She Came to Me has the feel of a 2000s-era quirky indie without feeling like a pandering throwback. The characters are eccentric weirdos, the filmmaking is aware of its cleverness, the situational comedy is purposely absurd but meaningful, and it’s all in the name of romance.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is one half My Big Fat Greek Wedding and one half…any other romantic comedy you can think of. This tame rom-com is as conventional as they come, which can sometimes be forgiven if the formula is executed with wit. Unfortunately, not only is the filmmaking watered-down but it smothers its own potential.
By: Danyal Somani For her latest assignment, documentary filmmaker Zoe (Lily James) wants to chronicle her childhood friend Kazim (Shazad Latif) and the journey towards his arranged marriage, having Shekhar Kapur’s What’s Love Got to Do with It? explore whether one can actually fall in love through this type of matchmaking rather than a traditional Western “love-marriage”.
By: Trevor Chartrand JD Cohen’s Introducing Jodea looks and sounds like a movie slapped together by a high school student over the course of a weekend. From the first frame, the technical failings of the movie are painful, plentiful and impossible to miss. With a lacklustre cast and an agonizingly bland script, the movie ultimately leaves much to be desired.
The most interesting scene in Stars Fell on Alabama involves the lead couple participating in a complicated line dance to a country cover of “Gives You Hell” by the All American Rejects while they squabble over hurt feelings. The scene is vaguely surreal and doesn’t make a lick of sense, but at least its absurdity is moderately compelling to watch, which is more than I can say for the rest of this bland and charmless…
I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight has an ungainly title but, luckily, the film’s memorable efforts are more than distracting.
In a romantic movie, a relationship’s break-up is simply used as a story device – a stepping stone towards the rising action. But, writer/director Natalie Krinsky uses this turning point as the main focus in her rom-com The Broken Hearts Gallery, a conventional film with a few good laughs and character-driven surprises along the way.
Adapting to a compromised year, the annual Canadian Film Fest has decided to screen select titles from the year’s lineup exclusively on Super Channel. Wylie Writes received a sneak peek of the two documentaries that will close out this year’s run.
By: Jessica Goddard Yesterday offers a fun hypothetical situation, and if you don’t overthink it, you’ll enjoy this movie as a tribute to the Beatles’ legacy. Spattered with modern Beatles covers and commentary on the ways the music industry has transformed since those songs were written, the film explores what might happen if one struggling singer-songwriter were suddenly the only person to remember the work of John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
By: Jessica Goddard Could a beautiful, successful, Type A presidential hopeful like Charlize Theron’s Charlotte fall in love with a slovenly, jobless, political cynic like Seth Rogen’s Fred? Long Shot is wholly predictable in both its conclusion to this question, and in how it gets us there. From the standard drug-fuelled escapade we’ve come to anticipate once per Seth Rogen film, to the “maybe if one day he shows up in nicer clothes she’ll start…