46 posts categorized "Satire"

March 05, 2022

BENEDETTA — CANNES 2021

ColeSmithey.com Welcome!  

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. Punk heart still beating.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.com

ColeSmithey.comDaring, and bristling with bold artistic license, this social satire burns at the stake.

It's dizzying.

Virginie Efira is electric as Benedetta, a 17th century lesbian nun living in a convent in Renaissance Italy.

Fearless.

Catherine Deneuve's baton has successfully been passed down.

ColeSmithey.com

Based on Judith C. Brown's book "Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy," "Benedetta" juggles religion, politics, and sexual identity like so many electrons in a social atom attempting to split.

Holy fucking hell.

ColeSmithey.com

Paul Verhoeven's cinematic mastery just gets sharper with age.

This is a high-wire act that not many seasoned filmmakers would attempt, lest they fall flat on their blushing faces.

ColeSmithey.com

Long live Paul Verhoeven.

No prisoners taken. Many gifts given.

Not Rated. 131 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

January 28, 2022

THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

ColeSmithey.comGroupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Welcome!

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon




ColeSmithey.comCo-writer/director Bob Rafelson's satirical take on the pathetic state of the American psyche (post Viet Nam) finds its level in the faded glory of Atlantic City.

The brotherly bond between Bruce Dern's conman Jason and Jack Nicholson's radio storyteller David, gets filtered through bi-polar prostitute Sally (Ellen Burstyn) and similarly employed step-daughter Jessica (Julia Anne Robinson).

ColeSmithey.com

Atlantic City enjoys a last gasp of now long-ago-destroyed grand hotel casinos.

The nagging demands of capitalism chew and gnaw at the underpinnings of Rafelson's flawed characters.

Screen Shot 2022-04-18 at 1.33.39 PM

No apologies are made.

Screen Shot 2022-04-18 at 1.33.31 PM

Surreal elements punctuate the drama created by characters doomed to misunderstand one another, and the social pressures they suffer. 

Rated R. 103 mins. 

5 StarsModern Cole

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

OZARK: SEASON 4

ColeSmithey.comGroupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Welcome!

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon



ColeSmithey.comThis best-loved satirical soap opera takes aim at the Sackler family's Big Pharma crimes that have killed hundreds of thousands of American citizens. Smack!

Providing audiences a crash course in money laundering, with the help of local politicians, Mexican drug cartels and the FBI, is icing on the dramatic cake.

Laura Linney and Jason Bateman are in fine form, as are every single other actor cast in this insanely bingeable series.

Screen Shot 2022-03-22 at 8.46.11 PM

The humor is pitch black; it is a black comedy after all.

Screen Shot 2022-01-28 at 8.35.19 PM

Watching "Ozark" with the mindset of watching a soap opera opens the whole thing up. Genre and context.

ColeSmithey.com

Bon appétit moi petites. 

5 StarsModern Cole

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

Featured Video

SMART NEW MEDIA® Custom Videos

COLE SMITHEY’S MOVIE WEEK

COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA

Throwback Thursday


Podcast Series