It's 1994 and 13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) is living in L.A. with his bully of a brother and clueless mother. His life sucks until he meets a group of older teens into skateboarding. He hangs around until they welcome him into their slacker lifestyle. The Movie Slut was hoping for lots of cool 90s music and nifty skateboarding. Alas she was disappointed on both accounts. And the banal, sophomoric conversations were quite a bore, particularly when the character nicknamed Fuck Shit opened his mind. Still, there were scenes that elevated the film, including Stevie's Rocky-like attempts to master the skateboard, and an early morning scene in which the ragtag group skateboard along the median of a roadway as the day awakens. The Movie Slut was not impressed by this flick written and directed by actor Jonah Hill. Perhaps she's not its target audience.

Gun violence. Police brutality. We've seen it, heard about it, lamented over it. What's new about this excellent heart-wrenching movie is that it takes us into the life of someone who suffers first-hand because of it. Her name is Starr Carter (an amazing Amandla Stenberg). She's sixteen when her oldest, dearest friend is shot to death in her presence by a jittery young policeman. Starr has grown up knowing the danger of such injustice, but nothing has prepared her for its impact. The movie follows her ambivalence about going public with her information and her transformation from frightened teen to a brave, determined activist, who reminded the Movie Slut of the Marjory  Stoneman Douglas students who survived the mass school shooting and are devoted to ending this outrage. The movie, based on a bestselling YA novel by Angie Thomas, is all the richer for painting a realistic portrait of the community, people, and issues involved. It's real. So real it hurts. But it shoul

French director Jacques Audiard brings us the best Western since...forever. The brothers (John C. Reilly & Joaquin Phoenix) are hit men during the California gold rush and unwitting employees of a creep known as The Commodore. It's 1851 and they're in pursuit of a guy with a so-called foolproof formula for finding the shiny stuff. A detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) is also on this gold diggers trail. The beauty of this flick is in the vast green expanses and jutting mountain ridges of the West and within the hearts and souls of the four men who come together on this fool's errand. Sure there's violence. But never gratuitous. Merci, Jacques for giving the Movie Slut this cinematic gem.

Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman & Cynthia Erivo The Movie Slut had a love/hate/love relationship with this Coen Brothers-meet-Quentin Tarantino movie. She loved the first and last thirds of the flick. In the middle, she contemplated walking out. The story revolves around seven strangers who arrive at a run-down hotel on the California/Nevada border. They share one thing in common. They all have dark pasts. Except maybe John Hamm, who's a federal agent investigating who knows what? Hamm is the only actor with a comic edge in the movie and MS thinks it would have benefited if others were equally quirky. Still in the end, it all comes together quite beautifully, and is greatly enriched by the soulful performance of Cynthia Erivo, a British singer, actress, and Tony Award winner. Also in the excellent cast: Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, and Chris Hemsworth.

Here's one reason to see this based-on-a-true-story flick: Robert Redford in a fedora. The story is okay: A guy who committed 17 robberies, went to jail 17 times, and smiled throughout. In this movie, he meets a gal (Sissy Spacek) who, despite her law-abiding ways, falls for him.  But then, he is Robert Redford in a fedora. In real life, it seems the guy became a bit of a folk hero, but the movie doesn't make much of that. It focuses instead on the detective (Casey Affleck) who can't get a grip on the slippery character. The Movie Slut wishes this movie about a guy with a gun had more bang. But then, it does have Robert Redford in a fedora.