Romantic comedies aren’t always my cup of tea. Too often they follow the same idea or story and it feels like they are just the same. But once a year, a little gem appears and takes me by storm. Last year, to me, that was the Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron lead Long Shot. This year, I am pretty sure that it will be The Broken Hearts Gallery. Is it perfect? No, but it just had so much heart and was hilarious. There’s something when you find a film that you go in thinking it will nothing more than a nice little comedy that will take your mind off your life but it becomes more and all of a sudden you find yourself dying of laughter one second and the next you are crying like a baby. That was The Broken Hearts Gallery for me.
Category Archive: Reviews
Road trip movies are fun because it allows the filmmakers to explore their characters in situations that often we don’t find ourselves in. But they need to have interesting characters and relationships but also a premise that can be sustained. Summerland had potential and the acting and relationships are enough to make it something more, the problem is that Summerland can’t hit all the marks it needs too. It finds itself muddled into a story that never finds it’s footing and, quietly frankly, becomes boring when it should be entertaining.
Sometimes just from a premise of a show, you just know something is for you. I usually navigate more towards comedy when it comes to television but sometimes a dramatic show will come and sweep me off my feet. Away comes from a team that I trust. Produced by Matt Reeves (Felicity, The Batman, Cloverfield) and Jason Katims (Roswell, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood) and starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, Million Dollar Baby), it had everything to succeed. My only concern was how one could sustain a drama set during a mission to Mars where most of the show would take place onboard a ship. Well, Away was capable of finding a way and make a show that maybe isn’t always on point but certainly shows it’s potential.
Horror-comedies, especially of the creature-feature variety, have become more and more common in recent years. Films like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland and Jennifer’s Body have come along, setting a pretty high precedent for what these types of movies should be: funny, entertaining and filled to the brim with gore. But like all genres, you also have the lifeless duds that don’t provide more than a few chuckles and rely far too heavily on just being gross. Uncle Peckerhead, written and directed by Matthew John Lawrence, is an absurd little film that falls somewhere in between.
Charlie Kaufman is the person behind so many of my favourite films. After it came out in 2015, Anomalisa was my favourite film of that year. Not to mention the film that got him his Best Original Screenplay Oscar, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Or his debut film as a director, Synedoche, New York which kind of shatters me every single time I see it. So when I found out he was going to make a new feature film, it suddenly became one of my most anticipated films of the year.
I was so excited I even went out and read the book.
All Together Now was not what I thought it would be. I have not read the book the film is based on and so I watched it with simply the premise in the head. To say that it took me by surprise is an understatement. I still don’t know how I would qualify this film, how I could describe it. Going into this film, I thought I was in for a very normal young adult film, the type that we are now used to seeing on Netflix. All Together Now is not that. While there are tonal problems at times, the film doesn’t pull its punches and hits you at every turn in the feelings. Does it feel like it might be too much at times? Yes, it does. But even when it does, the stellar performance from Auli’i Cravalho (Moana) saves the film from going too much into the melodramatic.
When it comes to relationships, everyone has a different perception of what love is and what it looks like. This perception stems from not only our own experiences but from what we’ve seen of others; our parents, our friends, movies, etc. But then we add trauma and baggage into the mix and that’s what changes everything. It can take things out of our control and end up sabotaging those relationships and this idea of love that we had to begin with switches up with every relationship that we enter. This is what the film Cicada examines and believe me when I say, it is quite the rollercoaster.
When Netflix released the first season of Trinkets last year, I felt like I was one of the last to hear about it along with even caring enough to watch it. If we’re being honest the marketing wasn’t great and it felt like it was going to be another cheesy, poorly executed high school drama that we’ve seen over and over again. While it was at times cheesy, the execution and story was much better than anyone could have anticipated and many of us were left craving more. Well, we finally got it and to start this off I have to admit, it surpassed all my expectations in the best ways possible.
When Netflix saved Lucifer, I was overjoyed. Lucifer might have started as a simple procedural show that, yes, involved the devil, but the world-building that the show now relies so heavily on didn’t happen until it’s second season really. Over four seasons, Lucifer was able to introduce so much while also keeping its case of the week formula and build a rich world. Now with what I like to call “Netflix Money” the show is able to go bigger and it shows. With season 5 being divided in two and having been filmed with the idea that it would be their last season, even if now we know it will be getting a season six, Lucifer tries to hit the ground running with its first half of the season and while it stumbles at times, the charm of the show stays the same and the magnetic performances save it from itself.
For a long time, I avoided watching this film. The imagery associated with the film absolutely terrified me. And it had reason to do so, it’s a deeply unsettling film, but it’s also one of the most gorgeous looking unsettling films I’ve seen in a while.
The UnderSCENE 