Ah, the struggle of making it in life after having two kids before age 18 and serving a jail sentence, but also nursing a burning desire to make it big in country music when you live in Scotland. A tall order! Rose (Buckley) is just such a girl who seems not to have much, but is richly […]
Nowadays, we seldom get an intelligent comedy—not only in the sense of being well constructed—but one sprinkled throughout with philosophical and literary references that are to the point yet still funny, at least in the way the main character quotes them, and to whom (like a bank teller who hasn’t the foggiest notion of what
Emma Thompson’s Miranda Priestly-like performance is what you’ll buy a ticket to see, but Mindy Kaling’s razor-sharp script is what gives you your money’s worth. One of the breakout films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, one that caused a bidding war, “Late Night” is another film with dual female leads (which is becoming a wonderfully
Olivia Wilde’s directorial feature debut could have easily been the gender-flipped version of “Superbad” with lame jokes and crude humor. However written by four females who understand what teenage comedies have been missing, inject “Booksmart” with wit, savvy, and quotable dialogue. As an actress Wilde has been hit or miss when it comes to comedy,
Whether you realize it or not, “Long Shot” is “Notting Hill” re-imagined. Of course, “Notting Hill” was just a modern day, gender-flipped “Cinderella.” The screenplay isn’t written by Rogen, yet it’s the typical Rogen weird-guy-lands-the-hot-girl story, with plenty of vulgar masturbation jokes and illegal drug use. The timing for a film about running for president
Hawke re-connects with “Born to be Blue” director Robert Budreau for the wackiest bank robbery since “Bandits” (2011). “Stockholm” happens to be a comedic retelling of the 1973 bank robbery that led to the coining of the term Stockholm syndrome, despite much of the reality being altered for the film. “Stockholm” is often quite entertaining thanks
Part of the 2017 Toronto Film Festival “New Wave” series, Oscar winning actress Brie Larson made her directorial debut with “Unicorn Store”. A welcome surprise and a more impressive actor-turned-director film than Andy Serkis’ “Breathe” which also debuted at the festival that year. Yet no distributor would buy the film, even with an Oscar winner
“Isn’t It Romantic” might be the first film to successfully please both those who despise romantic comedies and those who love them. Director Todd Strauss-Schulson describes his new film as “a romantic comedy about falling in love with yourself.” The script simultaneously makes fun of every popular romantic comedy of the past 20 years while pointing
It’s been nearly two decades since Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt starred in the original “What Women Want”. That PG-13 romantic comedy didn’t have much to say beyond basic romantic clichés and playing off Gibson’s popularity at the time. “What Men Want” is a different film altogether. It’s rated-R, giving Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson
No, this isn’t a sequel to “Maid in Manhattan,” you know, the other Jennifer Lopez movie where she is a poor working class New Yorker who finds herself in a lie that allows her to live among the wealthy elite until the truth comes out. No, “Second Act” is very different. It’s a movie about