Triangle of Sadness: Movie Review

Brilliant and entertaining social deconstruction.

If you want to summarize Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness as succinctly as possible, it’s what happens when the rich get bored – disaster. But of course the film is too perfect of a societal skewering to just make fun of rich people. There are three distinct parts. The first focuses on models Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), two people who didn’t necessarily grow up with wealth but their physical beauty has placed them in a bubble where they have to try to reflect and capture the average person.		2022 Directed by: Ruben Östlund Screenplay by: Ruben Östlund Starring: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Vicki Berlin, Woody Harrelson

Argentina, 1985: Movie Review

Argentina, 1985 starts with a lawyer Julio Strassera (Ricardo Darín) and his family. It’s a modest house, filled with a son who adores his father, a father who hates his daughter’s new boyfriend, and a wife who thinks he needs to go easier on his daughter. But there’s a lot more going on, primarily because Julio is about to become the central figure in the most important court case in Argentina’s history.		2022 Directed by: Santiago Mitre Screenplay by: Mariano Llinas, Santiago Mitre Starring: Ricardo Darin, Peter Lanzani

The Fabelmans: Movie Review

Profoundly moving, self-reflective, intricate work of art.

This is a filmmaker’s movie, and a cinephile’s movie and an everybody’s movie. The Fabelmans is not just Steven Spielberg’s most personal movie, but also his best movie. Arguably one of the world’s greatest filmmakers has just delivered his greatest work of art. It’s the level of self-reflection and detail in each moment of his 1950s-1960s adolescence that leads to a tale about the power of art in the face of hatred reflecting our modern world.		2022 Directed by: Steven Spielberg Screenplay by: Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen

The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood

A pandemic comedy about conspiracy theories.

Toby Blackwood (Doug Mellard) is an extreme right-wing, conspiracy theorist, survivalist hick, and of course has a popular YouTube channel. Instead of following a more typical thriller route with the audience caring for the whereabouts of the title character, it’s actually a comedy about conspiracy theories making fun of guys like Toby. The main characters are Wes (Joe Ahern) a sad, recently divorced guy whose friends are worried about him as he mopes about his house during the pandemic, and Luke (Grant Harvey) his friend who can easily fall down conspiracy rabbit holes.		2022 Directed by: Joe Ahern Screenplay by: Joe Ahern, Doug Mellard Starring: Joe Ahern, Grant Harvey, and Doug Mellard

Mindcage: Movie Review

Grungy, stupid, unoriginal crime thriller.

Mindcage is a movie about a new-ish, young-ish police detective Mary (Melissa Roxburgh), the imprisoned serial killer known as The Artist (John Malkovich) and Mary’s seasoned detective partner Jake (Martin Lawrence) as they try to track down a new copycat killer who knows all The Artist’s secrets. And it’s just a really stupid movie. Police detectives in a cat-and-mouse chase of a serial killer that is devoid of anything original or intelligent.		2022 Directed by: Mauro Borrelli Screenplay by: Reggie Keyohara III Starring: Melissa Roxburgh, John Malkovich, and Martin Lawrence

I Believe in Santa: Movie Review

A confused movie with no audience.

I Believe in Santa does not know its audience. First it has a really silly premise – a grown adult who actually believes in Santa. And second, it’s a kid’s movie but not for kids. The rom-com element is too mature to be interesting or funny to kids. So it’s for adults who believe in Santa? Those don’t exist. If we can overlook that existential problem, it is a mostly cute and sweet Christmas movie.		2022 Directed by: Alex Ranarivelo Screenplay by: John Ducey Starring: Christina Moore, John Ducey

Looking for Her: Movie Review

Slow-moving but cute and sweet with a good lead couple.

Looking for Her opens with two common character types: Taylor (Olivia Buckle) an uptight, hard-working writer who bottles up her feelings and usually ignores her family for Christmas; Olive (Alexandra Swarens) is a perpetually late, behind on rent, struggling actress who has a sweet nature but doesn’t have two dollars to rub together to be able to make good decisions with. Olive is a really easy character to like and the film desperately needs her presence.		2022 Directed by: Alexandra Swarens Screenplay by: Alexandra Swarens Starring: Olivia Buckle, Alexandra Swarens

Accidental Family: Movie Review

Bad premise, awful comedy and misguided romance.

Accidental Family starts with a bad premise and somehow gets worse. Its morale of uplifting family values doesn’t add any genuine sweetness that it’s supposed to. It’s an over-wrought romantic dramedy that has poorly formed messages on top of bad acting, awful comedy and misguided romance. One shouldn’t be surprised when a story that starts with the idea “I’ll fake being somebody’s family member in order to get them to fall in love with me” isn’t good.		2021 Directed by: Jason Hudson Screenplay by: Jason Hudson Starring: Kinsey Leigh Redmond, Justen Jones

A Hollywood Christmas: Movie Review

A Hollywood Christmas is another self-aware Christmas rom-com, gently poking fun at itself while paying homage to the tried-and-true formula. It opens with the movie-within-the-movie: a big city lawyer walks into a small-town girl’s struggling cupcake shop, he threatens to shut it down because he hates Christmas, and the girl teaches him the magic of Christmas and together they save her store and fall in love.		2022 Directed by: Alex Ranarivelo Screenplay by: John Ducey Starring: Jessika Van, Josh Swickard

Your Christmas or Mine?: Movie Review

Too many rom-com tropes with unenjoyable characters.

A young couple Hayley and James are saying goodbye at the train station to go spend Christmas with their own families. Only they both make the same impulsive decision to get off their train, get on the other person’s train to spend Christmas together, but are now heading to each other’s families, apart. Your Christmas or Mine? is a holiday rom-com in a comedy-of-errors format.		2022 Directed by: Jim O'Hanlon Screenplay by: Tom Parry Starring: Asa Butterfield, Cora Kirk

A Tale of Two Christmases: Movie Review

Limited comedy, overplayed romance and an uneven main character.

Two Christmas romances are not necessarily better than one, especially when the film wants to be this unsubtle about which one is the right one. A Tale of Two Christmases features Emma an architect in Chicago and when she over-sleeps her alarm and runs into a Santa Claus-type person in the airport, her life splits into two directions: one if she makes her flight home to Vermont for Christmas Eve, the other where she spends Christmas Eve in Chicago.		2022 Directed by: Jason Bourque Screenplay by: Cylin Busby, Nanci Katz Starring: Katherine Barrell, Chandler Massey, Evan Roderick, and Keith MacKechnie

Merry Kiss Cam: Movie Review

Hockey and love and comedy in an indie rom-com.

Shot and set in Duluth, Minnesota, Merry Kiss Cam is a hockey movie for rom-cam fans, or maybe it’s the other way around and is a rom-com for hockey fans. Either way it’s the perfect coupling of comedy and romance in a college hockey town setting. The team in question is the University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs, a real team, but don’t worry you don’t need to know anything about them, just that they lose a lot.		2022 Directed by: Lisa France Screenplay by: Maya Boudreau, Evan D. Watkins Starring: Katie Lowes, Jesse Bradford

Holiday Harmony: Movie Review

Uplifting and sweet tale of music and romance.

Holiday Harmony is an uplifting and sweet tale of music and romance, and in equal measure. Gail (Annelise Cepero) is an aspiring musician who lives out of her van and plays music in dive bars and on Instagram to all her friends in her phone. A real-life friend helps her apply for iHeart Radio’s Christmas show for her big break on national TV; however, on her way to LA she runs into van trouble in Harmony Springs, Oklahoma.		2022 Directed by: Shaun Piccinnino Screenplay by: Lauren Swickard, Christopher James Harvill Starring: Annelise Cepero, Jeremy Sumpter

The Noel Diary: Movie Review

A Christmas romance in sullen drama form about death, grief, and forgiveness.

The Noel Diary features Justin Hartley as Jake Turner, a famous and successful author returning to his childhood home after his mother passed away; and Barrett Doss as Rachel, a woman on search for the identity of her birth mother. It’s a subdued drama about two strangers connecting with one another as they deal with past traumas. Which then of course turns into a romance.		2022 Directed by: Charles Shyer Screenplay by: Charles Shyer & Rebecca Connor, and David Golden Based on the novel by Richard Paul Evans Starring: Justin Hartley, Barrett Doss

Christmas on Mistletoe Farm: Movie Review

For the love of animals only.

A widowed father, Matt Cunningham (Scott Garnham), who has a full-time job and five young kids to take care of, then inherits a farm from his estranged father and decides to juggle his job plus raising his kids plus running a farm, and needless to say it doesn’t go smoothly. Mistletoe grows on Mistletoe Farm but the farm is a regular farm with animals, and eggs for sale, and minimal other revenue sources.		2022 Directed by: Debbie Isitt Screenplay by: Debbie Isitt Starring: Scott Garnham, Scott Paige

Inventing the Christmas Prince: Movie Review

Wrong in almost every possibly way.

Inventing the Christmas Prince is definitely on the children’s movie end of the Hallmark spectrum, but the comedy isn’t cute, more nonexistent, and the romance is inappropriate. This is very poorly written with uneven acting and messages that make no sense. Considering Hallmark’s other choices are better, this should be a last resort.		2022 Directed by: Paul Ziller Screenplay by: Kim Beyer-Johnson Starring: Tamera Mowry-Housley, Ronnie Rowe

She Said: Movie Review

In 2017 when the story of Harvey Weinstein broke and #MeToo flooded headlines, I think we all knew that the Hollywood dramatization would soon becoming. It’s finally here. She Said recounts the story of the two New York Times journalists Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) investigating the decades of abuse by Weinstein and finally getting the ground-breaking article published.		2022 Directed by: Maria Schrader Screenplay by: Rebecca Lenkiewicz Based on the story by Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor Starring: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan

Sugar: Movie Review

A story of stupid criminals on a cruise ship.

Sugar is based on the true story of two Canadian Instagram models/influencers who find themselves as mules in the middle of a cocaine smuggling ring. There’s the obvious potential for a movie right there, and it’s not so much that the movie fails, but that it doesn’t understand its two main protagonists. These are not innocent girls who got caught up in drug smuggling. These are the two most materialistic morons on the planet and they’re not more complicated than that.		2022 Directed by: Vic Sarin Screenplay by: Ben Johnstone, Annelies Kavan, Vic Sarin Starring: Katherine McNamara, Jasmine Sky Sarin

The People We Hate at the Wedding: Movie Review

Funny chaos leads to a more typical family dramedy.

The People We Hate at the Wedding are the embarrassing uncouth Americans at an upscale posh British wedding, and one thing that the film does well (at least at the beginning) is play with sympathies for protagonists vs antagonists. As an audience we’re programmed to hate the rich snobs and feel sorry for the messy people who just can’t help but make mistakes in their life, and there were a few times this film makes you question that.		2022 Directed by: Claire Scanlon Screenplay by: Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, Wendy Molyneux Based on the book by Grant Ginder Starring: Kristen Bell, Ben Platt, Allison Janney, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson

Christmas with You: Movie Review

Familiar Christmas rom-com with Latin flair.

Christmas with You is another Netflix Christmas romance but this time with a Latin flair. All of the main characters and actors are Latino-American and the story is centered around a girl’s quinceañera, but otherwise it’s a movie you’ve seen before and in typical Netflix fashion, very exaggerated. Angelina (Aimee Garcia) is a pop star, and supposedly one of the most famous pop stars on the planet.		2022 Directed by: Gabriela Tagliavini Screenplay by: Paco Farias, Jennifer C. Stetson, and German Michael Torres Starring: Aimee Garcia, Freddie Prinze Jr.

Stay the Night: Movie Review

Stay the Night stars Andrea Bang and Joe Scarpellino as two lonely people facing rejection in their professional life and turning to strangers for a night out in their personal life. Like many romances that have come before it (notably Before Sunrise) this is just about two people meeting and getting to know each other over the course of one night. A cool winter night in downtown Toronto.		2022 Directed by: Renuka Jeyapalan Screenplay by: Renuka Jeyapalan Starring: Andrea Bang, Joe Scarpellino

In Merry Measure: Movie Review

Nice music and a whole lot of sweetness.

This is my second Hallmark Christmas romance of the season and it’s not a bad decision. The first half of In Merry Measure carries the movie with some nice singing, and a very enjoyable – almost relatable – relationship forming. It’s sweet and then just gets sickeningly sweet, so be ready for a sugar rush, since the movie never dials it back.		2022 Directed by: Paula Elle Screenplay by: Russell Hainline Starring: Patti Murin, Brendan Penny

Ask Me to Dance: Movie Review

A lot of questionable decisions in an unfunny rom-com.

Jack and Jill, two strangers, separately meet a crazy old lady who tells them that they’re going to find the love of their life by New Year’s Eve. Ask Me to Dance is a movie I wanted to like a lot more than I actually did. But here’s the thing, Jack and Jill, two grown adults, supposedly sane adults, both take this crazy old lady seriously, like dead seriously. Suddenly they’re both signing up for every dating service out there, and more than half of the movie is two people going on really bad dates.		2022 Directed by: Tom Malloy Screenplay by: Tom Malloy Starring: Tom Malloy, Briana Evigan

Dive (AKA: La Caida): Movie Review

Captivating, compelling and important.

Mariel (Karla Souza) is an Olympic diver. She won the bronze medal when she was 15 and now almost a decade and a half later, she’s trying to get back there for her last chance at gold. Injuries and self-sabotage have plagued her career previously, but now the rest of the world might come crashing down with her. Dive starts with a very minimalistic feel but builds to a compelling and important story.		2022 Directed by: Lucia Puenzo Screenplay by: Monica Herrera, Samara Ibrahim Starring: Karla Souza

Falling for Christmas: Movie Review

Light on laughs and romance, but it is sweet and charming.

Falling for Christmas is Netflix’s first Christmas movie of the season, and it’s also their first entry into the Lindsay Lohan renaissance (with the romantic comedy Irish Wish expected in 2023). It starts as an immature comedy about a spoiled brat acting like a spoiled brat, but the charm eventually wins over as it becomes a sweet comedy about a girl who doesn’t know who she is.		2022 Directed by: Janeen Damian Screenplay by: Jeff Bonnett, Ron Oliver Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Chord Overstreet

Lights, Camera, Christmas!: Movie Review

A self-aware delight of a Hallmark Christmas romance.

Lights, Camera, Christmas! is a self-aware Hallmark Christmas movie, and is exactly what the genre needs. A Christmas romance that takes place on the set of a Hallmark-style Christmas romance movie featuring one lead character who hates the genre and her co-lead who makes a living off them and loves it. It has all the necessary ingredients to succeed, and it does.		2022 Directed by: David Weaver Screenplay by: Gary Goldstein Starring: Kimberley Sustad, John Brotherton

Deborah: Movie Review

Today’s politics in a blender accelerated by a technological glitch.

Deborah is an AI or a virtual assistant, not unlike Amazon’s Alexa, who decides to wreak havoc on a dinner party because society is just too dumb. Ada (Deborah Ann Woll) and Albert (Kevin Bigley) are hosting their childhood friends for a weekend get-together. Albert’s the tech genius who created Deborah; she – or rather IT – composes songs, recites feminist literature and can find sales on ED medicine. She can even pause or rewind time.		2022 Directed by: Noga Pnueli Screenplay by: Noga Pnueli Starring: Sophia Bush, Deborah Ann Woll, Scott Michael Foster and Kevin Bigley

The Minute You Wake Up Dead: Movie Review

A potentially interesting thriller that takes silly turns instead.

Russ (Cole Hauser) has returned to his small hometown. A stockbroker who made it big in the city has started a finance practice in town. His recent tip however went south and lost a lot of money for a lot of people, including himself. And then he starts receiving a mysterious anonymous phone call with the simple question, “Where will you be the minute you wake up dead?”. And then his girlfriend’s father is shot dead.		2022 Directed by: Michael Mailer Screenplay by: Timothy Holland, Michael Mailer Starring: Jaime Alexander, Cole Hauser, Morgan Freeman, Darren Mann

A Chance Encounter: Movie Review

Stay and soak in the beauty of love in Sicily.

A Chance Encounter is an unexpected gem of a romantic dramedy. A film that shines because of its earnestness. And yes, I did have to use that word; Hal likes making references to Oscar Wilde, and the film knows its writers. A sweet story of a musician and a poet that so easily balances the romance and the humour with the reality of grief and fear because it doesn’t need to spell everything out to the audience		2022 Directed by: Alexander Jeffery Screenplay by: Alexander Jeffery Starring: Paul Petersen, Andrea von Kampen

The Falling World: Movie Review

Empty characters in a beautiful country estate.

The Falling World is a very deliberately-paced drama where almost nothing happens. Nothing happens for the first hour, and then for the final 10 minutes, past secrets are finally revealed and characters make off like a bandit. It’s a world that is filled with insane and boring characters (two descriptions that rarely go together, but here they do) and there is just zero empathy for any of them.		2022 Directed by: Jaclyn Bethany Screenplay by: Jaclyn Bethany Starring: Ayumi Patterson, Isabelle Chester

Someone Borrowed: Movie Review

A rom-com that mostly dabbles in nonsense.

Luiz (Caio Castro) is happily single. Going from girl to girl before any of them get too clingy. And then his mother falls ill and has one dying wish for Luiz: he gets married, or else she’ll cut him out of her will. Someone Borrowed is a Brazilian rom-com with a plot similar to the American Holidate, but even less grounded. Luiz quickly abandons the idea of actually falling in love, and decides to hire an actress to play his fiancée.		2022 Directed by: Cris D'Amato Screenplay by: Luanna Guimaraes Starring: Caio Castro, Thati Lopes

Who Killed Cooper Dunn?: Movie Review

A boys will be boys weekend camping trip where one of them winds up dead before the first dawn. Who Killed Cooper Dunn? is an indie drama/mystery/thriller, forcing the boys to question each other but things tend to go off the rails before we get any answers. It’s an interesting premise and a setting which suits the budget and genre, making it an interesting watch if not a fully satisfying one.		2022 Directed by: Nino Aldi Screenplay by: Joseph Rein, Nino Aldi Starring: Tyler Ritter, Paul Elia, Nino Aldi, Travis Quentin Young, and Eric Michael Roy

The Visitor: Movie Review

A compelling premise and a creepy atmosphere and a really stupid ending.

The Visitor is Robert (Finn Jones) new to his wife, Maia’s (Jessica McNamee), hometown. After her father dies, Maia and Robert move from London to her childhood home in Briar Glen, a creepy small town in New England. The Visitor is also the name given to a series of portraits of a man who looks exactly like Robert.		2022 Directed by: Justin P. Lange Screenplay by: Simon Boyes, Adam Mason Starring: Finn Jones, Jessica McNamee

Jumping from High Places: Movie Review

Charming and relatable but also bland and minimal.

The Italian title Per Lanciarsi Dalle Stelle translates roughly as To Launch from the Stars. The English title Jumping from High Places is a bit more descriptive, but neither titles are to be taken literally. They’re just about getting the idea across of getting over fear and anxiety to be able to live up to one’s true potential. It’s an Italian romantic drama with very little happening.		2022 Directed by: Andrea Jublin Screenplay by: Alice Urciuolo Starring: Federica Torchetti

Plan A Plan B: Movie Review

Not fresh or original or funny.

Plan A Plan B is an opposites attract Bollywood romantic comedy. Nirali (Tamannaah Bhatia) is a single matchmaker; she has a degree in psychology and has followed into her mother’s footsteps who ran a matchmaking business and got new office space for Nirali. The office space is shared with a family lawyer, Kosty (Riteish Deshmukh), who specializes in divorce.		2022 Directed by: Shashanka Ghosh Screenplay by: Rajat Arora Starring: Tamannaah Bhatia, Riteish Deshmukh

My Best Friend's Exorcism: Movie Review

Combines an 80s aesthetic with religious themes and comedy-horror vibes.

A surprising number of teen movies with a take-off of Heathers have been released in recent weeks. Netflix’s Do Revenge is a lighter comedic more Mean Girls than Heathers spin, CreatorPlus’s Jane is a darker straight drama-thriller version, and now Amazon’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism goes for a pure comedy-horror take. Set in 1988, the same year Heathers was released, its influence on the characters is clear with a number of borrowed lines.		2022 Directed by: Damon Thomas Screenplay by: Jenna Lamia Based on the novel by Grady Hendrix Starring: Elsie Fisher, Amiah Miller

I Used to Be Famous: Movie Review

Lovely and tender with some nice music.

Vinnie D (Ed Skrein) was a member of a boy band 20 years ago, but now spends his time busking along sidewalks and in city parks around Peckham, London. Life has not been easy for him since the time in rock stardom. I Used to Be Famous is a surprisingly tender tale of music in unexpected places; however, with sadness and despair constantly percolating through the air it can be a difficult watch.		2022 Directed by: Eddie Sternberg Screenplay by: Eddie Sternberg Starring: Ed Skrein, Eoien Macken

Do Revenge: Movie Review

A glossy and shiny version of a dark comedy.

One of the first interesting things about Netflix’s Do Revenge is that there are no heroines or antagonists; they are all a bunch of rich, spoiled pretty people who will screw each other over if it will improve their status or give them a leg up to get into an Ivy League school. Usually that’s a recipe for disaster with so many unlikable characters but Drea (Camilla Mendes) and Eleanor (Maya Hawke) both walk that line between hero and villain very well.		2022 Directed by: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson Screenplay by: Celeste Ballard, and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson Starring: Camilla Mendes, Maya Hawke

Jane: Movie Review

Dark and chilling thriller.

Jane opens with Jane (Chloe Yu) committing suicide (don't worry, not a spoiler). Back at school, Principal Rhodes (Melissa Leo) is offering nice-sounding but meaningless platitudes about making other choices. None of the girls are listening. This is a private, all-girls school which rich families use as a jumping board for getting into Ivy League universities.		2022 Directed by: Sabrina Jaglom Screenplay by: Sabrina Jaglom Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Chloe Bailey

Susie Searches: Movie Review

A darkly comedic, unsettling delight.

Susie (Kiersey Clemons) is an unpopular, socially awkward college student who grew up on detective novels, now takes care of her mother suffering from MS and runs a true crime podcast taking on the recent case of the missing student she goes to school with. Viewers beware of anybody who gives away more than that as there are sure to be spoilers abound.		2022 Directed by: Sophie Kargman Screenplay by: William Day Frank, Sophie Kargman Starring: Kiersey Clemons, Alex Wolff

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe: Movie Review

A sweet tale of growing up gay in Texas.

With a title sure to catch people’s eyes, filmmaker Aitch Alberto says that truly knowing the secrets of the universe is “understanding that love comes in many different forms and in unexpected places.” And indeed, this is a movie for people who have felt out of place in their surroundings, trying to understand who they are and how they’re different. It’s a queer coming-of-age drama celebrating those differences.		2022 Directed by: Aitch Alberto Screenplay by: Aitch Alberto Starring: Max Pelayo, Reese Gonzales

The Class: Movie Review

A little heavy-handed, but with genuine emotion and a few shining stars.

The Class is a remake of The Breakfast Club, a 1980s classic which I watched as a teenager and I was looking forward to a modern re-telling of a group of six high-schoolers who are all different but learn how their differences can help one another and open up to new friendships. It sounds a bit hokey written out like that, and yes, it definitely is at times, this one arguably more so than the original.		2022 Directed by: Nicholas Celozzi Screenplay by: Nicholas Celozzi Starring: Debbie Gibson, Anthony Michael Hall, Chalie Gillespie and Lyric Ross