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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A martial artist-in-training believes she must save her older sister from her impending marriage. After enlisting the help of her friends, she tries to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.
Polite Society is a wild ride and it’s definitely a very interesting one that I’ve been quite curious about.
The acting in particular is very strong here Priya Kansara and Ritu Arya have excellent chemistry between one another, director Nida Manzoor does a beautiful job of capturing this sister bond the two have with one another. Manzoor also manages to make it surprisingly raw and touching in a lot of areas, I say surprising because on the surface the movie seem like just a highly energized action comedy film. But there is so much more than that in fact that doesn’t even begin to describe how much character is in the film.
The film does a fantastic job of mixing the coming of age story genre and the action genre with some comedy thrown in as well, action and coming of age are two genres that you don’t often see mix in film but Manzoor combines them in such an interesting way. She gives these characters so much determination take for example the main character Rita Khan (played by Priya Kansara) she wants to be a stuntwoman, so Manzoor works the action genre into that idea and creates some beautifully done action scenes.
The action scenes are electrifying and really grab the viewer’s attention quickly, there’s a lot of character to them and are overall very entertaining to watch. The film does get a bit more bizarre as it goes on and even then Nida Manzoor still holds on to the film and introduces these bizarre scenes sparingly.
Lastly Polite Society has a ton of heart that really does get the viewer to feel for these characters, it’s a very fast paced journey that you honestly don’t want to stop at all. Be sure to check this one out!
Carl Nargle, a local treasure with a soothing whisper of a voice, hosts his own painting show on Vermont public television. His art has attracted the attention of many women over the years, especially those who work at the station. However, when a new painter gets hired to revitalize the channel, Carl’s own fears regarding his talents as an artist are brought to the forefront.
If you don’t know a single thing about Paint and you just heard about it you would think that it’s trying to be a biopic about Bob Ross the famous painter who had a very highly viewed TV show, however that’s not the case. It’s a biopic about a man named Carl Nargle who happens to be a lot like Bob Ross. However that ultimately starts to confuse the viewer as it is quite clear that they have Owen Wilson try to do a Bob Ross impression.
Honestly Paint could be summed up as a 90 minute SNL skit that is incredibly unfunny, the best thing I can really say is Owen Wilson can be enjoyable at times and I don’t think the rest of the cast are particularly bad either. It’s mainly the script that is filled to the brim with unfunny jokes is what wrecks this movies.
A lot of it is so tonally inconsistent either and wants to claim it’s about a guy named Carl but also wants to be this parody of Bob Ross, the switch in tones from trying to have dramatic moments with dry humor that doesn’t blend well at all turns this movie into a gigantic mess that refuses to come together.
Paint could have been interesting if it had far better writing and actually had focus on what it truly wanted to be, instead of going for the throwing ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks approach.
Two ballers, opposites who are seemingly miles apart, find they might have more in common than they imagined possible.
Remember how earlier this month I talked about Cube (2021) being a very pointless remake that is barely different from the original? Well here’s another remake that follows from some of the exact same problems (only worse) White Men Can’t Jump is a remake of the 1992 film of the same name. Even if I’m not that huge on the original I still think it’s a solid movie that had a lot of great chemistry that was genuinely funny, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson had fantastic chemistry that really felt natural so it would be very hard to try and capture that sort of chemistry again.
White Men Can’t Jump (2023) suffers from a lot of issues and a lot of them have to do with the script and the very lacking chemistry between Jack Harlow and Sinqua Walls, Harlow and Walls are definitely at least trying to make the bond between the two work. But unfortunately it doesn’t quite work outside of a few moments that are admittedly some of the best parts about the movie.
Their chemistry just doesn’t capture the same sort of magic that Snipes and Harrelson had in the original, as I said earlier the chemistry in the original felt natural while with this one is a lot more manufactured and really does not come together at all. As far as writing goes while it’s fine to try and not be an exact copy of the original, the changes in the script they went with are very questionable.
Having pop culture references such as Tiktok really doesn’t fit here at all and once again comes off as wanting someone who’s watching to point their finger and say “they said Tiktok” the script also wraps up like a Disney channel original movie, such as talking about very half baked morals that if you took them out wouldn’t change a thing.
Lastly there’s the trash talk which the original did have, but at least the original’s trash talk was executed in a somewhat raw way so the viewer could feel the impact. But here while the lines may seem harsh the viewer doesn’t feel anything due to it being executed so poorly, the power, confidence and intimidation is just not there at all to make these lines work at all.
Overall White Men Can’t Jump (2023) is yet another example of a remake that did not need to be made, the main question when the credits rolled in my head was “why was this made?” I know it’s a cliched question to ask with a lot of bad remakes, but I think it fits appropriately here considering that this is absolutely a remake that nobody asked for.
A womanizer and a gold digger team up to pursue two robot versions of themselves.
I really don’t have much to say here, Robots had a lot of potential to be interesting but sadly it doesn’t amount to much.
Shailene Woodley is definitely trying here and the movie itself at least looks decently made, there’s a few shots here that are nice to look at. But that’s where the positives end.
Somehow the movie makes the concept of Robots taking over incredibly dull, with a very tacked on political message that really does not come together at all. The movie quickly turns into a mess, the road to get to the end of the movie is a rough one. I absolutely hate using this word in my reviews but Robots is about as boring as watching paint dry, there is very little going on and none of the characters are given proper development.
Still reeling from the loss of Gamora, Peter Quill must rally his team to defend the universe and protect one of their own. If the mission is not completely successful, it could possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the final film of the Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy. The discussion about superhero fatigue or the superhero genre itself putting mediocrity or flat out terrible movies is still a very relevant. Especially given with what we got so far this year, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania outside of a few performances was a horrible start to phase five and Shazam: Fury Of The Gods suffered very identical problems that Quantumania did and just sort of came and went.
However Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is what happens when you focus on far more than just building a cinematic universe, random cameos and actually have very interesting themes with strong writing. The Guardians Of The Galaxy films I consider to be the best of the MCU and a lot of it has to do with how beautifully well written the characters are and James Gunn’s direction which are both very present here.
For starters the character’s are once again incredibly well written here, the film completes a lot of the arcs the characters have went through from the last several years, Chris Pratt once again kills it as Peter Quill, while he doesn’t get as much development here as he did in the previous movies he really doesn’t need to. The last film really wrapped up a lot of his story and in this one it tied up some loose ends which does lead to a very emotional touching end for his journey, it’s one that’s been hinted at for awhile and to see him accomplish it is truly satisfying.
Bradley Cooper is at his absolute best here as Rocket as the trailers and information about the film has said, the film takes a look at Rocket’s backstory which is quite dark, that’s one thing I should mention Vol. 3 is the darkest of the trilogy (heck this might be the darkest film of the MCU if we are going to be honest.) the backstory really does a fantastic job of building Rocket’s character, there’s so many emotions and really makes Rocket one of the most interesting characters of the MCU. There’s so much pain and sadness in the many flashbacks that truly do make you cry, Rocket’s backstory is among some of the best the MCU has ever done and it’s truly beautiful to see his arc be completed.
Dave Bautista as Drax actually goes through quite a lot of development here, he’s shown in the previous films that he really cares about the team, but here you can absolutely see the result of that. It helps that Bautista gives a phenomenal performance and really puts so much heart into the role, it always did seem like he was having a blast playing Drax whenever he was on screen and that shows here.
Karen Gillan as Nebula is yet another highlight performance of the film, while yes Gillan has always killed as Nebula but I would argue she takes the performance to a different level in this one. Not only does her arc complete in this film but it’s such a beautiful end to it as well, especially during one particularly moment at the end that has everyone together, Nebula is by far one of the most developed characters of the MCU and truly one of the most interesting as well.
Chukwudi Iwuji plays the villain High Evolutionary and it’s quite refreshing to see a villain who isn’t sympathetic at all, one of the problems a lot of people have had with some recent MCU villains is they are always either given a sympathetic backstory or make arguments where someone can say “they are right” while yes that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when you constantly do it film after film (or show) it starts to become very old. High Evolutionary is straight up evil, he wants to commit genocide and torture creatures he sees as “not perfect” Iwuji’s performance is so unhinged that it’s to the point where it’s quite brilliant. Iwuji says that some inspirations for his performance was William Shakespeare and that really shows, he balances a lot of absolutely unhinged moments with some calm and collected moments.
James Gunn’s direction much like the previous two films is absolutely brilliant, there’s a beautiful blend of comedy and dramatic moments that help the film move along at very steady pace. It tells a beautiful story while making some very hilarious jokes, the music is once against fantastic as well. One scene in particular towards the end uses “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + The Machine and it’s truly a brilliant use of it, the scene really puts a nice closing on an incredible journey we have had with these characters.
Lastly there’s the film itself and it’s everything that the end of a trilogy should be, it completes the many character arcs while introducing a few new elements that add to the overall themes and characters.
I know it may look like I went on a lot about the characters, but that’s honestly the main source of power in the Guardians Of The Galaxy Trilogy…the characters, since 2014 we have been on a journey with these characters that are quite unique when it comes to the writing style, the team is arguably the characters who went through the most development out of all the characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I believe the reason why these characters and films are so fantastic is mainly development, the characters loving each other like a family and the overall charm.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is the perfect closer to the trilogy and is among one of the very best films so far this year!
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 is playing in theaters.
Jerome Reviews... 