Demi Moore is Breathtaking in Body Horror Triumph ‘THE SUBSTANCE’

September 17, 2024 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Coralie Fargeat, Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid, Horror, Margaret Qualley, Reviews, The Substance 5 Comments

Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is staring down the barrel of her 50th birthday, and her Hollywood star has more than a few cracks—both literal and metaphorical. To make matters worse, the once-popular aerobics queen just overheard her sleazy, keyed-up boss (played with pure snake oil charm by Dennis Quaid) plotting her replacement. The network wants someone younger, fresher, tighter in spandex. Enter a shadowy black-market pharma company with a miracle drug, the titular Substance, promising to rewind crucial time on Elizabeth’s biological clock. The promise is…misleading. As she drinks down the sketchy elixir of youth, she doesn’t just regain her youthful glow—she begins to lose herself, piece by horrifying piece, to the younger version she thought she so badly wanted. Read More

‘KINDS OF KINDNESS’ A Freaky Foray Into Yorgos’ Hilarious Depravity

June 20, 2024 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Emma Stone, Hong Chau, Jesse Plemons, Joe Alwyn, Kinds of Kindness, Mamoudou Athie, Margaret Qualley, Reviews, Willem Dafoe 7 Comments

A trio of demented fables make up Yorgos Lanthimos’ most recent film, Kinds of Kindness. An anthological miasma of the bizarre and misanthropic, Yorgos returns to his biting roots as a somewhat impenetrable provocateur, escaping easy explanation at every turn, armed with a razor sharp sense of satirical humor. Featuring an outstanding ensemble cast that cycles through various characters throughout the film’s distinct – and mostly unconnected – three short, Kinds of Kindess filters the filmmaker’s most esoteric curiosities through an almost Black Mirror filter, making for a collection of works that are strong and striking on there own merit but add up to something entirely captivating when taken as a whole. Read More

‘DRIVE AWAY DOLLS’ A Perplexing Lesbian Road Trip Caper From One Half of the Coen Bros

February 21, 2024 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Beanie Feldstein, Bill Camp, Colman Domingo, Drive Away Dolls, Ethan Coen’, Geraldine Viswanathan, Margaret Qualley, Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus, Pedro Pascal 1 Comment

A pair of odd couple lesbians head to Tallahassee in Ethan Coen’s (of the Coen brothers) bizarre comedy caper, Drive Away Dolls. Each looking for a fresh start, Jaime (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) form an unlikely pair. One is a fast-talkin’, easy-lovin’ free spirit. The other is an over-thinking, uptight introvert. But their friendship persists through their differences and after a breakup and professional stall-out the duo journey south in a “drive away” car, a service that allows renters to transports vehicles across state lines. One case of mistaken identity and a drive away car mix-up later, the pair realize they are transporting a valuable case of personal effects hidden in the car’s boot. A couple of inept goons are hot on their tail as their road trip takes them to various gay bars, touristy pit stops, and run-ins with the law in what can only be described as a bizarre herky-jerky pre-Y2K slapstick attempt. It’s at once perplexing, engaging, annoying, and utterly sloppy, and really serves to highlight just how much the Coen Brothers need one another as collaborators. Read More

The Ten Best Performances of 2023

December 29, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged All of Us Strangers, American Fiction, Andrew Scott, Barry Keoghan, Emma Stone, Jeffrey Wright, Margaret Qualley, Mark Ruffalo, Molly Gordon, Paul Giamatti, Poor Things, Rosamund Pike, Saltburn, Theater Camp 2 Comments

It has already begun: the long march towards coronating a new quartet of actors whose performances are deemed the finest of 2023. And while the Oscars, Globes, and flurry of other guild awards tend to recognize the same handful of actors over and over again, here at Silver Screen Riot, we have our own version of who offered the best performances of 2023. So now that we’ve already gotten our way through the Ten Best TV Shows of 2023, and the Ten Best Movies of 2023, it’s time to move onto the Ten Best Performances of 2023.

Though it should go without saying, by “best”, I mean entirely my favorites so no need to send over an Excel sheet proving me why my preferences are wrong. From a year teeming with standout performances, several noteworthy ones made the greatest impact, though I could probably double this list and be more happy with it. But time is finite (mine and yours) and so here they are: Read More

Kinky ‘Sanctuary’ an Intoxicating Two-Hander That Dominates Audience

May 17, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley, Micah Bloomberg, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sanctuary, Zachary Wigon 1 Comment

It all starts in a hotel room. Hal (Christopher Abbott) orders room service and waits. Enter Rebecca (Margaret Qualley), a whip-smart dominatrix. Qualley, who you may remember from her standout performances in Maid and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, first poses as a lawyer there to “gather information, verify it, and write up a report.” Although it’s all part of a CEO/powerbroker role play, meticulously scripted to the last detail, it’s actually not that far from the truth. This is Sanctuary, a kinky, mentalist dom-sub rom-com, and it’s the stage for Qualley and Abbott’s most intoxicating performances yet. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE NICE GUYS’

May 18, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged David Buckley, John Ottman, Kym Barrett, Margaret Qualley, Out in Theaters, Philippe Rousselot, Reviews, Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Shane Black, The Nice Guys, Yaya DaCosta 5 Comments

Shane Black has been defining and redefining the buddy cop movie since 1987, a year that saw his script for Lethal Weapon green lit under the tutelage of director Richard Donner. It took Black almost 20 years to step behind the directorial chair himself, debuting Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005 and bringing along with him the rebirth of the buddy cop flick and the resurgence of Robert Downey Jr’s career. Now another decade on, Black has returned to the sub-genre that he – like some primordial catalyzing agent – helped evolve throughout the years to present The Nice Guys, 2016’s fly-in-the-face-of-tradition response to the 21st century buddy cop crisis. Read More

THE LEFTOVERS Season 2 Episode 4 “Orange Sticker” Review

October 25, 2015 by Eric Brown Posted in TV Reviews Tagged Ann Dowd, Carrie Coon, Christopher Eccleston, Jovan Adepo, Justin Theroux, Kevin Carroll, Margaret Qualley Leave a comment

Are the leftovers looking for departure? Michael (Jovan Adepo) aggressively scrapes the “verified” sticker off his house because nothing is really verified in Miracle. Michael removes it like a formerly held belief system, but other homes still wear the label if only just to be verified of something. Miracle’s inhabitants are starting to catch up to the foreshadowing in earlier episodes. Read More

THE LEFTOVERS Season 2 Episode 3 “Off Ramp” Review

October 20, 2015 by Eric Brown Posted in TV Reviews Tagged Amy Brenneman, Carrie Coon, Chris Zylka, Margaret Qualley Leave a comment

Laurie Garvey (Amy Brenneman) tries to lead others off ramp when she’s still on the turnpike. She tries to wipe the residue off her current life through the drumming in her head. The drumming of improvised jazz layered over the opening scene is Laurie, presently in a state of ordered chaos coping with what’s leftover. In the third tableaux opening of this season, nobody has moved on. The departed never left. Read More