By: Shannon Page Sibling filmmakers Ravi and Geeta Patel’s Meet the Patels is a feel-good documentary/romantic comedy hybrid that achieves everything that it sets out to do. The film, which began as a home video of a trip that the Patel family took to India, follows Ravi’s journey to find the woman of his dreams while navigating the expectations of his Indian-American family as well as his own connection to his cultural and heritage. It…
By: Addison Wylie How to Make Love Like an Englishman is such a long title. A shorter alternative would be: Weekend Matinée for Mom and Dad. Like last year’s cloying And So It Goes, Tom Vaughan’s rom-com is a film that uses the likability of its stars as counter programming to attract movie goers – primarily older ones who want to spend the tail end of Summer distancing themselves from bombastic blockbusters. Luckily, How to Make…
By: Addison Wylie Trainwreck is much more than a vehicle for rising comedic star Amy Schumer. It’s easily Judd Apatow’s strongest work as a filmmaker, evidence that Schumer’s honesty flows through her long form screenwriting, and the best romantic comedy this critic has seen since 2008’s criminally underrated Definitely, Maybe. Definitely, Maybe is a standard sort of rom-com, where Trainwreck sends home the same type of charm but also reflects contemporary pessimism towards romance. It…
By: Addison Wylie American gross-out comedies were so popular during the birth of the 2000s, Canadian cinema hopped on board. I vividly remember Mark Griffiths’ road trip flick Going the Distance and Dave Thomas’ workplace scrub clad comedy Intern Academy being released in 2004, and producing piddly groans. Canadian filmmakers are hitting another “monkey see, monkey do” phase as movie goers flock towards the comedic chops of Judd Apatow and his filmmaking protégés. Just like…
By: Addison Wylie I went into After the Ball already admiring three of its main stars: director Sean Garrity, co-writer Kate Melville, and actress Portia Doubleday. After the Ball isn’t a type of film I get excited to see, but these are three people I’ve been wanting to see more of ever since they’re strong debuts. Garrity impressed me with his slow burn drama Blood Pressure, yet temporarily lost me when his filmmaking pizazz was…
By: Addison Wylie Playing It Cool has its cake and eats it too, and knows damn well what it’s doing. However, director Justin Reardon is no David Wain or Charlie Kaufman, and Playing It Cool is nowhere near as clever as They Came Together or Adaptation. Reardon ventures into feature films with this smug rom-com send-up involving a bitter screenwriter (played by Chris Evans) who is given the task of writing a romantic comedy. He…
By: Addison Wylie “If a movie does nothing wrong, does that make it a movie that does everything right?” I asked myself that during The F Word, and afterwards when I was developing my overall feelings towards Michael Dowse’s Toronto bound romantic comedy. The F Word does the trick, and goes through the hoops it needs to in order to please its general audience. We have two likeable leads (Wallace and Chantey played by Daniel…
By: Addison Wylie The conception of a movie like And So It Goes doesn’t so much start with an outline or a series of ideas. It begins with a demand no one has demanded; except for zealous producers who think they know their desired demographic. The general public likes Michael Douglas and those same patrons are most likely to enjoy watching Diane Keaton. The brains behind And So It Goes have taken these two variables…
By: Addison Wylie I bet if we scoured filmmaker David Wain’s DVD collection, we would find romantic comedies. A lot of them. It takes a certain kind of guilty affection to lampoon a genre this immaculately. That’s what the absurdist has done with fellow writing cohort Michael Showalter. The two collaborated on the cult hit Wet Hot American Summer – which took the piss out of camp movies – and now they go for the…
By: Addison Wylie Seth MacFarlane is known for pushing the limits. He practically takes over FOX every Sunday night with various animation programs that would make your parents cup their own ears. He’s also shown his naughty side with his feature film debut hit Ted, a crass comedy about a friend and his talking – occasionally drunk and high – teddy bear. With his latest anticipated endeavour A Million Way to Die in the West, those gross-out…