9/26-10/2

Allan Pakula's KLUTE //

P. T. Anderson's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER //

Steven Soderbergh's BLACK BAG //

Hypercompetent (hot) people portrayed by hypercompetent (hot) performers. A smart script and a tight one to boot—it clocks in at just over 90 minutes. What's not to like?

Andrew DeYoung's FRIENDSHIP //

I love Tim Robinson skits, but there's a reason why most of them are like 3-5 minutes long. The longer a cringe comic fumbles spends time in a [more-or-less] realistic universe populated by [more-or-less] straight foils, the more you have to start showing the medium- and long-term consequences of their actions—and those mostly ain't funny. You could ride this out to its logical dark endpoint, crossing the line into thriller or even horror, and in its best moments FRIENDSHIP seems like it's ramping up to "go there," but in its final act it loses its nerve. As it flails about in search of jokes, the character psychologies get flimsier, the actions less plausible, and the final outcomes ultimately feel pretty hedged.