The Life List: Movie Review

Ignore the premise, enjoy the romance.

The Life List is a simple lightweight romantic drama about helping a young woman out of a life rut. Part of my issue with the film is who says Alex (Sofia Carlson)’s life is in a rut? Well, her family, often and repeatedly, they offer this very odd ‘you’re not good enough’ lecture to her everyday. Personally I don’t think it’s for them to decide, but also if you’re going to always tell someone they suck, they are absolutely going to take that to heart and think of themselves as a failure, so really this all her family’s fault.		2025 Directed by: Adam Brooks Screenplay by: Adam Brooks, Lori Nelson Spielman Starring: Sofia Carlson, Kyle Allen

The 8th Day: Movie Review

Some interesting character developments, but very little action.

The 8th Day is primarily billed as an action movie, which is incorrect. It’s a pure crime drama with a touch of comedy. It has also been billed as a heist story with a female voice, and while this is definitely true, it can give away the ending when viewed from the female characters. A lot of this movie does look like every other crime drama, but it does have a slightly different flavour to make it a bit more compelling.		2025 Directed by: Alexandra Chando Screenplay by: Suzanne Weinert Starring: Darren Mann, Phoebe Tonkin

Borderline: Movie Review

Horror comedy which tries to balance fun and insanity.

Borderline fits right in line with the recent romantic comedy-esque horror movies like Companion and Heart Eyes. Although in this case the romance is all in the head of one deranged superfan, the comedy and horror elements are all front and center. Samara Weaving stars as Sofia, a rich and famous popstar whose cushy life has a rude and violent awakening and when one fan can’t take no for an answer, so instead she’s going to have to say, “I do.”		2025 Directed by: Jimmy Warden Screenplay by: Jimmy Warden Starring: Samara Weaving, Ray Nicholson

Candlewood: Movie Review

Creepy, unfocused and unlikable.

Filmed on location in New Milford, Connecticut, Candlewood is supposed to about the real urban legends which haunt Candlewood Lake. It’s a human-made lake from the 1920s which included flooding over a town. With that type of backstory, the urban legends and ghost stories that exist are unsurprisingly endless, most of which would make for a fascinating horror movie. But Candlewood isn’t really about any of those urban legends, it’s just about an unlikable family that goes insane.		2025 Directed by: Myke Fuhrman Screenplay by: Veronica Flores-Argue, Joseph Patrick Conroy Starring: Joel Bryant, Lisann Valentin, Isabel Lysiak, Coulter Ibanez

F*** Marry Kill: Movie Review

A campy murder mystery thriller with some fun.

There’s a very difficult line to balance between pure camp and a mash-up between romantic comedy and murder mystery thriller, and F Marry Kill struggles for the entire length of the movie. It often veers into camp despite multiple efforts to be a more legitimate comedic thriller. When the main character is constantly debating whether or not her dates are marriage material or a serial killer, it’s kind of destined to be the exact level of camp it ends up as.		2024 Directed by: Laura Murphy Screenplay by: Ivan Diaz, Dan Scheinkman, Meghan Brown Starring: Lucy Hale, Brooke Nevin, Virginia Gardner

Picture This: Movie Review

Focuses on family and Indian culture instead of romance and comedy.

As a romantic comedy, Picture This is light on the romance and sometimes funny. But Simone Ashley shines as photographer Pia, a single, independent, career-focused young woman who is one of the best heroines this genre has seen. The film gets off on the right foot, even though Pia doesn’t, when she has to hightail it out of her studio pulling on soccer shorts and flip flops which she loses one of on her way to a secretive meeting with her mother at the bank.		2025 Directed by: Prarthana Mohan Screenplay by: Nikita Lalwani Starring: Simone Ashley, Hero Fiennes Tiffin

The Stress is Killing Me: Movie Review

A complete lack of logic derails this comedy before we get to the thoughtful ending.

Not immediately clear from the plot description is just how much nonsense and complete lack of logic is going on here. We have eight friends from college, who were apparently best friends at the time of graduation but then most (all but two) went their separate ways and are meeting up now, twenty years later. The opening scene is just a montage of the actual reunion – a barbecue, some food, some games, lots of talking and laughing.		2024 Directed by: Tom Carroll Screenplay by: Tom Carroll Starring: Carly Christopher, Grayson Berry

Last Breath: Movie Review

Limited in scope, Last Breath sticks to the true story.

Last Breath is based on a harrowing true story of a deep-sea diver. The film is brought to life by filmmaker Alex Parkinson, who also made the 2019 documentary Last Breath. This is not a particularly well-known incident but Chris Lemons, a North Sea diver who miraculously survived a tragic mishap, has written about and talked about his experiences extensively so it’s easy to find and learn more either before or after watching the movie.		2025 Directed by: Alex Parkinson Screenplay by: Mitchell LaFortune, Alex Parkinson, and David Brooks Starring: Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole

Morningside: Movie Review

Primarily about nothing, but also that violence is bad.

Small Canadian indies rarely get theatrical releases, so I want to support Morningside but are they ever making that hard. It’s a tragic drama about nothing. That’s a slight exaggeration on my part, the beginning is about gentrification and the ending is about senseless violence and systemic racism within police departments, but the full hour and a half in the middle is about nothing. The entire movie is establishing a dozen nondescript boring characters just for something to finally happen at the very end.		2025 Directed by: Ron Dias Screenplay by: Ron Dias, Joanne Jansen Starring: Alex Mallari Jr., Kiki Hammill

The Bayou: Movie Review

Some fun and a lot of bad ideas found in the Louisiana bayou.

Produced and filmed in England, The Bayou filmmakers took the only the two things they know about the southern US and turned it into a movie: gators and drugs. It’s not supposed to be a comedy, but it would be decidedly better if everything was played up for laughs like a horror-comedy instead of the thriller-drama that it’s supposed to be. Most jump scares are met with laughs instead of screams partly because you can’t take these characters seriously and the gators definitely become a bit far-fetched.		2025 Directed by: Taneli Mustonen, Brad Watson Screenplay by: Ashley Holberry, Gavin Cosmos Mehrtens Starring: Athena Strates, Madalena Aragão

Long Distance (AKA: Distant): Movie Review

Indie sci fi that starts fun and inventive but gets tiring and gross.

Originally called Distant, re-titled to Long Distance after finally getting released, is a sci-fi comedy/action/drama with famous people in front of and behind the camera, and one long weird and circuitous route to actually getting onto people’s screens. This was a 2020 COVID production with a screenplay by relatively new writer Spenser Cohen grabbing the attention of Hollywood directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck, who have multiple big studio comedies under their belt. Off to Hungary they go to film this small indie.		2024 Directed by: Josh Gordon, Will Speck Screenplay by: Spenser Cohen Starring: Anthony Ramos, Naomi Scott

Return to Office: Movie Review

I was not expecting Hallmark to make a clear and definitive anti-AI pro-artists statement with this movie, but here we are. Return to Office with such a cheesy title and a premise that could go wrong quickly continually surprises with how many things they get right. The first thing to get right is the casting. I love and will love Scott Michael Foster in anything and joining him is Janel Parrish who plays a somewhat uptight career woman but is increasingly more interesting.		2025 Directed by: Peter Benson Screenplay by: Steven J. Kung Starring: Janel Parrish, Scott Michael Foster

I Love You Forever: Movie Review

A subversive romantic comedy with all of the trauma and some of the comedy.

Sometimes distributors and PR firms describe films in ways that don’t exactly fit. But that’s not the case with I Love You Forever. “A subversive romantic comedy gone wrong” about an emotionally abusive relationship - is so spot on it’s brilliant. I couldn’t write anything better so I am borrowing their phrase. This is a good movie, but in an incredibly painful way. For anybody who has been in such a relationship, heed a warning, because this is likely to be traumatic revisiting it.		2025 Directed by: Cazzie David, Elisa Kalani Screenplay by: Cazzie David, Elisa Kalani Starring: Sofia Black-D'Elia, Ray Nicholson

Love Forever: Movie Review

A mediocre rom-com turns into a genuine and funny screwball comedy.

A Swedish romantic comedy where families and traditions clash at a rural wedding. Hanna (Matilda Källström) and Samuel (Charlie Gustafsson) are getting married on the island of Gotland off the east coast of Sweden, where Samuel grew up and his parents and family still reside. Most of the characters, but especially the central wedding couple, are well crafted. Hanna and Samuel both have real jobs where they’re in control but have an immature streak, setting us up for the comedy to come.		2025 Directed by: Staffan Lindberg Screenplay by: Staffan Lindberg Starring: atilda Källström, Charlie Gustafsson

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Movie Review

A messy movie with some good ideas and lovely romance.

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World takes place on the set of a reality dating show. A completed scripted show faked to appear real where women compete for some rich bachelor playboy. Until it coincides with reality, when the network owner dies but instead of leaving his estate to his son, he leaves him with a quest: find and marry the most beautiful girl in the world, and then inherit all of his wealth and assets.		2025 Directed by: Robert Ronny Screenplay by: Ifan Ismail, Titien Wattimena, Robert Ronny Starring: Reza Rahadian, Sheila Dara Aisha

When I'm Ready: Movie Review

An interesting world and engaging romance.

A young couple hit the road mere days before an asteroid is expected to wipeout humanity. Rose (June Schreiner) and Michael (Andrew Ortenberg) are planning the rest of their lives together, in so far that the rest of their lives is only going to be a few more days. It’s an epic and yet small journey, destinations are sometimes a little vague since they never know when, if, or even how their demise is going to occur.		2025 Directed by: Andrew Johnson Screenplay by: Andrew Ortenberg Starring: June Schreiner, Andrew Ortenberg

La Dolce Villa: Movie Review

Some really lovely moments and a whole lot of nonsense.

As has become common with so many Netflix comedies and romances these days, if you can get past the ridiculous premise, then there is a lovely tale of moving on and finding your next chapter in life. Eric (Scott Foley) is off to a remote village in Italy when his daughter has announced she’s buying an old villa for one euro. As Eric puts it, that’s a “bat-dad” signal if he’s ever seen one and is off to help get his misguided daughter out of whatever deal she has gotten herself into.		2025 Directed by: Mark Waters Screenplay by: Elizabeth Hackett, Hilary Galanoy Starring: Scott Foley, Maia Reficco, and Violante Placido

Death Before the Wedding (AKA: Zgon Przed Weselem): Movie Review

Only for those who find racism and misogyny funny.

There is indeed a death in Death Before the Wedding. While Mirek and his wife Regina are at their daughter Maja’s university graduation, they return to find the manager of the local dairy farm where they work has died. It’s an odd tone and and a weird plot, because in addition to supposedly being funny, all it has to do with the movie is creating a manager vacancy, and they occasionally make weird jokes. Personally I think if you’re naming the movie after a death that death should probably play a pivotal role.		2025 Directed by: Tomasz Konecki, Iwona Ogonowska-Konecka Screenplay by: Tomasz Konecki, Iwona Ogonowska-Konecka Starring: Tomasz Karolak, Agnieszka Suchora, Natalia Iwanska

Honeymoon Crasher (AKA: Lune de miel avec ma mère): Movie Review

Starting with a bad premise, it doesn’t get much better.

With a premise made for a bad comedy, Honeymoon Crasher mostly lives up to that promise. After Lucas gets dumped at the altar and he’s unable to get a refund for his really expensive, really beautiful, all-expenses paid honeymoon vacation in Mauritius, he agrees to let his mother come with him. At first she just offers as a joke, but he apparently thinks that is less pathetic than going alone.		2025 Directed by: Nicolas Cuche Screenplay by: Nicolas Cuche, Laure Hennequart, Laurent Turner Starring: Julien Frison, Michèle Laroque

With You in the Future (AKA: Contigo en el futuro): Movie Review

A light and fun rom-com turns into a tragically awful drama.

Elena (Sandra Echeverría) and Carlos (Michel Brown) are getting divorced. They are both very happy to finally be rid of each other, until they reminisce about how Cupid made a mistake bringing them together and then Cupid appears magically taking them back to the night they met. The Spanish-language romantic comedy starts fast and funny and then gets weirdly awful.		2025 Directed by: Roberto Girault Screenplay by: Robert Girault Starring: Michel Brown, Sandra Echeverría

Single Car Crashes: Movie Review

Grief, tragedy and moving on.

A lovely yet somber tale of a group of friends ten years after a tragic accident. Central character Sean (Trevor Morgan) survived the crash but he’s still barely living; he’s still working at the food court job he had when he graduated high school, he lives out of his car, and spends all of his days and nights drinking at a bar. He has a son who he sees and takes to school when he’s sober and has money for gas.		2025 Directed by: Brittani Ward Screenplay by: Brittani Ward Starring: Trevor Morgan, Lindsey Morgan

Heart Eyes: Movie Review

Funny and ridiculous mash-up of horror and rom-com.

With two genres that seemingly do not go together at all, horror and romantic comedy, Heart Eyes proves that they do make a rather compelling pair. And in other surprising news, its rom com elements shine a lot brighter than the horror plot. Each year on Valentine’s days, a serial killer known as Heart Eyes, roams a city looking for happy couples and murders them.		2025 Directed by: Josh Ruben Screenplay by: Phillip Murphy and Christopher Landon & Michael Kennedy Starring: Olivia Holt, Mason Gooding

Good Bad Things: Movie Review

Love, dating apps, and muscular dystrophy.

Good Bad Things is mostly good things as Danny (Danny Kurtzman), a young man with muscular dystrophy who runs his own marketing agency, ventures into the world of dating apps. Danny, alone in bed, is scrolling through photos and videos of an ex-girlfriend, and then the next day meets with his accountant who tells him his business isn’t going to make it and needs to start letting people go now.		2024 Directed by: Shane D. Stanger Screenplay by: Shane D. Stanger, and Danny Kurtzman Starring: Danny Kurtzman, Brett Dier

Kinda Pregnant: Movie Review

Insane, funny, but misses with the rom-com ending.

Kinda Pregnant is the type of premise that is just so wrong that it can be hard to stay with the humour. Faking a pregnancy for months while having real relationships with people who only know lies is obviously insane. So insane that this person should probably not be a functioning member of society. The movie does make it clear that Amy Schumer’s Lainey is insane, multiple characters call her that throughout the movie.		2025 Directed by: Tyler Spindel Screenplay by: Julie Paiva, Amy Schumer Starring: Amy Schumer, Jillian Bell, Will Forte and Brianne Howey

Cash for Gold: Movie Review

A small, lovely, downtrodden drama.

Cash for Gold is an interesting choice for a title for a small, lovely, downtrodden drama about poverty, depression, and community coming together. It is uplifting at the end, and it is well written and acted so that the depressing nature never overwhelms the movie. Grace (Deborah Puette) is a broke, recovering alcoholic, widowed, single mother, who can’t find work in a small town and makes a desperate plea at the local Cash for Gold pawn shop.		2024 Directed by: Robert Enriquez, Deborah Puette Screenplay by: Deborah Puette Starring: Deborah Puette, Farshad Farahat

Detective Chinatown 1900: Movie Review

What could have been a fascinating dissection of a murder mystery with immigration policies at stake, instead becomes a stupid action comedy.

Detective Chinatown 1900, about the murder of a white woman and a Chinese man as the main suspect in San Francisco’s Chinatown at the turn of the century, has a wildly different tone than that story suggests. Reasonably, one would expect an historical crime drama. The solving of a murder while cultural differences and immigrant backlash playout dictating public and political perceptions. It’s not that movie. This is a fictional and farcical action comedy instead. Even after having watched the movie it’s still difficult to reconcile that genre with that story.		2025 Directed by: Sicheng Chen, Mo Dai Screenplay by: Sicheng Chen Starring: Haoran Liu, Baoqiang Wang

Grace Point: Movie Review

Indie thriller with a unique message.

Grace Point is a small dirt town in the middle of nowhere, but it happens to be where father and son stop for gas and a washroom break on the way to Promise Valley, a rehab center. Brandon (John Owen Lowe) is a typical rich kid, gets into drugs and is still pissed off at the world after his father uses his wealth and privilege to get him out of jail and into rehab instead.		2023 Directed by: Rory Karpf Screenplay by: Rory Karpf, Paul Russell Smith Starring: John Owen Lowe, Andrew McCarthy

Companion: Movie Review

A fun and twisty time in our near-future society.

There are so many spoilers for Companion out there already, but it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. If you are at all curious, stop reading now, go see it and enjoy the gasps and chuckles from the audience with each new twist. For those who need a bit more information, it’s a mostly violent, blood-filled horror/thriller/science fiction/comedy making fun of the directions that men are taking our society.		2025 Directed by: Drew Hancock Screenplay by: Drew Hancock Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid

Disfluency: Movie Review

A well-written look at trauma interrupting education.

The title Disfluency refers to speech interruptions which the lead character, Jane (Libe Barer) – a budding speech therapist, is learning about in school. It’s her final semester of university but instead of graduating, she’s on her way home. As cryptic flashbacks (which eventually become clearer) show us, nightmares inhibited her from attending class so she flunked out and her parents came to pick her up.		2021 (2025) Directed by: Anna Baumgarten Screenplay by: Anna Baumgarten Starring: Libe Barer, Ariela Barer

Presence: Movie Review

A story about a ghost and a family.

The camera moves slowly and then quickly through the house, smooth but unorthodox motions – as if it is a ghost. And that’s because it is a ghost. Presence tells the story of a family who have just moved into a new house, all from the point of view of a ghost, a presence, living in that house with them. But let’s get one thing clear: contrary to the marketing, this is not a horror movie; this is a family drama disguised as a ghost story.		2024 Directed by: Steven Soderbergh Screenplay by: David Koepp Starring: Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan

The Calendar Killer: Movie Review

An unsettling thriller relentlessly questioning trust and paranoia.

The Calendar Killer tells a story about a woman being hunted by a serial killer intertwined with themes including paranoia, domestic violence, mental health and suicide. It ultimately has an important message which comes after a very unsettling and unnerving hour and a half of nobody ever feeling safe, and constantly questioning who to trust, if you can trust anybody.		2024 Directed by: Adolfo J. Kolmerer Screenplay by: Sebastien Fitzek, Susanne Schneider Starring: Luise Heyer, Sabin Tambrea

Better Man: Movie Review

A creative and inventive way to tell a traditional biopic.

Well, one thing is certain, you have never seen a biopic that looks like this. Using a CGI monkey in place of pop star Robbie Williams is a creative and inventive way to turn a traditional biopic into a surreal and thoroughly entertaining musical extravaganza. And you’ll never see it again. It’s a fantastic gimmick that will work exactly once and congratulations to director Michael Gracey and executive producer Robbie Williams for pulling it off.		2024 Directed by: Michael Gracey Screenplay by: Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole, Michael Gracey Starring: Robbie Williams, Steve Pemberton