By: Jolie Featherstone Adorable funnyman and prolific Hollywood actor Randall Park (seriously, look at his IMDB page) makes his feature film directorial debut with the much-anticipated Shortcomings, based on the lauded graphic novel series by Adrian Tomine who also adapted the screenplay.
Primarily known for her Emmy award winning roles on TV’s Seinfeld and Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ recent feature work has more than suggested that she’s the go-to actor to portray inescapable awkwardness in situational comedy. While Downhill and You People may have succeeded in securing broader laughs, writer/director Nicole Holofcener’s latest dramedy You Hurt My Feelings gives Louis-Dreyfus the opportunity to be more confrontational, allowing her to dig deeper into a character’s take on personal betrayal.
I Like Movies, a coming-of-age dramedy set in the early-2000s, alternates between the double life of 17-year-old Burlington native Lawrence Kweller (Isiah Lehtinen): an outspoken high school senior and an obsessive film buff at his local video store, Sequels Video, who is simply trying to fit in. Lawrence is an opinionated know-it-all under both roofs, but he feels more in his element at Sequels and is elated when they finally hire him on as an…
When You Finish Saving the World is about human connectivity and how big personalities are interpreted through alternative perspectives. It checks out that these elements are featured in Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut, an Oscar nominated performer who seems to be attracted to these themes when reflecting on his previous work.
Set in the early-2000s, I Like Movies alternates between the double life of 17-year-old Burlington native Lawrence Kweller (Isiah Lehtinen) as an outspoken high school senior and an obsessive film buff at his local video store, Sequels Video. Lawrence is an opinionated know-it-all under both roofs, but he feels more in his element at Sequels and is elated when they finally hire him on as an employee.
Conceived and recorded primarily through a video chat platform, Stephanie Laing’s Family Squares attempts to connect with movie goers who have lost loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been restricted from a personal goodbye.
Run Woman Run is a sweet and charming dramatic comedy about family, community, healing, and grief. Written and directed by Zoe Leigh Hopkins (Kayak to Klemtu), Run Woman Run stars Dakota Ray Hebert (In Her City) as Beck, a single mom who is forced to re-examine her lifestyle after she is diagnosed with diabetes. While her father (Lorne Cardinal of Corner Gas) and sister (The Exchange’s Jayli Wolf) beg Beck to start eating right and exercising,…
June Again is a pretty good movie that’s headlined by the first excellent performance of the year.
Every so often, an overly confident filmmaker comes along to lighten the mood around taboos. There was Josh Lawson’s comedic approach to bizarre sexual fetishes in The Little Death, then Dave Schultz’s tasteless handling of suicide and death in Considering Love & Other Magic, and now Stephen Wallis with Defining Moments, an exhausting flume of individual stories dealing with heavy subject matter (like mental health) and the writer/director’s unbearably quirky perspective.
