TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Despite its seemingly straightforward title, Martin McDonagh's new masterpiece doesn't take place in Ebbing, Missouri. It takes place in a slightly alternative world, where everybody is just slightly meaner to one another, slightly more profane in their vocabulary, but is simultaneously slightly smarter than any dialogue you're likely to hear in a movie this year. I call it "McDonaghland," and you should buy your tickets for admission ASAP, because Three Billboards is so far my favorite movie of the year. It may not reach the heights of McDonagh's directorial debut, In Bruges , which I still hold as one of the finest scripts ever produced, but boy does Three Billboards soar. It has the simplest of premises: Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), unsatisfied with the police investigation of the rape and death of her daughter, buys three billboards worth of space to call out the Ebbing police force, singling out Chief William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) by name. ...

I'm a sucker for coming of age movies. "Meatballs," "Stand by Me," "My Girl" just to name a few of my favorites. Perhaps it's because I'm not quite done growing up, so I like seeing other go through with that struggle, if not just to confirm I'm not alone. I've been on a Netflix kick of the show "Freaks and Geeks," entirely devoted to chronicling high school children face obstacles in 1980's Michigan. So high school movies especially are my bread and butter (note "Perks of Being a Wallflower") but give me a story where a kid finds himself in a water park and I'm down. I'm especially down if the co-director/writers/actors/executive producers of the movie Jim Rash and Nat Faxon are involved. They co-wrote one of my favorite films of all time, "The Descendants," the gorgeous Hawaiian set tale of a man coming to grips with his comatose wife. This is a pretty big 180 from that film, about a boy nam...