The Art of Self-Defense
By Andrew Plimpton July 12, 2019
A movie built around a critique of toxic masculinity so obvious it could have been written by an algorithm.
A movie built around a critique of toxic masculinity so obvious it could have been written by an algorithm.
The film takes enormous risks, not the least of which is its open and unabashed appeal to the heart.
John Lithgow plays a man who fears a nuclear doomsday and so maintains a state of the art food bunker.
Taylor Schilling plays a career-obsessed woman with no personal life challenged with watching her awkward niece.
Director and writer Madeleine Olnek has a hoot sending up and tearing down Emily Dickinson’s priggish image.
In less than 10 minutes, a few vignettes are enough to depict an insightful character study.
Distinctly odd and way out of the mainstream. If you are on its wavelength, it’s cinematic gold. If not, you simply don’t know what the hell you’re watching.
This may be the first film since the advent of Grubhub and Seamless to portray the workers on the other end of the app. It does that and much more.
The film asks, what it is like to be black while partying with a bunch of rambunctious, slightly nerdy, but definitely drunk white dudes?