Straight Up: Movie Review

Thoughtful, tender and absolutely hilarious examination of love and sexuality.

Straight Up is the romantic comedy that every gay, bi, pan, straight or questioning person has been waiting for. It has a very minimalistic atmosphere that can make it hard to get into, but the dialogue very quickly makes up for that. This is such a brilliantly funny and brilliantly creative take on the typical romantic comedy, that I’m certain I can’t write a review worthy of its screenplay, but I’m going to try anyways.		2019 Directed by: James Sweeney Screenplay by: James Sweeney Starring: James Sweeney, Katie Findlay

The Swing of Things: Movie Review

Not funny, not romantic, just eww.

Signs of a bad movie: the lead characters are in marketing and the name of the company is Johnson just to make all of the forthcoming sexual innuendo jokes really obvious. Also the resolution of the story suggests this is a romantic comedy, but it skipped straight from meeting each other to getting married to hating each other. The actual movie is just sex jokes.		2020 Directed by: Matt Shapira Screenplay by: Too many to name Starring: Chord Overstreet, Olivia Culpo

The Stand at Paxton County: Movie Review

A good story with over-wrought drama.

I tend to love based on true stories, but I’m not a fan of creating faux tension to heighten the drama of based on true stories. It’s a common issue with historical indies, and an unsurprising but unfortunate pitfall for The Stand at Paxton County, which takes an issue people should care about, crafts some good characters and then creates multiple life-or-death stand-offs because one isn’t enough.		2020 Directed by: Brett Hedlund Screenplay by: Carl Morris, David Michael O'Neill Starring: Jacqueline Toboni, Michael O'Neill

Midsommar: Movie Review

Seriously disturbing themes.

I tend to dislike horror films so I usually don’t watch many until the cultural phenomenon surrounding the occasional one persists and piques my curiosity. Hence, here I am watching the acclaimed Midsommar a year after its release. Most of my trepidation stems from the fact that it’s called a horror film, but it’s not. It’s a drama with some seriously disturbing themes, and a lot of horrifying visuals (okay, maybe that is an argument that it’s a horror film), or as writer-director Ari Aster puts it, a macabre fairy tale.		2019 Directed by: Ari Aster Screenplay by: Ari Aster Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor