A Sexy Blog

If The Amateur is what happens when “Mr. Robot” and “Jason Bourne” cross DNA with too little care for the ugly offspring, this is a child born of genre cliché and laughs in the face of plausibility. Call it Mr. Squirrel: The Euro-Tour of Absurdity, Rami Malek’s twitchy everyman hacking government files by day and unmasked terrorism by night, in a world where Interpol has apparently decided to go on holiday, the CIA chases its own tail, and not a single Parisian security official or Spanish detective can be bothered to even blink at an American cryptographer detonating pools and bodies in their midst.

Argo isn’t merely a tense, glossy recounting of a CIA caper, it’s Hollywood’s sneakiest sleight-of-hand on itself, a canny distillation of the movies' perpetual promise and perennial absurdity. I went into Affleck’s film without foreknowledge, as untutored as the embassy staffers in their makeshift hideout, and the result was a giddy, queasy experience, poised on a knife-edge between farce and terror. “Based on a true story,” it insists, an audacious phrase in this context, considering what follows.

How delicious, in this era of franchise bloat and less-than-simple sequels, to be handed a second helping that leaves you sated rather than queasy. If Paul Feig's Another Simple Favor is a cocktail, it's one shaken with a confidence, a dash of vermouth and a twist of lemon, sipped poolside in Capri while the bodies float by (sometimes literally, sometimes, more enjoyably, in spirit). Rarely does a film invite the audience to marvel at its gorgeous surface and still let them dive, giggling, into its undertow. Here, we have that rare, effervescent tonic: a thriller that dresses up as a comedy, or the other way 'round; a parade of “thrills” that remembers to be, above all, fun.

There are films that, like a splashy dinner party hosted between power surges, seem to teeter joyfully on the brink of self-immolation: too bright, too eager, altogether too much. A Simple Favor, Paul Feig’s giddy, knowing leap into nonsensical noir (with quotation marks around both “noir” and “knowing”), belongs to that breed. One watches it, if one watches it at all, and I admit I was blissfully unaware of its existence until the 2025 sequel crept up like a podcast auto-play, and feels at once the tug of modern anxieties and the shriek of a fashionista’s ringtone: Are we to be shocked, amused, or both at these women’s deadly games of friendship and deception?

There’s a special kind of letdown reserved for sequels to movies that had no business being as bracing as they were. The Accountant (2016) was, in its own chilly way, a genre cocktail so sharp it could clean wounds, a pulpy thriller where Ben Affleck’s Christian Wolff moved through the world with the precision of a human abacus lashed to a suppressed scream. The violence, when it landed, felt both willed and suffered; every bruise, a mark on his actuarial soul. It was a film content to be odd, morose, even embarrassing in its sincerity, neurosis and action stitched together with genuine ache for difference.

There are movies which, with all their gloss and calculated ambition, remain pieces of machinery, oiled and in motion, but never quite alive. The Accountant is not one of those. It rumbles, clicks, and suddenly roars as if its protagonist’s sharp edges were etched with lightning, each narrative gear turning inevitably toward violence and revelation. That familiar yet unexpected pleasure, the sensation of a genre movie actually delivering on its promises, finds a rare showcase here. For once, the machine’s hum is exhilarating.

When I first learned about Adolescence, a four-episode British miniseries released by Netflix on March 13, 2025, I anticipated a serious examination of contemporary youth issues, particularly those surrounding toxic masculinity, incel culture, and social media influence. With a talented creative team led by co-creators Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham—who also stars—the series promised an intense, immersive viewing experience. The compelling premise of following a teenage boy accused of murder, filmed entirely in single continuous takes, heightened my expectations regarding technical mastery and emotional depth. Knowing Graham’s previous work in Boiling Point, I was prepared for a raw, visceral journey that would challenge and disturb but also enlighten.

In The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi peels back the gold plating of 1970s New York to reveal an America composed of equal parts ambition and predatory cunning—think Gatsby’s green light flickering in the distance, but this time the dream has a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and the ghostly tutelage of Roy Cohn smoking in the corner. This isn’t just a biopic about Donald Trump’s rise: it’s an X-ray of the American id, and Abbasi seems determined to make us squeamish about what we see.

In the bustling cinematic world of Hong Kong, where triad films emerge as frequently as news broadcasts, Wong Jing's "A True Mob Story," starring the indomitable Andy Lau, attempts to carve its niche. With the film's ambitious title promising an unprecedented glimpse into organized crime, one might expect a groundbreaking narrative. Instead, what unfolds feels more like a repetitive performance from the annals of triad cinema. The film's central themes are loyalty, betrayal, and redemption—territories as familiar as weary travelers on a well-worn path. Yet, thanks to Andy Lau's magnetic portrayal of Wai Kat-cheung, the film manages to breathe some life into its well-trodden journey.

When I stumbled upon the 2024 action flick "Aftermath," directed by Patrick Lussier and starring Mason Gooding, Dylan Sprouse, Megan Stott, and Dichen Lachman, I braced myself for a thrill ride filled with suspense and explosive action. Instead, what I got was a front-row seat to a demolition derby of filmmaking: a spectacular collision of bad scriptwriting, painful performances, and puzzling plot choices that could run circles around any B-movie cache.