Blindspotting: Now you see this. Now you see that.

Collin (Daveed Diggs) has three more days of probation. What could happen?
As it turns out, plenty. Especially since his pal and coworker, Miles (Rafael Casal), is a loose canon with a hair-trigger temper. And then there's this problem: Driving home, rushing to meet his 11 p.m. curfew, he witnesses a white policeman shoot an unarmed Black man in the back. Four times.

The incident haunts Collin. And as we all know, there's nothing he can do about it.

What makes this tragi-comedy work as well as it does, and it works stupendously, is Collin's off-the-charts likeability. You want him to make it. And so you're sitting on the edge of your seat for 95 minutes.

The Movie Slut felt like she almost knew what it was like to be a young Black man in America. And it was f---ing scary.

The Equalizer 2: Equals uber fun

Five reasons to see The Equalizer 2: Denzel! Denzel! Denzel! Denzel! Denzel!

And those aren't the only reasons, though it's difficult to imagine anyone else pulling off the role of a cold-blooded vigilante, whose also a warm-hearted friend and neighbor.

The Movie Slut, not a lover of violence on or off the screen, has to admit that it's satisfying to see evil-doers get their just desserts. And they do in this movie. Oh, boy do they.

The pacing of this movie is spot on. The subplots are as engaging as the main event. One of these involves a Holocaust survivor. Another, a Latino woman whose vegetable garden is destroyed by thugs.

The Equalizer exists in a colorblind world in which everyone deserves to live their lives in peace. And if that doesn't work out. Well, he makes sure the culprits pay.

Denzel! Denzel! Denzel! Denzel! Denzel!

Mamma Mia! Here we go again

Abba-ca-dabra! It's movie magic.

Ten years ago, Mamma Mia! arrived on the big screen with Meryl Streep and the band's greatest hits.
The Movie Slut wasn't impressed. Sure, the music rocked, but Streep, who was on the off ramp to 60 at the time, looked ridiculous in overalls and even her acting talents couldn't pull off a 17-year-old Dancing Queen.

This prequel-sequel cast Lily James as young Donna (Streep's character) in flashbacks, and Amanda Seyfried as her now grown-up daughter. Streep is on hand for one song. And Cher makes a cameo as glama.

It all works. The songs might not be Abba's greatest hits (though we do hear at least two of them), but the band's second-tier will make you wish you'd paid more attention to them in the 1970s.

Looking for an escape from all that's wrong with our country this summer? Here it is.

The Catcher Was A Spy: Little-known hero

Here's what we know about Moe Berg.
He earned an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a law degree from Columbia. 
He was a Major League catcher in the 1930s and early '40s.
He was a World War II spy.
He spoke nearly a dozen languages.
He might have been gay.

Now, the Movie Slut wants to know which of the above you think is most interesting.
Some reviewers chose to discuss the last one. To which MS says, "Oh Puh-leeze."

In this baseball/spy biopic Paul Rudd is the enigmatic brainiac who enlists with the US Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the CIA), which tasked him to discover how close the Nazis were to making an atomic bomb. And, of yes, to commit murder if necessary.

It's a heck of a story that could have made a fantastic flick. Instead, it's just good enough not to be missed.

Leave no Trace: Out of the Woods

Ben Foster & Thomasin McKensie

There are no villains in this warmhearted film about the love shared by a father and daughter. Unless you count the war that left Will with a severe case of PTSD. He can no longer cope in the outside world, and so the single dad lives in the Oregon woods with his teenage daughter, Tom. Until they're discovered.

It isn't illegal to be homeless, he learns, but it is against the law to live on government land. A kindly farmer gives Will a job and a humble home. In fact, all along the way, father and daughter are treated with respect and consideration. The question is, will they adapt.

The Movie Slut won't give away the end, except to say it reminds her of this song by Sting. 

Three Identical Strangers: A Triple Treat

Here are three reasons to see Three Identical Strangers, a documentary about triplets, who were born in the 1960s but didn't meet until the 1980s.

1) The brothers are engaging, at times, funny, at other times, thoughtful and deep.
2) The others interviewed for the movie are intelligent, articulate, and informative.
3) While this is a remarkable story on the surface, it grows deeper and deeper, asking—but not always able to answer—the questions: why, how, and is it nature or nurture that determines our behavior.

Sorry To Bother You: Summer's Must-see Movie

The Movie Slut can always find something about a flick to rave about. Even if it's a single line, one song, or costume.

And while she rarely finds a movie that's walk-outable, she also seldom sees one that she calls perfection.

Sorry To bother You is one of those rare gems.

It's "Office Space" with Swiftian satire and tragicomic emotional swings. One moment she was laughing, the next, horrified, followed by tears.

It helped to have top notch talent, including Lakeith Stanfield (above) and Tessa Thompson in the lead roles, and writer/director Boots Riley behind the scenes.

So, if you're thinking the MS hasn't told you one thing about the plot, that is by design. OK, she'll throw out one sentence. Cassius Green (Stanfield), a young man eager to escape his present living arrangement in his uncle's garage, takes a job as a telemarketer, where he learns one rule, "Stick To The Script."

 Of course he doesn't and what unfolds is movie magic.

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quintessentially Quantum

Finally, a summer blockbuster that's smart enough not to take itself seriously. And it even has a plot. Meager as it is.

It seems Wasp's mom (Michelle Pfeiffer) has been stuck in the Quantum Realm ever since the last flick. Hubby (Michael Douglas) thinks now is the time to spring her. And so Ant-Man (Mark Rudd) and the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) are enlisted to bug in for the quantumly dangerous mission.

The movie is chock full of delicious mumbo-jumbo, much of which includes the word quantum, so much so that one character makes a crack about it.

Ant-Man and The Wasp is so much fun that you might overlook the sensational special effects as our fave insects morph from mini to maxi, a trick that's most effective during the many fight scenes.

Yes, dear readers, it's a first. The Movie Slut loved the fight scenes. 

Gotti: The Noble Thug

Poor John Gotti. All he wanted was to be a good family man. A good husband, father, and crime boss. But alas, those pesky Feds just wouldn't leave him alone.

In this new, revisionist history take on the head of the Gambino crime family, Gotti, brought to us by a terrific John Travolta, is a warm, and even a bit fuzzy, gangster. Oh sure he ordered some hits over the years. But they were all bad guys, who had it coming.

We never see him shaking down small store owners, forcing them to fork over their hard-earned money. But we do hear him expounding on "principles" and "rules" as if he were an ethics professor. And when he utters the words "cosa nostra," which he does often, it's with the reverence a priest reserves for the good Lord.

Oh, puh-leeze.

The Movie Slut sends out a big, fat thank you to Travolta, who made this otherwise unbearable retelling of history an almost pleasure.

Damsel: Viewer in Distress

                             Robert Pattinson & Butterscotch

The Movie Slut has question.
It's 1870 on the western prairie, do people say stuff like "It's a win/win"?
Or is that a big fat anachronism?
Or is it supposed to be funny?

Well, the Movie Slut is not laughing.

Nobody is who he or she seems to be in this less-than-satisfying flick. (Except Butterscotch, the dwarf horse.) And that could be interesting if the movie wasn't so slow it might as well have gone backwards.

Robert Pattinson proves again that he's more than the werewolf we loved in the Twilight movies. Still, his excellent performance, which ends halfway through the movie, just isn't enough.

Superfly: Super Bad

A remake of the 1970s film of the same name that should be avoided unless you dig blaxpoitation, sexploitation and a few other ploitations thrown in for bad measure.

The Movie Slut and her friend walked out shortly before brain rot set in.

She's still recovering.

Tag: A hit

 
What could easily have been the silliest, most ridiculous flick of the summer is elevated by fine acting and writing and a sweetly beating heart. Based on a real story that was published in The Wall Street Journal, Tag tells the tale of a group of friends who have been playing a cutthroat game of tag one month a year since they were kids.

They're now in their 30s and 40s and actors Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner do a fine job of resurrecting childhood competition while tempering the craziness with a dollop of maturity.

And there's a message: You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing.

Now, that's profound!