HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING — SHOCKTOBER!

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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.

ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

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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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"Rock, rock, rock, rock, Rock 'n' Roll High School!"

Those immortal words, written by The Ramones, kick off a super-charged coming-of-age comedy as chaperoned by, well yes ladies and gentlemen, The Ramones.

'70s era cultural signifiers abound in this Roger Corman-produced bonanza of low budget delights.

"Fun, fun, rock 'n' roll high school.

Fun, fun, oh baby.

Fun, fun, fun, fun.

Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock 'n' roll high school."

That the Punk band from NYC were soaking up California rays while making the movie, only adds to its fun vibe. The Ramones are at the height of their powers, tearing up the screen with determined musical attitudes shaped by Girl Groups of the '60s. Think, The Shangri-Las.

Who knew Punk was so sincerely romantic?

The proof in the Punk pudding nods toward be the beautifully innocent romantic intent in The Ramones' fantastic songs.

The teen dreams of the '70s are in roaring display, squeezed into every frame like a super yummy PB&J.

P.J. Soles is awesome as Riff Randall, The Ramones' biggest fan, or groupie if you will or if you won't. Romantic sparks fly in an out-of-this-world musical fantasy sequence with Joey singing "I Want You Around" to Riff in her bedroom.

Hot.

A girl's Punk dream comes to life, with Johnny playing acoustic guitar accompaniment to Joey's intimate love ballad.

I had the good fortune to be at Richmond Va's radio station-awarded "Rock 'n' roll high school, Richmond Open High School. Aimee Mann was in the equivalent of my home room. As such, the radio station gave us a free screening of "Rock 'n' Roll High School" at the Biograph Cinema in my VCU college neighborhood, the Fan District.

They gave us these great hot pink lettering on black t-shirts.

Oh, the memories of things teenaged Cole did in that t-shirt in 1979, my sophomore year at Open High. And yes, we did claim to get high openly.

Chills baby, straight up chills.

Mary Warnov gives a next level performance as Miss Togar, the high school's evil school principal. It's notable that Mary Warnov and her co-star Paul Bartel went on to make the romping BDSM sex comedy "Eating Raoul" together three years later.

It's clear that everyone involved with this miraculous Punk Rock document, is having a great time really going for it with everything they've got.

That the "Rock 'n' Roll High School" soundtrack is a truly perfect record, goes with the territory.

Rock out kids, "school's out for summer, school's out forever."

"I hate the teachers and the principal
Don't wanna be taught to be no fool
Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock 'n' roll high school."

Rated PG. 93 mins.