Actors: Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Shailene Woodley, Benedict Cumberbatch

The titular character in The Mauritanian is a man named Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahir Rahim), who was arrested in the chaos after 9/11 as a terrorist, and tossed into the United States’ infamous offshore Guantánamo prison. He, like hundreds of other international accused criminals, are left there to rot not..

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Wild Mountain Thyme

Director: John Patrick Shanley

Actors: Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm, Dearbhla Molloy, Christopher Walken

Rosemary (Emily Blunt) has loved neighbor farm boy Anthony (Jamie Dornan) ever since they were wee children in the Irish countryside. But a misunderstood love rivalry with another girl has led them to grow up as grumpy single farmers with a symbolic fence between their land. Anthony’s dad (Christopher Walken,..

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Love and Monsters

Director: Michael Matthews

Actors: Dylan O'Brien, Jessica Henwick, Michael Rooker, Dan Ewing, Ariana Greenblatt

Joel (Dylan O’Brien) was 17 when an asteroid smashed into Earth, causing various species to mutate and decimate most of the human race. His high school sweetheart, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), fled with her parents, his own parents died, and every expectation of a normal life went out the window. Years..

Moviepie Musings

Linda’s Best of 2020… aka My Most Memorable Pandemic Viewing

Where to begin with 2020? Way back in February when I saw Harrison Ford’s CGI-rific version of The Call of the Wild, there is no way I would have known that it was the last new movie I’d see in a theater for the rest of the year. When the..

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Herself

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

Actors: Clare Dunne, Harriet Walter, Conleth Hill, Ian Lloyd Anderson, Ruby Rose O’Hara, Molly McCann

Even if you don’t have the personal experience of being a victim of domestic violence, you quickly get the inkling that Sandra’s husband is a bully, coiled with a flair for violence. It is telling that Sandra (Clare Dunne) has what looks like a permanent black eye, with burst vessels..