Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Our reviews and thoughts on the latest releases, classics, and nostalgic favourites. Things we loved, things we hated, and worst of all, things we were ambivalent about.

One Winter Weekend

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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.

A Nice Girl Like You

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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

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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.

Frozen In Love

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January is the most depressing month of the year; the 24th has the unfortunate reputation of being the absolute worst day of all. The joy of the holidays is over, the bill are due, the work has piled up, and there’s lots of long, cold winter months ahead. Maybe you’re feeling down because you’ve already broken your new year resolutions, maybe you’re feeling blue because you’ve hardly seen the sun, or maybe it’s because what feels like a “winter wonderland” on Christmas feels more like a “snowy, slushy shithole” just a week later – pass the Advil, my back is killing me from shoveling all that goddamned snow.

Bear with me, I do have a point. OR MAYBE the reason you’re feeling a little less happy is because the Hallmark Christmas romance movies have dried up, and you’ve had to tuck away the corner of your heart that enjoys them in the same storage bin as the wreath and the wrapping paper. But rejoice! The Hallmark channel is actually all year round now, and you can be enjoying generic winter romance movies like this one RIGHT FREAKING NOW!

Mary (Rachel Leigh Cook) is the owner of a severely struggling book store (also just known as a book store these days). It’s facing closure if she doesn’t magically rebrand it into something people will choose to overpay for books at in a really big way. She’s got a friend in PR who vows to help, but I think we should check her credentials because her great idea is to use a “buddy system,” pairing 2 of her clients (her only 2 clients as far as we know) together to somehow turn each other’s luck around. If Mary, a book store owner, doesn’t know how to run her book store profitably, why would anyone who is not a book store owner? And Mary doesn’t wind up paired with anyone, she winds up paired with Adam (Niall Matter), the bad boy of hockey. He’s been kicked off any number of teams and has recently received a 10 game suspension for being naughty again. He has to rehab his image and you know what they say: only a failing book store can do that!

Naturally, Mary and Adam hate each other at first; she’s a know-it-all but never-do, and he’s a jerk. But working together to solve their common book store-hockey problem turns their animosity into instant attraction. Hubba hubba! Only one problem: if they’re successful and his team takes him back, it’ll take him away from Mary and back on the road to unspecified glory. Oh well, that little wrinkle is their problem, not yours. It’s January. Take some time for yourself. Pour generously. Sit cozily. Munch happily. And watch guilt-free, because you deserve it, year round.

I’m Your Woman

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Jean’s life is a little unusual even before it goes to shit. She sits on a lounge chair in the back yard, sipping wine in her marabou-trimmed dressing gown, dark glasses covering the sorrow in her eyes. She and her husband meant to have babies, she tells us, but couldn’t. So now she’s got nothing to do. Except one day husband Eddie walks through the door with a baby in his arms, provenance unknown, may as well have the tags still attached not unlike her fancy new dressing gown.

With a baby literally dropped right in her lap, Jean’s (Rachel Brosnahan) life is certainly turned upside down, and quite suddenly, but baby Harry’s actually the least of it. One night her husband goes out to work and in his stead, an associate of his turns up at some ungodly hour, stuffing a suitcase full of cash she didn’t know was in their closet, telling her not to pause for clothes or toiletries, they need to get out NOW. Delivered to her new minder Cal (Arinzé Kene), it turns out that her husband is a bad man who’s just betrayed his partners, and now she and baby Harry are running for their lives, their only allies Cal and his wife Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake), who were complete strangers to her just minutes ago. Of course, she’s starting to realize that her husband’s been a stranger to her too, she just didn’t know it. A lot of his secrets are coming loose, and none of them are making Jean or her baby any safer.

I knew I was in for a 1970s crime drama of some sort but was pretty pleased to find it defying expectations. Director Julia Hart (who writes with husband/director Jordan Horowitz) wants to see things from the other side of the story, turning our assumptions on their head and finding fresh perspectives to breathe new life into a genre we’ve so many times before it’s already retro. Smart and subversive but sparsely told, I’m Your Woman examines mob life for the wives who’ve been left at home, but not entirely left out of the fray. The 70s were a rapidly changing time for women and the roles they played, and Hart discovers a very clever space for exploring it – at least between bouts of action, of course.

Beastie Boys Story

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Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz stopped performing as Beastie Boys when friend and bandmate Adam Yauch died in 2012 after a 3 year battle with cancer. Actually, their last performance was in 2009, though none of them knew that it would be then.

This is an untraditional documentary; Diamond and Horovitz have mounted a stage show about the band’s history, its improbable beginnings, the ups and downs of fame, success, and friendship, all filmed by director Spike Jonze in front of a live audience. With behind the scenes photos, intimate stories, and little-known details, Diamond and Horovitz paint an intimate portrait of the Beastie Boys origin story, the turning points, the slumps, the resurrections, the regrets, the compromises, the hardships, and the insane parties.

Of course, at the heart of it all is a 40 year friendship between 3 guys who never grew bored of creating together. It’s clear that Diamond and Horovitz relish the opportunity to remember and honour their fallen friend, but are still emotional doing so. I felt it too, not because of his absence but because he actually felt quite present, so well remembered, so vibrant in memory and legacy. If you’re any kind of fan, you’ll enjoy taking a trip back to their earliest days, and then riding that crazy wave all the way to their most recent success. With so many hits in their catalogue, it’s definitely an enjoyable trip.

The Crow

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Can you believe I watched this for the first time this year? What attracted many has kept me away: the spectre of actor Brandon Lee’s actual death.

Brandon Lee, son of Bruce, was filming a scene like almost any other in the movie. It was a film about vigilante justice, heavy on violence. Michael Massee, the actor portraying Funboy, was required to fire a .44 magnum revolver loaded with blanks at Lee. The revolver had been inspected days earlier for a previously filmed scene in which it was not fired but needed to be seen loaded. Dummy rounds are used for this, which have a bullet, a spent primer, and no powder. One of the dummy rounds had a bullet, a live primer, and no powder. When test-fired, the primer propelled the bullet into the barrel, where it stopped. The gun was then rechecked, but no anomalies were found because the primer was now spent and the barrel was not inspected. Days later, the same gun was to be used again, without specific consent from or an additional inspection by the weapons coordinator, who had been sent home early. This time the gun was loaded with blanks, which are fully charged rounds but have no bullets. They make a convincing gunshot noise when fired, but no bullet is released – except in this case, there was a bullet, lodged in the barrel. A blank can still kill if used improperly, even without a bullet; the force of the exploding gas is enough to cause significant damage. But in Lee’s case, the exploding gas caught up with the bullet in the chamber and sent it straight into Lee’s abdomen where it lodged itself into Lee’s lower spine. The crew eventually picked up on Lee’s being slow to get up; he was rushed to hospital and spent 5 hours in surgery but was pronounced dead the next day, just 2 weeks before he was to marry his sweetheart, Eliza. His body was flown to Seattle to be buried beside his father. Production was shut down with an incomplete film and Paramount wrote it off. Entertainment Media Investment Corporation then bought the film and completed it using rewrites, body doubles, and ground-breaking (for 1993) CGI special effects.

So I feel a little guilty saying that I just didn’t like it. I suppose it was the Twilight of its time, its dark energy meant to feed the teenage need for rebellion and a certain morbid romanticism. But the whole thing’s a bit overwrought for me. Its moody, melancholic style doesn’t nearly make up for the wholly ridiculous things happening on screen. It’s about a guy who comes back from the dead in order to seek revenge on those responsible for murdering himself and his girlfriend, accompanied by – well, I’m sorry to say it, but it’s quite visibly a raven.

Despite Lee’s magnetic performance, the movie feels corny, and let’s face it – dated. It simply hasn’t aged well. Sean felt it was important that I see it, and since I made him watch The Craft, it was only fair that I succumbed. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

A Midnight Kiss

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Mia (Adelaide Kane) and her brother both work with their parents at the family business, a party planning company that’s just putting their last Christmas party of the season to bed. Whew! Mom and dad have actually worked their last party ever – they’re retiring, leaving the company to the kids, and off to Palm Springs to enjoy Christmas off their feet. Mia and brother Jake should also be enjoying some well-deserved time off, but a very big client, tech entrepreneur Kate (Pauline Egan), has had a new year’s eve party catastrophe and needs their help rather desperately, despite the late hour of her request.

The company is in no position to refuse such a big client, so Mia is going to work double time, no triple time, to make it happen, especially after a broken leg puts her stupid brother out of commission. Luckily his college buddy, jet-setting documentarian David (Carlos PenaVega) is visiting for Christmas, and they rather ruthlessly put him to work. He’s supposed to be just a warm body for getting the manual labour done but to Mia’s surprise (and annoyance), he starts interjecting with his own bright ideas. Mia’s not sure how she’ll survive this intensive week of party planning with a guy who’s quickly getting on her last nerve, but it’s not like she has a choice.

In fact, if you’ve ever seen a Hallmark movie before, you know that Mia and David’s real job is to fall in love, and the party planning is just an excuse to throw them into the same room together a whole bunch to facilitate the process. How long will Mia’s brother milk the broken leg? Will David stick around long enough to actually help, or will he be off to China, leaving his new love in the lurch? What was the gold paint for? Who will secure the fireworks permits? How many staff members can attend a party they’re supposed to be working and kiss at midnight without sacrificing professionalism? Hint: far fewer than actually do, but I guess you’ll have to head on over to Hallmark to figure out the exact number for yourself.

Royal New Year’s Eve

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Oh you thought the Hallmark coverage had ended? Shame on you! Hallmark oozes romantic schmaltz all year round.

Caitlyn (Jessy Schram) quit her teaching job to work in fashion, but a year later she’s still just the assistant and her magazine editor boss Abigail (Cheryl Ladd) still hasn’t noticed her. Abigail is helping with the new year’s eve royal fundraising gala where it is rumoured that prince Jeffrey (Sam Page) will propose to his girlfriend, lady Isabelle (Hayley Sales), as per family tradition. She’s hoping that lady Isabelle will choose one of her daughter Leighton’s (Nicole LaPlaca) designs for the occasion, but her eye is drawn to Caitlyn’s design instead, wouldn’t you know it?

Meanwhile, prince Jeffrey has been “acting regular” and “dressing casual” and introduces himself simply as Jeff on the numerous occasions he and Caitlyn run into each other before they’re finally introduced in an official capacity. Ice broken, Caitlyn and Jeffrey are going to be working together rather closely – not only is Caitlyn designing Isabelle’s dress, Abigail is forcing her to plan that new year’s eve party too, hoping of course that Caitlyn will be overwhelmed and one of Leighton’s designs will sub in last minute when Caitlyn fails to produce a dress.

As per Hallmark rules, all this tête à tête-ing should have Caitlyn and Jeffrey falling in love. Except Jeffrey, as we’re all aware, has a girlfriend he’s just days away from proposing to. He is fully off the market. So that leaves…his man servant Barnaby, maybe? Is that a thing? No, no, it’s definitely Jeffrey. Which is awkward, because it means their romance is starting with an emotional affair at the very least, which isn’t normally Hallmark’s style, and a little scandalous besides, not exactly their wholesome best. Will Caitlyn’s dress be ready in time? Will she successfully steal the prince? Will the king dare to intervene? Will a former Charlie’s Angel fire her ass for the audacity? Guess you’ll have to watch to find out. Happy new year!

Boys State

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Every year, the American Legion hosts a thousand 17-year-old boys from Texas and has them build a representative government from the ground up. Every state but Hawaii does the same or similar, but this particular documentary is hanging around Austin, Texas, to witness their particular experience. High schools nominate which students will be sent, ostensibly some from all different political backgrounds, dividing them up into ‘cities’ which will then elect mock municipal officials, and representatives of state legislature, even state officials all the way up to governor. It sounds rather noble, definitely educational, like a mock-UN for local politics. But in practice, it’s actually pretty ugly. The kids aren’t learning to be civic-minded good citizens, they’re learning to lie, cheat – and worse.

Obviously politics is a dirty game, but I think it might be nice to at least teach kids the right way, the better way, the idealistic way before we give up on them entirely in adulthood and actually let them vote…or run! But no, these kids are petty and ruthless. They’ve come to win at any cost, and there’s no pretense in running clean campaigns. While organizing political parties, their fundamentals are decided upon by what tracks well, not by anyone’s actual beliefs. They’ve already learned about identity politics, and they’ll comb each other’s social media, looking for any weakness they can leak and exploit. They make empty promises, pass harmful bills, and shamelessly pander for votes.

It’s clear that as far as American politics goes, the corruption is baked right in. It’s being taught and endorsed by the American Legion! While I of course abhor the Boys State program for what it’s allowing, I applaud the documentary for exposing it for what it is. It’s important to understand just how ingrained these dirty politics have become. By the age of 17, it is clear to these kids that a life and career in politics is not about values or beliefs or doing what’s right or helping people or serving one’s country. It’s about winning, at any cost, and being willing to make any compromise in order to cross that finish line in front of one’s opponent. If adult politicians are varying degrees of good at concealing that naked fact, these kids are not. Some of us (by which I mean myself) often make the mistake of believing that things will be better when the old guard dies out, but this film makes it clear that this is a dangerous expectation – not only have the bad habits already been passed down, these kids are honing them. Soon there will be no pretense at all in the game, simply undisguised greed and self-interest.