It’s hot, it’s steamy, you know you want to (and chances are, you already have: this series has been ULTRA popular on Netflix). It’s deliciously anachronistic, unapologetically salacious, and totally bingeable. The costumes are sumptuous, the dialogue sparkles, the sets are incredible, and the romance is as soapy as it is sexy. Plus, the ensemble cast has incredible depth and talent, led by a luminous Phoebe Dyvenor and the brooding sex-beast Regé-Jean Page as The Duke.
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Ryan (Luke Macfarlane) is a professional hockey player who’s trying to come back after a complex ankle injury. None of the usual rehab protocols have gotten him to where he needs to be, so his agent proposes something radical: ballet. The agent’s cousin Jenna (Alexa PenaVega) is a former professional dancer who was able to make a comeback after the same injury, using some fundamental ballet exercises. Since her dance studio is struggling, she agrees to take on Ryan as a rehab patient (although, to be clear: she is completely unqualified to do so) and since he’s desperate to get back to the NHL and has no other options, he’s in too.
This Hallmark movie has a ring of The Cutting Edge to it, certainly enough for a toe pick loving girl such as myself to get a little excited just by the premise. Almost all of Hallmark’s winter-but-not-Christmas themed movies are about skiing, so hockey was a nice change of pace. Of course, it wasn’t really about hockey, it was about ballet and ankle injuries. And it wasn’t so much about ballet and ankle injuries as it was about falling in love on the dance floor.
I am rehabbing from my own ankle injury and have been since…2012. Yeah. It’s a crapfest. I was in actual literal rehab for it right before the pandemic hit, and not so much since, unfortunately. I wore nitro patches on my wonky tendon for the past year and have had several cortisone injections in the joint which has now gone arthritic. I just heard back from my doctor after my second (ankle) MRI, which has now been sent off to an orthopedic surgeon who, mark my words, won’t be able to do anything either. I am doomed to limp in pain forever. Although, to be honest…I haven’t tried ballet. At least not since the ankle injury. I did do ballet as a little girl (and despite my expression in the photo, I was generally pretty thrilled about it) but I don’t remember it being very ankle-forward at the time.
To my surprise, Taking A Shot At Love, despite the horrible title, is an unhorrible Hallmark movie. Jenna’s all about that hygge life, Ryan’s not afraid to be unmanned by a woman, and when the power goes out, they keep each other warm. PenaVega and Macfarlane are in Hallmark’s top tier of talent and their charm and chemistry are not just watchable but delightful. If you’re looking for a cozy Hallmark romance to take the edge off, this new addition to their lineup is a straight up goal.
Just a reminder that the wonderful Pieces of a Woman hits Netflix today. We reviewed back in September as part of our TIFF coverage and it’s got a damn good performance from Vanessa Kirby but as good as she is, let’s be real: this is going to be a very tough movie for a lot of people. If you are pregnant, don’t watch it. If you’ve lost a baby, consider skipping it. It’s okay to protect yourself.
Dr. Kate Lawrence, PhD. (Vanessa Marcil) is a small-town celebrity for giving no-nonsense dating advice. She’s about to announce her surprise engagement to boyfriend Brian, the elusive “no red flags” guy, proving to her fans that she can walk the walk. Kate thinks this incontrovertible proof that her relationship advice is the real deal will push her career in the right direction, so she allows her agent to nudge her engagement announcement into a very big, very public thing, which is pretty inconvenient when Brian unceremoniously dumps her in the middle of a live feed. Luckily (or shall I say conveniently), his identity has remained unknown to fans, so at the last minute, Kate’s old high school bud Lucas (David Sutcliffe) subs in, pretending to be her future groom.
With a book deal, not to mention her reputation, on the line, they agree to carry on this ruse for the foreseeable future. I don’t think anything could go wrong, do you? Her agent of course insists they go through the motions of planning their pretend wedding, even setting a date just three months hence. If you’re wondering what’s in it for Lucas, he’s harbouring a secret crush on her and has been since they were kids. Naturally. Very convenient indeed. Anyway, for lots of couples, planning a wedding can be quite stressful, but it turns out if you’re a fake couple planning a fake wedding, it can almost be kind of romantic. Especially when you’re doing it in front of cameras. Apparently.
You know what? Don’t worry about Kate and Lucas. They’re going to be okay. Plus they’re going to get to taste-test some raspberry-filled chocolate cake that they don’t ever plan on needing, so don’t feel too badly for them. perhaps feel a little badly for David Sutcliffe who once upon a time played Lorelai Gilmore’s baby daddy and is now reduced to this. Which is almost slightly better than average because he’s in it, and he’s a better than aver Hallmark actor. However, Vanessa Marcil is a worse than average addition to the cast, and her confusion between acting and hair tousling makes for a frustrating viewing experience. So the two cancel each other out, leaving just the story to make or break your experience, and it’s a pretty weird and contrived premise, even for Hallmark. These two are clear soul mates, only because between them they don’t have an ounce of dignity, and that’s makes us an awkward third wheel.
Anthony Wonke has a wonky way of starting movies. It can never be any director’s intention to confuse the viewer into turning the movie off just to double check they’ve clicked on the right one, and yet that’s exactly the effect he creates when he introduces the topic in the most roundabout way possible.
For those of you who think you might like to tackle this documentary, know that the film will make you believe, for the first 5 minutes or so, that this is about some very bad men in Iraq, but when Mr. Iraq eventually gets to his point, which isn’t very interesting, it’s that whisky saved Iraq. Won Iraq? Whatever the hell they were doing there, whisky helped. And not just any whisky. Johnnie Walker whisky.
Note: I very much want to spell it whiskey, as I always have, and always will, but since Johnnie Walker spelled it whisky, I’ll honour his wishes this one and only time since we are indeed talking about the 200 year history of his well known and well loved brand.
Johnnie Walker was indeed a man, the son of a farmer who poured his inheritance into a grocery store where he blended and sold his own whisky, which his ancestors shrewdly turned into a global brand that may or may not help Americans end wars. Don’t worry, the hyperbole won’t stop there: Johnnie Walker was also the hero of prohibition, and the brave solver of racism. According to this documentary, which I’m beginning to suspect may be a little biased. It is not, however, contributing in any positive way to sexism, because the brand aims to be synonymous with masculinity, so if you’re a woman who drinks whisky, go fuck yourself.
But at least it’s not contradictory. For example, Johnnie Walker is a respected and recognized brand that is its own best advocate and is so sophisticated it would be demeaning to pay for product placement or celebrity endorsement, and don’t just take our word for it, let’s hear from brand ambassador Sophia Bush, or the guy in charge of pointing out it’s the preferred brand of Superman (in Superman 3) and Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford, Blade Runner).
The Man Who Walked Around the World is either a very bad documentary or a very good commercial. If you hit the red label hard enough, it probably doesn’t matter which. If you’re sober, however, you might want to…well, keep walking.
Alex (Katrina Bowden) wants to be a travel writer but her boss at the travel mag tells her that travel writers are courageous and impetuous, things that she is not. But Alex really wants this new job and is determined to show her boss he’s wrong, so she decides to go on an extreme sports vacation even though using a paperclip where a staple would normally be required is usually as extreme as she gets – and even that scenario makes her sweat a little.
Anyway: does she have a panic attack causing a human pileup on the chair lift? Possibly. Did Sean invent the word “helichopter” because helicopter just wasn’t extreme enough? Undoubtedly. Was that a Hannah Montana reference I just heard? No idea. But hang on to the seat of your snow pants, folks, you’re in for a pretty wild ride – ziplining, suspension bridges, extreme tobogganing (well, it was pretty regular tobogganing, to be honest, but down a larger than average hill). Nothing so extreme it smudges Alex’s lip gloss, but extreme for the Hallmark channel, thanks to her “guide,” adventure photographer Cole Taylor (Thomas Beaudoin). Now, it is difficult to sift the bad dialogue from Beaudoin’s awkward delivery, nay, impossible, but there’s more than enough blame to go around.
Well guys, what do you think? Will Alex uncover a roaring desire for extreme sports? I mean, it’s Hallmark. They’ve got to channel their horniness into something productive, amirite? Those hormones have to go somewhere – might as well be off the side of a very high cliff.
On Amazon Prime, there is a series of films by Steve McQueen under the title Small Axe; they are related in that they are based on the real-life experiences of London’s West Indian community in the recent past. Mangrove is the first film in the series. The Oscars and the Emmys are perhaps more invested in hashing out whether they are technically films or episodes or something else entirely, but at 2 hours and 7 minutes of first-rate film-making, I’m just going to go ahead and review it.
Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes) is the proud (Black) owner of Notting Hill’s Caribbean restaurant, Mangrove, a lively community base for locals, intellectuals and activists, not to mention the best joint for anyone looking for spicy foods in the 1970s. But it’s also beleaguered by constant police raids in what can only be described as a reign of racist terror (the cops are pretty upfront about it actually). Frank and the local community fight back the only way they can, by taking to the streets in peaceful protest. The cops, of course, strike back in what is by now such a familiar pattern that we can only despair. When nine men and women, including Frank and the leader of the British Black Panther Movement, Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letitia Wright), and activist Darcus Howe (Malachi Kirby), are arrested and charged with incitement to riot, our blood boils with injustice but not particularly with surprise. A highly publicized trial ensues, and the pattern of discrimination and abuse by police emerges – but will that even be enough?
As I mentioned earlier, Mangrove along with the other films in the Small Axe series are based on true events, but director McQueen manages such vigour in his story-telling that it almost feels more like a documentary. The authenticity seems to lend itself so naturally to the film and the performances that it’s almost an embarrassment of riches, but it’s the passion and the commitment with which it is delivered that really seals the deal. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 really reinvigorated the courtroom drama for me earlier this year, so it seems improbable that this one would come along so shortly after and do so again, yet I’m amazed to be so fully invested once again in a genre that’s been tired and limp for so long. Sean and I kept up such a constant hubbub that I worried mean Judge Clarke (Alex Jennings)would find us in contempt and throw us out of his court. Mangrove, however, has its own internal engine, churning with emotional heft outside the courtroom. The movie may take a few beats to really get going, but once it finds its momentum, it is downright riveting.
A recently dumped travel writer goes on a ski getaway with her best friend and they find themselves double booked with two eligible men.
That’s what IMDB, indeed the movie itself, would have you believe it’s about. Let me make a few corrections. First: recently dumped? Not quite. More like, the guy she was seeing for all of 3 weeks kissed someone else on New Year’s Eve. She didn’t stick around for a dumping, if such a thing is even necessary after only 3 weeks. In fact, I think she’s the one who decided their fate when she simply turned and left. Next: travel writer. Not at all. Currently writing about relationships, formerly about beauty, aspirationally mysteries, never travel. And last: ski getaway. I mean, they are in fact vacationing at a ski resort, but all 4 people are avowed snow boarders, so let’s be accurate.
Cara (Taylor Cole) and her best friend/colleague/roommate Megan (Rukiya Bernard) take a weekend snowboarding trip up a cold, snowy mountain, which is usually the kind of thing I run away from on vacation, but there’s no accounting for taste. Cara is a relationship writer who’s currently on a dating cleanse; she’s contemplating novel writing and grad school instead, and working on all of the above even though this is very much just a two-and-a-half-day weekend. The powder is fine and no one’s complaining about the cold, but they’re less enthusiastic about the fact that both Megan and some random dude Sean (Dewshane Williams) both accidentally booked one half of the same ski chalet. Sean, a handsome young surgeon, and mysterious buddy Ben (Jack Turner), are also there for a quiet friend getaway, but now they’re on some sort of awkward double date, all four of them getting cozy and intimate against their will…until it’s not. Love ensues, as it always does. They got that part right. Love, to Hallmark, is inevitable. Soul mates magically come in pairs, and even though they all meet while on vacation, they also discover they live within blocks from each other back home.
But first there will be après-ski fondue (the only part of skiing of which I approve), a medical emergency, lots of trivia, and even some paparazzi. How does it all equate to love? Spend a winter weekend of your own finding out on the Hallmark channel.
Lucy and her boyfriend Jeff are having some pretty lackluster sex when she accidentally shouts a grocery item (waffles, whole wheat I believe) instead of something racy. Seeing how she hasn’t even removed her flannel pajama top, Jeff surmises that Lucy (Lucy Hale) just isn’t that into sex. She tells him he’s wrong, he storms off to the garage to masturbate, she discovers that everything he’s been asking her to do comes from the copious porn he’s been watching in secret, and they break up.
At work the next morning, she confesses tearfully, and her friends judge her to be sexually unevolved, so Lucy does the only thing that makes sense – she writes the following Sex To Do List:
watch 25 porns
go to a sex store
read (c)literature
visit a strip club
sex toy party
take a sex seminar
test vibrators
stream some internet porn
consult a sex expert
visit a brothel
meet a porn star
use “hot throbbing cock” convincingly in a sentence
It’s a senseless list that promises way more than the film can deliver because despite the coming trips to brothels and furtive diddling, this R-rated comedy remains bland and banal. Sean likened it to a Hallmark movie, and he’s not wrong. It’s definitely more concerned with setting Lucy up with a more sex-positive relationship (enter Grant, ie, Leonidas Gulaptis) than with actually confronting what’s made her sex-negative in the first place, never mind ever titillating us with some of the juicier items on that list. Honestly, you won’t believe how unsexy porn stars and strip clubs can be.
The only thing interesting about this movie is that it manages to disappoint on so many levels (its only saving grace the fact that Mindy Cohn of the Facts of Life appears and works a dildo like there’s no tomorrow, but even that’s not NEARLY enough). Lucy’s love interest has the good grace to politely ask what a nice girl like her is doing in any number of the seedy establishments she frequents during the film; no one, however, has so far asked how a nice girl like me came to be watching a bad movie like this.
My Little Sister is Switzerland’s official entry for the Academy Awards’ International Feature Film category this year, and its unofficial selection for Biggest Bummer of 2020, which is saying a lot.
Not that it’s a bad film, not at all. It’s just the opposite of cheery. Gloomy. Depressing. Upsetting. It’s about grown up twins Lisa (Nina Hoss), a playwright, and Sven (Lars Eidinger), a stage actor, who are dealing with his cancer diagnosis and resulting transplant. Even on the mend, Sven is still very unwell, and since their mother is a flake, Lisa’s been doing the caring. Lisa already put her life and career on hold once, to follow her husband to Switzerland where he runs an international school and she raises their children. Desperate to get back to the Berlin arts scene, Lisa isn’t happy to learn that her husband’s been contemplating extending his contract, but she’s already got more on her plate than most people can handle. Again she puts her life on hold to care for her “big brother” (born 2 minutes earlier) as he struggles to get back on his feet.
Sven’s illness is quite severe but Lisa can’t really face that. She has appointed herself the perpetual fountain of hope, and even goes back to play writing to make sure he has a meaty role to inspire his recovery. She is so committed to his recuperation she’ll even neglect her marriage to be at his bedside. Nina Hoss is nearly equally committed to the role, playing Lisa with sensitivity, and a naturalness that really helps to bolster the relationship between the twins. Clearly they are close, the kind of bond that can always be relied upon, as illustrated by Eidinger’s performance. Sven has bravado for everyone else, but in front of Lisa, he is vulnerable, he is weak. And though Hoss shows us how scared Lisa is, for him she is strong, sure, and optimistic.
Cancer dramas are a dime a dozen, but this one manages to detour away from the genre’s deepest ruts and treads new(ish) ground with intimate and instinctive performances from the two leads. Directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond give us a story that’s emotional without trying to be. It simply presents truth, unadorned. The death of a loved one can force us to reevaluate our own lives; Lisa’s certainly reassessing things, even with so many balls still up in the air. It’s a resonant reminder that life never stops, not even while you’re losing the person you hold most dear.
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