Support the Girls
Some of this year’s most endearing performances get buried by Andrew Bujalski’s faulty filmmaking in Support the Girls.
Dramedy
Like Father
Having co-founded Hilarity for Charity with her husband, along with appearing in a handful of comedies (For a Good Time, Call…, Sausage Party), Lauren Miller Rogen flexes her filmmaking muscles in her directorial feature debut Like Father, Netflix’s latest dramedy.
Hearts Beat Loud
There seems to be a new trend where every Summer, audiences receive a musically-savvy indie. Two years ago, movie goers relished in Sing Street, followed by Patti Cake$ the year after. This season, move goers will be put under a spell by Hearts Beat Loud, an effortlessly charming and heartwarming dramedy from writer/director Brett Haley (The Hero).
Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2018: ‘Humor Me’
Humor Me is a fine example of how charismatic actors and a promising new filmmaker can rise above ordinary movie mechanics.
Permission
Permission is dressed-up old news. The film looks good and the cast is hip, but the lengths the film will go to explore provocative themes within a relationship are much more common than the film believes.
Suck It Up
Audiences were recently subjected to a tasteless dark comedy about understanding death called Considering Love & Other Magic. Thankfully, movie goers can rebound with Suck It Up, another Canadian indie about comprehending grief that actually sticks its landing thanks to fantastic performances and Jordan Canning’s thoughtful direction.
The Big Sick
Kumail Nanjiani (played by funnyman Kumail Nanjiani) is a Pakistani-American comedian who meets and falls in love with Emily (Zoe Kazan), a graduate student. Their relationship is already threatened by Kumail’s parents’ insistence that he marry a woman from a Pakistani family, when Emily becomes seriously ill. Written by Nanjiani (usually known for his co-star work in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Life as we Know It, and IFC’s Portlandia) and the actor’s wife Emily V. Gordon, The…
The Colossal Failure of the Modern Relationship
Tyler Perry apologists may find pleasurable qualities in Sergio Navarretta’s The Colossal Failure of the Modern Relationship. Then again, even those movie goers have seen this sort of romantic peril too many times by now (the Why Did I Get Married? series).
Win It All
Life can fluctuate, and I believe that’s the point Win It All is trying to make. Then again, filmmaker Joe Swanberg may have just set out to make a straightforward character study, in which case that works too.