Mother’s Day
There are movies by Garry Marshall that are “very Garry Marshall”, and movies that are “sort of Garry Marshall”. Mother’s Day is – most definitely – “very Garry Marshall”.
Romantic Comedy
A Date with Miss Fortune
Real-life couple Ryan K. Scott and Jeannette Sousa wrote, produced, and star as the leading couple in director John L’Ecuyer’s cross-cultural romantic comedy, A Date With Miss Fortune. The film also features appearances by two well-known Canadians: Grammy award-winning musician Nelly Furtado and George Stroumboulopoulos – consider it a Score: A Hockey Musical reunion for the celebrities.
Wylie Writes on the Red Carpet: ‘A Date with Miss Fortune’
On January 28th, Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas Cineplex Theatre hosted a red carpet media screening in preparation for the Canadian release of A Date With Miss Fortune staring Jeannette Sousa, Ryan K. Scott, Vik Sahay (TV’s Radio Active, American Reunion), along with special appearances by musician Nelly Furtado and television personality George Stroumboulopoulos. John L’Ecuyer’s romantic comedy about what happens when a struggling screenwriter clashes with his new girlfriend’s traditional and eccentric Portuguese family has already been released…
Meet the Patels
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…
How to Make Love Like an Englishman
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…
Trainwreck
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…
My Ex-Ex
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…
After the Ball
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…
Playing It Cool
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…
The F Word
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…