You Hurt My Feelings is a touching film about being honest in relationships.

A novelist’s long-standing marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband give his honest reaction to her latest book.

Nicole Holofcener has this ability to direct films that almost instantly connect the viewers to the characters, mainly due to the very raw and grounded situations the characters are in. That’s shown here in You Hurt My Feelings.

The cast is quite incredible here with Julia Louis-Dreyfus giving such a strong performance that is another prime example of how talented she is as an actress, Nicole Holofcener using her natural style combined with having Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the lead was a very wise decision as the results are quite excellent.

The film explores the tension between being supportive and brutally honest in relationships, topics that are very important for a healthy relationship. The film shows that well with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies who love each other but want to be completely honest with one another, but are scared to say it face to face especially after Beth (Dreyfus) overhears Don’s (Menzies) reaction about her latest book.

Even if the movie doesn’t have huge dramatic moments you might expect, or the humor is not as direct it really doesn’t need to be at all, it keeps things at a very grounded level that can make the viewer connect with the characters quite easily.

You Hurt My Feelings is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+

The Perfect Find exists

Everything is at stake for a 40-year-old woman: her career, her ticking biological clock, and her bank account. She risks it all for an intense, secret romance with the one person who could destroy her comeback.

The Perfect Find is yet another Netflix romantic comedy movie that just sort of exists, what I’ve said about a lot of Netflix’s other romantic comedies that have come out so far this year can be said here.

Gabrielle Union and Keith Powers are solid enough especially during the first half hour of the movie, which did feel quite genuine in it’s execution. After that however the movie starts to fall in line with a lot of Netflix’s other romantic comedies, the typical inoffensively made romantic comedy that has decent acting and incredibly forgettable. It’s the type of movie where after you finish watching it you will soon forget about it 2 hours later.

The only couple things that makes the movie standout are the cast and the whole age gap thing an older woman and younger man, which I guess congratulations on doing something different however that doesn’t make it good. Putting in an idea that isn’t often done while putting in so many cliches doesn’t blend well together at all.

I’m not entirely sure what else to say here, The Perfect Find isn’t terrible and at the very least there was some level of attempt during the first half hour to make it work. But the rest is compilation of elements that have been done far better.

The Perfect Find is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

The Machine misses it’s mark with execution.

The past comes back to haunt Bert Kreischer when a murderous mobster tries to kidnap him to atone for his crimes. With help from his estranged father, Bert must retrace the steps of his younger self as a sociopathic crime family goes to war.

The Machine is based on Bert Kreischer’s true story stand up routine which was turned into a feature film, the whole idea is that the whole true Russian mobsters story is back to haunt Kreischer 23 years later. Which sounds like a good idea on paper but in execution really misses the mark quite a lot.

Bert Kreischer plays a fictionalized version of himself and at times he can be entertaining as well as Mark Hamill who gets to play a different type of role which is nice. Hamill and Kreischer are by far the best parts about the movie and actually work well together, the action is at least serviceable with a few surprisingly fun scenes that I’m actually quite shocked the movie used.

The problems come in with the writing and a majority of the humor, there’s only so many times I can say that a movie isn’t funny. But that really applies here which is unfortunate because the set up is decent, the execution however is completely lacking. Heck when the movie is focused more on the action it has so much more style and is far more interesting than when it tries to be funny.

The Machine is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

The Blackening is a fun horror comedy with tons of laughs.

Seven friends go away for the weekend, only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer who has a vendetta. They must pit their street smarts and knowledge of horror movies against the murderer to stay alive.

The Blackening is definitely a surprise, I’ll say this right now the trailer did not do this film justice. The trailer really made this seem like it was going to be yet another horror comedy that really comes and goes, plus it’s directed by Tim Story so I didn’t expect much. But I absolutely love to be proven wrong and this is truly something great.

While not every single joke lands and it does have a bit of a rough start, there is just so much to absolutely love here. For starters the cast is fantastic, they all have this natural connection towards one another which leads to incredibly fun performances and strong chemistry. Grace Byers as Alison I definitely think is the standout performance here, where she seems like she’s going to be only a supportive friend type of character ends up genuinely getting a ton of character development. In fact that could be really said for the rest of the cast, everyone is given their time to shine nobody feels left behind here.

The writing is quite hilarious, as I said before while not every single joke lands for most of the film there is so many jokes that land beautifully, it pokes fun at the horror genre while it does it’s own thing, it doesn’t completely rely on making fun of the genre to be funny. Even when it does make fun of the genre it goes about it in different ways, such as the delivery being different which is a breath of fresh air.

The Blackening very much leads into the comedy genre more than it does the horror genre, while yes there is a killer and it has a lot of common horror movie setups and elements. The humor is a lot of the main focus here, while this would be normally a problem due to a balancing issue it actually works quite well here. Which is due to the movie knowing what it wants to be, The Blackening knows it wants to be this silly horror comedy and that’s honestly what it sticks to being throughout the film. Plus the cast really looked like they had a blast of fun and you can really tell there was so much love put into the film.

Overall The Blackening is the biggest surprise so far this year, it’s the very definition of a midnight feature and quite an entertaining one. I can easily see this one becoming a classic in the future.

The Blackening is currently in theaters.

7/10 B

Showing Up a beautiful portrait about art.

A sculptor preparing to open a new show tries to work amidst the daily dramas of family and friends.

Showing Up really highlights why I love Kelly Reichardt so much as a director, a lot of her films have this special person to person interaction where the film shows people having very grounded conversations that truly feel like you are watching real people talk to one another. That’s especially present here in Showing Up.

Showing Up focuses on the labor of making art or how it fits into life, rather than what makes an artist or who they are while that is a very interesting subject there is no denying that’s been done plenty of times before. It also focuses on the outcome such as how long did it take to create the art in question? How stressful was it to create and how fulfilling it was and so much more.

The cast is truly phenomenal here in every way possible, Michelle Williams, Hong Chau and John Magaro are the standouts and all give very raw and touching performances that really make the film unique. Michelle Williams does a fantastic job at the deadpan delivery that also quickly becomes quite emotional, she has this beautiful bond with Hong Chau who is quite amusing. There’s just an overall beautiful realness to the performances that Reichardt tends to use.

The writing is truly beautiful and really celebrates the concept of art itself, it builds the concept of art as it’s own character where it’s talked about, explored and discussed in many different angles and perspectives that it’s truly mesmerizing and really wraps the film up in such a beautiful little sequence.

Showing Up is one of the best films so far this year, if you haven’t seen this one please make sure to do so.

Showing Up is available on all VOD platforms.

9/10 A

Fool’s Paradise is a dull satire on Hollywood.

A down-on-his-luck publicist discovers a former mental health patient who looks just like a misbehaving movie star. He soon becomes an unlikely celebrity when he gets thrown into the bright lights and behind-the-scenes bustle of Hollywood.

I’ve always liked Charlie Day he is incredibly charming as an actor so I was definitely interested to see his directional debut Fool’s Paradise and even with Charlie Day’s charm there isn’t enough here to make the movie work.

The main problem with Fool’s Paradise is a huge lack of trying to stand out, satires on the Hollywood industry have been done before in mass. It would be one thing if Fool’s Paradise added something new to the conversation or executed it differently, that’s not the case here unfortunately. A lot of it is very unfunny with a few jokes that pop up every now and then that do get a few laughs, every other joke is very messy dialogue.

The movie itself is also pretty repetitive, by the first 30 minutes of the movie it really starts to feel dragged out. At that point it becomes a “okay we get it” type of scenario, the performances are overall fine enough but none of them are really anything to write home about. I will say that the bright colors mixed with the cinematography is actually pretty nice to look at, so at the very least it has that going for it.

Fool’s Paradise is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

Blackberry is a fascinating rise and fall telling of a titan

The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone.

BlackBerry is a film about the history of the BlackBerry line of mobile phones, it serves as a rise and fall story and quite an interesting and great one.

The performances from Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton and Matt Johnson (who also directed the film as well as being one of the writers) are phenomenal and some of the best so far this year, there’s this balance of humor and dramatic moments that blends so well together that it makes the story itself fascinating. BlackBerry sort of takes the route of what Air (2023) did only that I would say this one is a bit more comedic which works perfectly.

Matt Johnson’s direction is quite great, like with the acting the blend of humor and dramatic moments make for some genuinely funny scenes that truly do work, the moment when the competitor the IPhone comes in is when the film hits the viewer with the BlackBerry phones downfall, it shows the complete demise such as sales for the BlackBerry tanking, SEC raiding REM after learning that Balsillie (played by Glenn Howerton) hired engineers in 2003 with illegally backdated stock options and quiet scenes that show that they admit that they can’t compete with Apple.

It’s truly fascinating how it all plays out and if you grew up owning a BlackBerry kind of hurts to see, granted I owned a BlackBerry years ago (back in high school) and had it for not very long. But it’s still fascinating and kind of sad to see what was once a very popular brand quickly turn to dust, the rise and fall element of the film is truly incredible. You can feel the absolute fear that BlackBerry is feeling and if they don’t figure out something soon it will be over.

To really tie everything together the films says at the height of BlackBerry’s success the phone made up 45% of the market and is now 0% in present day, it’s a powerful way to close a rise and fall story in every single way possible.

BlackBerry is available on all VOD platforms.

9/10 A

Love Again is a Celine Dion commercial.

Coping with the loss of her fiance, Mira Ray sends a series of romantic texts to his old cellphone number, not realizing it was reassigned to journalist Rob Burns. Rob becomes captivated by the honesty of her words in the beautifully constructed texts. When he’s assigned to write a profile of superstar Celine Dion, he enlists her help to figure out how to meet Mira in person — and win her heart.

Are we absolutely sure that Love Again wasn’t a Celine Dion music advertisement?

Part of the main focus of the movie was that Celine Dion (who plays herself) gives love advice, which to be absolutely fair she is one of the better parts of the movie and is genuinely entertaining. She even talks about her father René Angélil who sadly passed away in 2016, so I do think that was sweet and kind of touching.

Priyanka Chopra was pretty solid as the lead and Sofia Barclay who’s part while small actually manages to have great chemistry between the two leads. Everything else however is about what you expect from a Hollywood romantic comedy movie.

Honestly the most annoying thing about this movie is the traditional third act breakup, look the cliche isn’t going away anytime soon perhaps it never will. However if you are going to do it, don’t make it something so easily preventable to the point where the viewer is yelling at the screen. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many times Rob Burns (played by Sam Heughan) had the opportunity to come clean but for whatever reason decided not to.

It’s a shame because there’s parts of Love Again that are genuinely enjoyable it’s just a lot of the writing and the third act that are really holding this one back.

Love Again is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Quick Review: What’s Love Got To Do With It (2023)

In London, an award-winning film-maker documents her best friend’s journey into an assisted marriage in line with his family’s Pakistani heritage. In the process, she challenges her own attitude towards relationships.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? Is certainly a romantic comedy that exists.

Performances are overall very solid particularly Lily James who gives yet another pretty strong leading performance, Shabana Azmi is also pretty great here as well. Lastly there’s Emma Thompson who seems like she’s having the time of her life and I can’t help but really enjoy her performance.

There’s some decent chemistry going on between Lily James and Shabana Azmi and some admittedly cute moments, however the rest of the movie is definitely on the forgettable side of things. There really isn’t enough here to bring in the viewer and the comedy element of the movie is very light at best. Outside of a few scenes were there are some jokes, if you removed the comedy completely very little would change.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? Is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Moving On shows more fantastic Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin chemistry.

Two estranged women reunite to seek revenge against the husband of their recently deceased best friend. Along the way, they learn to make peace with the past and each other.

Moving On is the second movie of 2023 (first being 80 For Brady) to have Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as the leads and I’m honestly not complaining at all. While I do think 80 For Brady is the superior movie there’s still quite a lot to like about Moving On.

First off the acting is overall pretty great, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are quite great and work together incredibly well. You can absolutely feel the natural connection the two have and really believe the two are lifelong friends, Malcolm McDowell actually gives one of his better performances here (seriously look at his IMDb page) this is the first time in awhile where he is actually given something to work with and does it quite well.

Tonally the movie can be a bit all over the place there’s definitely moments that could have made for some interesting character moments but then some comedy is thrown in the middle of it, which admittedly the comedy isn’t actually that bad. There’s definitely some jokes that are genuinely funny it just holds the movie back a bit.

The movie is on the short side with the runtime being 85 minutes long, which does take a bit away from the third act but also means it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Which I guess is good in this case because I definitely do think had this movie ran for a bit longer would have made this a chore to sit through, instead of being a quick and easy watch.

Moving On is a decent little movie that might not break any new ground but if you want more Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin having great chemistry then check this one out.

Moving On is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+