Year: 2018

Sorry to Bother You sings in a voice all its own, thanks to the righteous vision of Riley, known for his 1990s hip-hop group The Coup and his vocal support for labor rights

“Sometimes people fixate on the thing that represents a happy time in their lives, and they’re unwilling to transfer that energy to new things or experiences.”

Shock and Awe is a 90-minute liberal told-you-so, a polemic that, like a long Rachel Maddow segment, is more cheery than thunderous, even as it names the names that must be named

… The plot’s developments at times could seem tenuous, but I found them totally daring and confident, as though Riley knew the rules of every screenwriting guide and the demand for “realism,” and he said, “Nah, I’m good,” because he had bigger points to make …

Skyscraper is a family-bonding adventure film starring Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell and two elementary-aged children who are as good at appearing darling (in the early scenes) as they are at playacting the role of traumatized hostages (in the later scenes)

… There’s an urgency and an anger this time around that helps paper over some of the story’s messiness, as well as some of the awkward drama of trying to explain where this whole crazy Purge idea actually came from

The writers, who include Flynn as well as series creator Marti Noxon (Mad Men, UnREAL, Dietland), don’t exactly hit viewers over the head with the retrograde gender politics of small-town America, but those dynamics are firmly on display