Review: ‘Together Together’ Tells Powerful Stories We Need to Hear

Some of the best films aren’t necessarily smart, but they’re “sneaky-smart.” You go into them thinking you know what you’re getting into, and feeling impatient as a result, because the movie conspicuously makes choices that seem intended to announce which boxes it’s about to check off. Nicole Beckwith’s Together Together is exactly like this. The inquiries that open the film – “have you ever stolen anything?” “Are you religious?” “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” – don’t spring from a painfully intrusive first date at all. Rather, as protagonist Anna (Patti Harrison) spills her proclivity for thieving pens to the perplexed Matt (Ed Helms), she’s interviewing to become his surrogate. While previously briefly covered in the club’s SIFF 2021 escapade, this delightful indie comedy has now hit streaming services this week, and upon watching it a second time I am proud to both give Together Together a proper review and call it one of my favorite films of 2021 so far.

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Review: ‘Army of the Dead’ May Be Zack Snyder’s Most Fun Film

In the opening credits of Zack Snyder’s newest feature Army of the Dead, you can nearly feel the director’s giddy smile stretching across the hedonistic melee. In Las Vegas, flesh-eating zombies are beginning to outnumber the casinos. And they’re consuming unsuspecting tourists just as quickly. Cannibalistic showgirls prowl for prey. Slot-machine junkies bundling up their remaining pittance dodge the newly infected. A dimwitted Elvis impersonator, wig askew, looks blankly over the carnage as the real Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” plays in the background the zany bloodshed. It’s the rare instance where a film’s climax occurs in the first few minutes.

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