Unorthodox: A great escape

Amit Rahav & Shira Haas are Yanky & Ester

The first time Esty meets Yanky, she tells him she is different. He's fine with that. But different is anathema in their cloistered Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Still their arranged marriage takes place. For better. Or, as it turns out, for worse.

When we meet Esty, she's escaping the super-restrictive Satmar community and on her way to Germany. Through flashbacks we learn why she's leaving and why Germany is her destination.

Soon Yanky and his dodgy cousin are on her trail, cranking up the suspense.

The four episodes of this Netflix series had the Movie Slut wishing for more. To its credit the series, based loosely by an eponymous memoir by Deborah Feldman, takes a gentle approach to the Satmar customs and rituals while clearly illustrating why Etsy must escape.

If you're a woman who's ever been restrained by your gender, this series will break your heart and put it back together again.

 Expect cheers and tears.

Self Made: Inspired by the life of Madam C. J. Walker

Octavia Spencer is Madam C.J. Walker

Who doesn't love a rags-to-riches story?

And this one has all the elements. C.J. Walker was born in Louisiana in 1867. When we meet her on the Netflix limited series, she's a washerwoman. Make that a washerwoman with big dreams.

C.J. is one tough cookie and uses her determination and 1,000 horsepower drive to build an empire in the women's hair care arena and become the first female self-made millionaire. (Check it out in the Guinness Book of World Records.)

The series takes some liberties with elements of her story. But who cares when it dishes out some first-class entertainment. Even a few song-and-dance numbers. And Blair Underwood as her sometimes husband.

So take a trip back to turn-of-the-century New York. You won't regret it.

Blow the Man Down: It's more than a song

Welcome to Easter Cove, a once quiet fishing village in Maine. Meet sisters Mary Beth and Priscilla. Meet them on Amazon Prime at their Mom's funeral. Alone now, they must run the family business, a fish store, which isn't bringing in the bacon.

Mary Beth (Morgan Sailor) is the wild one. Priscilla, like her late Mom, gets things done.

There's a murder. A coverup. A pesky police detective. And a madame (Margo Martindale). It seems Easter Cove had a randy fisherman problem and the brothel opened to save the village girls.

As an added bonus there's a Greek chorus of singing fisherman.

You can't make this stuff up. But screenwriters Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy did. And the Movie Slut thanks them from the bottom of her sequestered heart.

Click hereto take a Listen

Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears

Essie Davis is Miss Fisher

The glammest gumshoe this side of anywhere is back to cheer us on these dark days. Loyal fans, who followed her on the PBS delight, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (The Australian series is now streaming on Amazon) can indulge with this full-length movie on Acorn.

Set in 1929, the plot revolves around a young Bedouin woman wrongfully imprisoned in Jerusalem, some British soldiers, a humongous emerald, a desert sandstorm, an eclipse... oh, who cares.

As in the series, the real attraction is the fabulous Phryne Fishers, her extravagant wardrobe, her pearl-handled pistol, and her ferocious feminism.

And then there's Detective Inspector John Robinson (Nathan Page). Will those two ever get together?
Watch this flick for the answer.

Miss Virginia: You Go Girl

Uzo Aduba is Virginia and Niles Fitch is her son, James

Who knew? Certainly not the Movie Slut. She thought Miss Virginia (on Netflix) was an inspiring take on a real-life story about a single mom who fights the system and gets her son, and other kids, into schools where they would actually get an education rather than beaten up on the playground.

That was before her eyes were opened. Virginia Waldon Ford is a real mom living in Washington D.C., who fought the system to get her son a scholarship to a private school. On the surface, it seems like a triple F flick: A formidable female fight for her child. And wins. And if you watch the movie in that vein, it works.

Too bad this movie doesn't tell the full story. Even worse, it misrepresents one of the Civil Rights Movement's heroes: Eleonor Holmes Norton, who's portrayed as an elitist legislator who kowtows to private interests.

 "Unforgivable," says the MS.

 Watch at your own risk.

Light Sleeper: Woody Allen it's not

Sleeper, Woody Allen's hysterical 1973 masterpiece is the best medicine for these scary times.

That's what the Movie Slut was thinking when she went on Amazon.

But ooooops.

What appeared on the TV screen was this 1992 Paul Schrader flick that is anything but funny. It is, however, a darn good film. John (Willem Dafoe) is an upscale drug dealer in New York City and Ann (Susuan Sarandon) is his supplier. She's leaving the biz to become a cosmetics entrepenuer. He's rethinking his life.

When a string of murders puts John in police cross hairs, he sets out to prove his innocence.

What elevates this movie above the many other drug dealer flicks (and there are tons of them) is how engaging and likeable these characters are. It's been a long time since MS cared so much about a movie protagonist.

A Good Marriage: That's what she thinks

Joan Allen & Anthony LaPaglia

This 2014 movie on Amazon is based on a book by Stephen King. So far, so good.

Darcy and Bob have been married for more than two decades and by all indications it's a good marriage. Until...

Without issuing a spoiler alert, the Movie Slut will say that Darcy discovers something that reveals hubby isn't the guy she thought he was. In fact, he might be—Eeeeee!—a serial killer.

What should she do? And who's the mysterious man lurking outside her house? Is he the real murderer? Is she in danger!?!

The Movie Slut is glad she stumbled on this thriller while remoting through Amazon's selections. There's something comforting in getting freaked out by a movie monster rather than a terrifying real life event.

Greed: It ain't good

Greed is a could've, should've, would've flick.
It could've been better.
It should've been better.
It would've been better if the script was actually funny. The Movie Slut chuckled a grand total of two times during this disappointing 1 hour and 44-minute flick.

Need she say more?
Of course not. But she will.

Steve Coogan is British billionaire Richard McCreadie, aka, Greedy McCreadie, whose outrageous and exploitive business practices may have seemed hilarious on paper. Not on the screen. This tycoon of fast fashion never met a struggling third-world business he wasn't keen to screw.

Making matters decidedly unfunnier, the film has a tacked on epilogue exposing the egregious way real companies take advantage of poor workers in impoverished countries.

So not funny.

The Way Back: Gets lost along the way

The Way Back was humming along nicely as two flicks in one—a come-from-behind sports movie and an addiction recovery film. Nice.

Then for some unknowable reason, late in the film, a third genre emerged like a hideous specter. Now, it's also a family-tragedy film, meaning movie-goers have to step back from the story and reassess everything they thought they knew about the characters and their motivations, while the upbeat possibilities crash to the ground like a football in the end zone after a touchdown.

What were they thinking?!?

If only.

The movie had so much going for it. Including an unpredictable (for a comeback sports flicks) ending.

The Invisible Man: Meets @MeToo

One hundred and thirteen years ago, H.G. Wells wrote a sci-fi thriller that has fascinated generations of readers. Including the Movie Slut. It inspired movies with the same title in 1933, 1940, 1984, and now. (And that's not counting films with the same subject, but different names, like The Invisible Kid, The Amazing Transparent Man, and The Invisible Woman.) Which begs the question, "Do we need this new version?"

Of course we don't. But that doesn't mean we don't want it.

The new flick does a nice job of using modern technology to bring the story to a new millennium. It adds the Me Too movement into the plot to make it timely. And Elizabeth Moss proves herself an excellent actress for this horror film.

The only missing element is a diligent editor who would have cut about thirty flabby minutes out of the two hour and five minutes running time. The Wells masterpiece was a mere 146 pages. At an hour and thirty-five minutes, the movie could have been almost as lean and mean as the book.