Shirley as an Excellent Page-Turner of a Movie

Speaking from experience, the process of being a writer is an utterly strange one. One would like to imagine it's easy as just sitting down at a laptop and typing away at keys that magically produce the next great American novel. Instead, it's all about patience, trial-and-error. You'll write yourself into many dead ends. Distractions creep in easily. You might spend just as much time worrying about if you're doing enough writing as you actually do the writing. The process of writing is ultimately rewarding but boy does it have its strange effects. If the new Josephine Decker movie Shirley is any indication, author Shirley Jackson, the writer behind The Haunting of Hill House among other works, could attest to that.

The Kitchen Makes A Mixed Bag of a Mobster Mayhem Movie

Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby O'Carroll (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire Walsh (Elisabeth Moss) have something very important in common beyond them all being the lead characters of the new mobster drama The Kitchen. They're all spouses of critical figures in the Hell's Kitchen mobster scene circa. 1979. All of their husbands have recently gone to prison and while the remaining mob figures have promised to take care of the trio financially, they're not getting anywhere near enough money to take care of their lives. That's when Kathy, Ruby and Claire decide to take it upon themselves to take control of their lives and run their own mob racket that begins to expand in power to such a profound degree that it upsets the previous mobster status quo in New York City.

Her Smell Marvelously Delves Into the Lows and Humanity of a Rockstar

MILD SPOILER WARNING
We've seen plenty of movies about period era rockstars before, but I truly cannot recall one as intimate as Her Smell, the newest directorial effort from Alex Ross Perry. My first foray into his directorial works goes for small-scale character interactions where most films of this ilk opt for a conventional rags-to-riches story packed with cheeky references to famous songs. Split into five different periods of the life of 1990s singer Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss) that are comprised primarily of conversations between characters (save for one that shifts the setting to Becky's home), this more personal approach to telling her story allow the viewer to truly gets to know what a whirlwind of chaos this performer is as well as understand the more vulnerable human side of Becky Something.

Good Luck Chuck, With A Movie Like This One, You're Gonna Need It

We've all heard of the movie Rocky, but do you know about the real-life boxer who helped inspire that famous film character? Despite the title leading you to think it was a film adaptation of a Zachary Levi NBC sitcom or perhaps a biopic of Chuck Berry, Chuck is all about the life and times of Chuck Wepner (portrayed here by Liev Schreiber), a boxer who got to fight Muhammad Ali (Pooch Hall) in a high profile fight that Wepner ended up losing. You might think that might have been shattering to Wepner, but he took the loss in stride and ended up becoming a minor celebrity due to him managing to briefly knock Ali off his feet during the fight.

It's Hip To Be Square In Ruben Ostlund's Successfully Uncomfortable Dark Comedy The Square

The modern-day idea of art being created solely for the sake of pushing people's buttons has taken on a negative connotation and that's really not unwarranted. You've got countless animated and live-action TV shows trying to ape the bawdy humor of the likes of South Park and Family Guy whose only concept of comedy is just saying stuff that they think will make people made but just makes them look tired and ignorant (this also applies to Family Guy) and numerous further attempts by modern-day art to hit back at a non-existent "politically correct boogeyman" come off as similarly having nothing to say beyond "I M EDGY BROOOOOOO".