#elle-getty — Public Fediverse posts

The Review of a Film Few Will Recall the Name of, but boy, what a film! ‘The Rivals of Amziah King’ film review

A foot-stomping introduction sets the rhythm for The Rivals of Amziah King, a beautifully crafted Southern tale of community, loyalty, crime… and honey, all with Matthew McConaughey at its folksy, charismatic centre.

As night falls over a small Oklahoma town, Amziah King (McConaughey) pulls his pickup truck into the local burger joint, where friends gather with guitars, fiddle, banjo and drums for an impromptu acoustic jam sesh. Even the local cops can’t resist rocking up for a bit of toe-tapping. The music isn’t merely background noise; it establishes the film’s pulse. If Mumford & Sons is your thing, prepare for some enjoyment here.

The plot wastes little time getting underway, opening with a honey heist that introduces an intriguing mixture of drama, mystery and crime. From there, we’re taken on a winding journey through the Oklahoma countryside, where bees and their honey become a metaphor for the community itself: everyone has a role, everyone is connected, and disturb the hive at your peril.

Our protagonist’s world is further complicated when he is reunited with a former foster child, Kateri, played by Native American actor Angelina LookingGlass, whom Amziah and his late wife once cared for. Their chance reunion eventually draws her back into the honey business — and, perhaps more importantly, gives her a sense of having found home again.

The film gradually reveals its characters and the complicated relationships that bind this community together. One of its most delightful sequences is a pot-luck dinner in the local community hall, where personalities emerge through shared stories, good food and plenty of laughter. McConaughey’s Amziah is the kind of character you could happily listen to spinning yarns all afternoon.

There is plenty of humour, too. A school lockdown caused by a swarm of bees is initially absurdly funny, until the situation reminds us how quickly things can turn dangerous.

Then there’s the town’s kingpin, played with cheek by Kurt Russell. Like the queen bee at the centre of a hive, his influence is everywhere — but underneath the surface lies exploitation, violence and a darker side to the community.

Director Andrew Patterson brings an almost hypnotic beauty to the Oklahoma landscape, with the cinematography here capturing both the majesty of nature and the intricate world of the bees – some of the most underrated species in all of biological study. There are echoes of the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a touch of Quentin Tarantino’s darkly comic violence, and even some Guy Ritchie-style camera flourishes and freeze frames.

Some may argue that The Rivals of Amziah King could have been shorter. One fellow moviegoer even suggested cutting some of the music.

Hell no.

The music, characters, community and enormous heart are precisely what make this film work. Like a good hive, everything is connected — and it’s best experienced by settling in and letting the whole thing buzz around you.

Elle Getty & Antonino Tati

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Cream magazine founding editor Antonino Tati with video master and friend, Michael Jepson. It’s all Uni’s fault that we’re this way.

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Mango Adonis

Siân Alison

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Elle Getty

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Antonino Tati

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Guess whose fucking up dinner? ‘The Invite’ takes the dinner-party-from-hell film to next level sh!tstorm

Dinner-party-from-hell films aren’t new, but The Invite goes hard on the chaos factor, and that’s not a bad thing in the genre of comedy.

What begins as a slick, slightly smug evening between a “perfect” couple and their neighbour quickly spirals into something far messier: a slow, wine-soaked unravelling of ego, resentment and long-buried truths. Basically all those thoughts that hide behind a neighbour’s smile.

A supposedly happy, married couple (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan) invites their noisy neighbours from the apartment above for drinks, and to show off their newly renovated apartment. What could possible go wrong? A lot.

Hawke, an ex-fireman (played by Edward Norton) and Pina, a sexologist (Penelope Cruz) are the boisterous neighbours – a couple so handsome in their pairing, they’ve probably gotten away with worse anywhere they’ve lived. But here, truth is about to be told. It doesn’t take long after much wine, cheese and weed to see the event turn into a shitstorm.

Cruz plays the perfect wife with all the bored nuances of a mouse on crack. Every tick and trait of a person watching their ambition and life whiz by without actually getting in the driver’s seat. Renovations, you can tell, were not the answer. 

Her hubbie, Joe (Seth Rogan), is so comfortable in his character of a dude whose early days in a rock band didn’t quite eventuate into anything, except perhaps inspiring a fraction of the classes he gives as a grumpy college music teacher.

This couple’s chemistry is less sparks of romance, and more stuck in emotional stand-off. And the film thrives in this discomfort. Conversations turn sharp, silences stretch, and every laugh lands with a wince. It’s funny, yes, but it’s the kind of humour that cuts close to home, holding up a mirror to modern relationships and the myths we build around them.

By the time the night implodes, The Invite asks a lingering question: are we brave enough to change, or just good at pretending we will?

Elle Getty & Antonino Tati

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Out 07/07.

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Rate this:

Guess whose fucking up dinner? ‘The Invite’ takes the dinner-party-from-hell film to next level sh!tstorm

Dinner-party-from-hell films aren’t new, but The Invite goes hard on the chaos factor, and that’s not a bad thing in the genre of comedy.

What begins as a slick, slightly smug evening between a “perfect” couple and their neighbour quickly spirals into something far messier: a slow, wine-soaked unravelling of ego, resentment and long-buried truths. Basically all those thoughts that hide behind a neighbour’s smile.

A supposedly happy, married couple (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan) invites their noisy neighbours from the apartment above for drinks, and to show off their newly renovated apartment. What could possible go wrong? A lot.

Hawke, an ex-fireman (played by Edward Norton) and Pina, a sexologist (Penelope Cruz) are the boisterous neighbours – a couple so handsome in their pairing, they’ve probably gotten away with worse anywhere they’ve lived. But here, truth is about to be told. It doesn’t take long after much wine, cheese and weed to see the event turn into a shitstorm.

Cruz plays the perfect wife with all the bored nuances of a mouse on crack. Every tick and trait of a person watching their ambition and life whiz by without actually getting in the driver’s seat. Renovations, you can tell, were not the answer. 

Her hubbie, Joe (Seth Rogan), is so comfortable in his character of a dude whose early days in a rock band didn’t quite eventuate into anything, except perhaps inspiring a fraction of the classes he gives as a grumpy college music teacher.

This couple’s chemistry is less sparks of romance, and more stuck in emotional stand-off. And the film thrives in this discomfort. Conversations turn sharp, silences stretch, and every laugh lands with a wince. It’s funny, yes, but it’s the kind of humour that cuts close to home, holding up a mirror to modern relationships and the myths we build around them.

By the time the night implodes, The Invite asks a lingering question: are we brave enough to change, or just good at pretending we will?

Elle Getty & Antonino Tati

My new delicious Yo-Chi frozen yogurt hack

Charli XCX set to cover a lot of ground on her new album, and with the Triple-A access she’s had to all the cool parties, we just know the cameos and references on this one are going to be masssssssive

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Why Madonna’s Fitbit stats must be off the charts, and will the oversaturation for new album ‘Confessions II’ pay off?

THE CREAM WINTER ESSENTIALS GUIDE 2026

Out 07/07.

Dua Lipa pushes for free speech in literature, opening a library fully dedicated to stocking banned and censored books

Hands in the air for a ‘Romy and Michele’ movie sequel is finally in production

Rate this: