cheap disulfiram online As Michael Clayton and Nightcrawler illustrated, Dan Gilroy is masterful at portraying the horrific underbelly of human nature. When it comes to outright  horror, though, his artistic style seems a little rough around the edges.

Such is the mixed result of his fun-but-flawed latest work, Velvet Buzzsaw, which premiered at Sundance last week before settling into full run on Netflix. Directing his third film, Gilroy delivers a wonderful sendup of the cultural elite and the air-kissing art-world they inhabit. But when the movie attempts to morph from satire to savagery, the lines begins to smudge.

Reuniting his Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo,  the movie  opens at Basel, the actual, annual bazaar of million-dollar art-buying in Miami Beach. Floating through the gallery in a Brian de Palma-style sweep, Gilroy introduces most of the main characters: Gyllenhaal’s high-handed critic Morf Vandewalt; L.A. gallery owner Rhodora Haze (Gilroy’s real-life wife Russo); her oily  competitor Jon Dondon (Tom Sturridge); ambitious assistant Josephina (Zawe Ashton); art handler Bryson (Billy Magnusson); and museum executive Gretchen (Toni Collette), a piranha of an art consultant. We also meet Piers (John Malkovich) and Damrish (Daveed Diggs), two art stars on opposing ends of their career arcs.

As they bicker and flatter emptily, the dynamics between them begin to crystallize: all are in desperate need to secure their place in the backstabbing art-house hierarchy. It doesn’t take much of a leap to see Gilroy is skewering the pretentiousness of his own industry, and the clever jabs land squarely: Bryson brags he glued the cereal nuggets on “Froot Loops Hippo,” and a bitter Piers complains that today’s art looks like ink smeared by balloons (a shot at Jeff Koons, who has made millions on sculptures resembling balloon animals).

But when an elderly shut-in neighbor of Josephina’s dies, leaving an apartment full of disturbing and compelling paintings, the film takes a John Carpenter-esqe turn, and Velvet‘s hand gets shaky.  Through some clumsy exposition, we learn the artist suffered horrific abuse, followed by criminal insanity, followed by work that is to die for — literally.

While Gilroy’s satiric shots at consumerism and criticism keep the film afloat (Morf, ever the critic, is mortified by the color of a coffin during a funeral ceremony), the gruesome deaths that befall those who profit off the dead artist make Velvet feel like a haute Final Destination. The deaths are increasingly clever, but the second half of the movie feels like a paint-by-numbers chiller.

Velvet never takes itself as seriously as its artists do, which keeps the film, ultimately, outrageous and enjoyable. And cinematographer Robert Elswit’s shots of Los Angeles’ nighttime skylines are more picturesque than the overpriced art for sale.

But by the time the final body drops, Velvet  plays like a horror flick sequel: The concept is fun, though still derivative of the clever original.

High Flying Bird fittingly resembles a no-look pass in basketball: unexpected, deftly maneuvered, and usually resulting in a score. And while Steven Soderbergh’s latest movie accomplishes most of the achievements of the flashy pass — including a score — it isn’t quite a slam dunk.

There’s no denying the basketball drama was unexpected, on a couple levels. First, it proved reports of Soderbergh’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, primarily by Soderbergh. He announced to New York Magazine in 2013 that he was done with film because of Hollywood’s shabby treatment of directors and emphasis on profit.

“Just to be clear, I won’t be directing ‘cinema,’ for lack of a better word,” he told the magazine in January 2013. “But I still plan to direct — theater stuff, and I’d do a TV series if something great were to come along.”

Soderbergh was either bluffing or trying to build buzz for projects, because he’s been anything but idle the last six years. He directed Logan Lucky in 2017, 27 episodes of The Knick and Mosaic for TV, and two movies in the past two years, last year’s Unsane and Friday’s Bird, which premiered on Netflix.  But grant him this: He is rebelling somewhat against the film industry. Both Unsane and Bird were shot using iPhones.

And while his filming gadgets of choice feel (and occasionally look) gimmicky, there’s no denying Soderbergh’s mastery of the medium. Topical,  tautly-written and showcasing the director’s love of disruption, this story of the economic battle between NBA owners and players marks his best work in years.

Roma, Alfonso Cuarón’s latest masterpiece, wears several hats: It’s part homage to his Mexican upbringing, part love poem to his nanny and part examination of the political and social schisms of his country in the 1970s.

It’s also something of a Hollywood double agent.

The black-and-white film, which is garnering substantial Oscar buzz, underscores the latest power struggle over who holds sway over the industry’s biggest movies: streaming services or theaters. The question is nothing new for Hollywood, but the film marks the fiercest battle yet in the struggle for audiences, whose attendance has flat-lined in recent years.

To qualify for Oscar consideration, a film must make at least a two-week run in theaters in New York or Los Angeles. So Netflix, which produced Roma, gave it a brief vanity run on the big screen before returning it to the small, setting up a duel between traditional exhibitors and executives at streaming outlets, which have been expanding as competitors such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple ramp up original content.

Essentially, Roma needed movie theaters to battle movie theaters.

And while streaming outlets have already changed the landscape for television awards (Netflix won seven Emmys at last year’s awards, while Amazon claimed five), Oscar remains the gold standard among laurels.

Already, skirmishes for smaller Oscars have broken out between studios and streamers. Amazon and Casey Affleck picked up a Best Actor Oscar for 2016’s Manchester by the Sea, while Allison Janney won Best Supporting Actress for I, Tonya last year after Neon productions turned down Netflix in favor of a theatrical run.

But a Best Picture statue could alter the landscape permanently. Studios and actors prefer the big-screen experience and argue it remains the art’s truest form. And a Best Picture nomination is no guarantee for Roma (although it’s one of the year’s best-reviewed movies, with a 96% thumbs-up rating on Rotten Tomatoes). The film is subtitled with an unknown cast, possibly limiting it to a Best Foreign Picture nod.

On the other hand, it’s directed by Cuarón, a previous Oscar winner and awards darling. And, as Joe Pichirallo, a former executive at Fox Searchlight Pictures and a professor at NYU told NPR, audience size may soon trump audience experience.

“Suddenly (Cuarón’s) film can be seen right away, in 190 countries around the world, at a potential audience of 130 million people,” he said. “Roma is now being taken seriously, at least right at this stage. It’s still early. But right now Roma is being talked about as a serious Oscar contender.”