THE PENGUIN LESSONS

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Based on Tom Michell's 2016 memoir about his time spent teaching English during a coup in Argentina in 1976, "The Penguin Lessons" is a stellar politically-minded comedy, packed with subtle and not-so-subtle humor, historic political perspective, and Steve Coogan's infectious wit.

And, there's a penguin. I know what you're thinking, another shaggy dog story. Not so fast.

"The Penguin Lessons" is all about metaphors. As such, our penguin guide gifts us with the power of identifying underlying meanings in pretty much everything that the movie has to offer.

Facing up to social responsibility is on the list for Steve Coogan's instinctively truth-telling rendition of Tom Michell. Lying takes too much effort. It's easier for Tom to rip off the band-aid when touchy questions arise.

Throw in a dramatic tearjerker aspect, and you've got some sublime entertainment.

Björn Gustafsson is excellent as Tom's taller-but-less-confident co-worker.

Serious and funny in equal parts, the well-paced narrative gravitates toward deeper truths than you realize until you are stuck in its deep water. 

However potentially treacherous the dramatic terrain of working with children and/or animals, Steve Coogan dances through the tricky narrative like the experienced dancer he proves to be in one of the movie's pivotal sequences.

It's always value-added when there's dance involved. This sequence shines.

Here is a family movie built to stand the test of time. "The Penguin Lessons" will be a safe bet when you see it available to watch on an airplane.

Steve Coogan's comic genius seems to always find its level. This thematically rich material perfectly matches Coogan's advanced skill-set.

Hilarious. I couldn't possibly count how many times I laughed or cried during this masterful picture.

Director Peter Cattaneo ("The Full Monty") captures every microscopic nuance of comedy, tragedy, satire, romance, and mystery in this wonderful movie. 

Impressive.

Rated PG-13. 110 mins.

HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING — SHOCKTOBER!

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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Richard E. Grant's supreme tool box of comic skills brings his follow-up to "Withnail and I" to an explosive boil.

The film's hot comic condition equals the gargantuan actual boil that grows into a talking head on the neck of Grant's British ad exec character Dennis Bagley.

Director/screenwriter Bruce Robinson's second collaboration with Richard E. Grant builds on their impressive working relationship to push the film into heretofore unknown comic boundaries.

Dennis Begley is on a hard deadline to create an ad campaign for a pimple cream. His supportive wife Julia (Rachel Ward), is use to nursing Dennis through such episodes of writer's block, but this one marks an especially dark transition.

"How To Get Ahead In Advertising" is foremost a prescient satire predicting with uncanny accuracy, our modern cataclysmic social dilemma relating to such things as guns, cell phones, cars, and social media.

Nothing is true when everything is a lie.

Times have changed, nothing is permitted now.

Outrageous laughs spring from this classic movie.

Slapstick, sight gags, rapid-fire dialogue, and ingenious comic sequences allow Richard E. Grant to levitate his performance like some otherworldly creature.

No amount of description can sufficiently prepare you for this movie. It's one of those where the less you know going in, the better time you'll have watching it for the first time.

Is "How To Get Ahead In Advertising" a one-of-a-kind satirical masterpiece?

Yes, yes it is.

Rated R. 90 mins.

HITMAN

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Richard Linklater and co-screenwriter/actor Glen Powell craft an enticingly funny and sexy social satire inspired by an unlikely true situation.

Leave it to Texas to hire a nerdy math and philosophy college professor to pretend to be a real-life hitman in order to catch those seeking unsavory assistance in the dispatching of an enemy.

That was back in the '80s and '90s, before texts, emails, social media posts, and search engine requests provided most of the background evidence in such cases.

Although the narration categorically informs us that hitmen don't really exist; that little bit of exposition is, well, absolutely untrue; it's just that everyday civilians don't usually have access to such skullduggery.

Rather than Houston, where the actual events took place, Richard Linklater sets the action in New Orleans. It reminds us of what a cool location New Orleans is for movies to be filmed. If there's one city in America that is palpably sexual, it's The Big Easy.

Glen Powell makes a splash as Gary Johnson, a mild mannered math teacher who finds his true calling, and a main squeeze (played by Adria Arjona), when he goes undercover to participate in sting operations against those wishing to purchase the services of a cold blooded killer, namely one poorly disguised Gary Johnson.

"Hitman's" overriding themeline is put both succinctly and indirectly during Gary Johnson's teaching efforts with his classroom students.

How well do we know ourselves?

What is our facility for changing our behaviors?

Gary tells his students to seize the identity that they want for themselves.

These burning questions catch fire as we are introduced to archetypal characters in search for illicit relief from personal problems further clouded by misinformation and America's twisted social norms.

While it may not be a perfect movie, "Hitman" is a perfectly nuanced satire.

"Hitman" comes at right time.

If only we could have such movies without the presence of guns. I suppose that's a big part if this movie's premise.

Richard Linlater's resume just keeps getting better, and better, and better.

Rated R. 115 mins.