"Argylle," reviewed.

I reviewed Argylle, the latest, longest, most tiresome, and most meta of Matthew Vaughn’s meta action comedies. For my sins.

The Ballad of "Richard Jewell"

Sam Rockwell and Paul Walter Hauser are good actors in a bad-faith movie. (Warner Bros.)

Billy Ray, the screenwriter of Richard Jewell—director Clint Eastwood’s disingenuous dramatization of the 1996 case of a security guard falsely accused of a horrific crime—spoke to my screenwriting class at UCLA in 2002 or 2003. I hope that if he’s still doing this some student will ask him how can justify defaming deceased Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs in his new movie while giving the (also deceased) FBI agent he has depicted as tipping her off in exchange for sex the dignity of a pseudonym. That malicious act undermines everything in the movie that’s any good. My NPR review is here.

Fargo Fuck Yourself: Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, reviewed.

Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand in writer/director Martin McDonagh's finest film.

Up until now, Martin McDonagh's best plays and movies have all been set in rural Ireland, or in an unnamed fictional totalitarian state, or In Bruges. That changes with the superb Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, his first U.S.-set story that doesn't feel like the work of a tourist. Here's my NPR review.

Show Me No Money: Trust Me, reviewed.

Saxon Sharbino and Clark Gregg in Trust Me, which Gregg wrote and directed.

Trust Me, the second feature film written and directed by Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.LD. star Clark Gregg, confounds pretty much any expectation you're likely to bring to it. I reviewed it for The Dissolve.

(Severed) Hands Across America: Keegan's A Behanding in Spokane and Studio's 4,000 Miles, reviewed.

The Broadway cast of A Behanding in Spokane in 2010: Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Zoe Kazan, Anthony Mackie.​

In this week's Washington City Paper, I review the local premiere of Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane and reminisce uncomfortably about the show's 2010 Broadway debut, which I saw twice on my way to the realization that I don't like the play very much. I also review Studio Theatre's terrific production of Amy Herzog's sublime 4,000 Miles.