Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) Movie Review: Hope in a dark ass world, man

What would you do if your daughter was raped and murdered a little ways from home? Then, salt in a wound, the cops do little to help. You sit and wait and wonder why life needs to go on like that. So you put up three billboards asking why.

    That's the central idea behind this acerbic story of justice and growth and getting on after tragedy. Man, I have very little funny to say about this drama that forces you to look at darkness with an unflinching eye.

    The stand out roles here are Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell. And look, there's nobody "innocent" in this movie. Nobody deserves what they do or do not get. McDormand's character forces an issue that is open-ended. A mystery without a villain. And Rockwell, he plays a racist, misogynist piece of shit that by the end tries to do good. Tries to make some amends.

    There's paragraphs that could be written here about naturalism and purity of characters. Do you shoehorn some folks in or just let them fly? Do you let them say as many fucks as they want or sanitize the whole thing for an audience that wants to bring the family?

    You know what, fuck all that. Sometimes you have to see the world as a dark and broken place and find hope in the fact that there is a thing such as hope in the first place. That's reality sometimes and it sucks.

    Also, go on dates with Peter Dinklage and have sex with your partner in the woods. Cause you never know.

Burn After Reading (2008) Movie Review: You don't know shit. Or the shit.

You find a CD full of secrets and are in need of a great deal of money. Let's say your daughter needs surgery. If you don't have a daughter, let's say you need surgery. If you would just let yourself die, well, then, fuck you I'm not talking to you, print this out and give it to someone who cares.

    What I'm saying, you find government secrets. What do you do? Turn them in? Try to get some money for them?

    That's the situation in this Coen Brothers blackest of black comedies. Linda (McDormand) and her dumbass friend Chad (Pitt) go after the money of Cox (Malkovich) not knowing he has no money. Also George Clooney is fucking everybody. I don't remember his characters name.

    This is the best version of a fiasco, summed up in the end by a character asking another what the hell was going on the whole time, something I'm sure the audience is meant to ask. The other character shrugs. Such is life.

    Should you watch this movie? I'm supposed to tell you this, but I don't know you. You might like straightforward, white hats and black hats fighting it out and ending in a kiss and a quip. But this ain't James Bond. This is Frank Bond, the lesser Bond film that might have one time written a song for a soundtrack but otherwise rambles on until its done.