Harriet discovers certain songs can transport her back in time. While she relives the past through romantic memories with her former boyfriend, her time travelling interferes with a burgeoning new love interest in the present.
The Greatest Hits is directed by Ned Benson who previously directed Four Lean Hounds (2003), The Westerner (2010), Yes (2010) and The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby (2014).
The Greatest Hits was definitely a surprise, while the movie does follow some very familiar beats and does end up being very unnecessarily convoluted during its final moments. The film itself has a lot of charm and some surprisingly strong performances that really keep it afloat.
Lucy Boynton and Justin H. Min have great chemistry between one another and actually build a quite grounded bond over the course of the film. The film’s main theme is overcoming grief and how love can actually overcome it, this has been done in so many other films but the execution here for the most part is what helps this movie.
The little moments of Harriet’s (played by Lucy Boynton) and David’s (played by Justin H. Min) conversations truly come off as genuine and almost seems very therapeutic, there’s truly some strong acting here and really makes the viewer that much more connected to Harriet and David. The soundtrack also helps quite well, it matches the film’s quiet and slow tone that the film is going for.
The time travel stuff is definitely the weakest parts of the film, I absolutely get what’s being said here. There’s this other theme of considering changing the past to save someone you loved, on paper it seems like a good idea but in execution it’s a bit sloppily put together. It sort of just feels there and when you compare it to everything else in the movie it really sticks out like a sore thumb.
Overall The Greatest Hits is not going to break any new ground especially in terms of story, however it’s a charming enough film with some great performances with a lot of touching moments that I do recommend giving this one a look.
Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley overcomes adversity to become the most famous reggae musician in the world.
Bob Marley: One Love is directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green director of Monsters and Men (2018), Joe Bell (2019) and King Richard (2021). The movie is based on the life of reggae singer and songwriter Bob Marley from his rise to fame in the mid-1970s up until his death in 1981.
Bob Marley: One Love is definitely not as bad as I thought it was going to be as there are a few things that are actually quite great here. Kingsley Ben-Adir is really solid as Bob Marley and gives such a touching performance as well, there’s definitely a few script issues that hold it back from being an incredible performance. However what he manages to do with the script is quite fantastic and definitely has the spirit of Bob Marley. Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley is also quite solid, there’s a few scenes in particular that really help her standout and she takes advantage of them well. The conversations between Adir and Lynch are some of the movie’s best moments by far and really help capture the feelings of the two.
The music is of course quite strong, the moments when you have Adir on stage performing are some of the movie’s most beautiful moments as well as capturing what made Bob Marley so interesting and great as a singer (this movie does not do Marley justice as a person which I’ll get to right now).
Unfortunately the rest of the movie is very by the numbers when it comes to biopics, the movie really doesn’t bother to explore the complexities and tougher aspects of Marley’s life. What makes it even worse is the movie focuses on the part of Marley’s life where he’s fighting for political change in Jamaica yet the movie itself shows apolitical attitude. Which is an incredible dishonest way of telling Marley’s story especially when he was fighting for change.
It’s incredibly frustrating because this movie has the performances and the music to make this an incredibly fun movie that could have easily been a tribute to Bob Marley. But when you paint a drastically different picture of a man who was fighting for change and say “well actually this whole thing was sort of apolitical” you absolutely miss a major point of why people looked up to Bob Marley.
Chronicles the highly scrutinised love life of actor and singer Jennifer Lopez, including her relationships and personal healing journey.
This Is Me Now or This Is Me Now: A Love Story is directed by Dave Meyers director of Foolish (1999) and believe it or not The Hitcher (2007). The film is based on Jennifer Lopez’s ninth album of the same name.
This Is Me Now is bonkers and I honestly have to give Jennifer Lopez some credit here, it’s not everyday you see Fat Joe playing a therapist, a bunch of celebrities such as Post Malone, Kim Petras, Trevor Noah, Keke Palmer, Jane Fonda, Neil deGrasse Tyson and a few others playing zodiac signs and dub themselves as “the Zodiacal Council” and some of the most unintentional hilariously bad voiceover narration you could imagine.
Having that said the movie is pretty much a 65 minute collection of the songs from Lopez’s new album with a plot that is vaguely a story. From what I could gather is about Lopez’s love life but then quickly goes into madness once zodiac signs get involved. The whole music video portion of the movie is about what you expect, sure some of the songs are great but the music video portion of it is bland and not particularly memorable.
I absolutely respect what Jennifer Lopez is going for here, making a very unconventional approach to music films like this, however it becomes way too silly and at times a bit self indulgent like it’s trying to say something meaningful. I’m sure this meant something to Jennifer Lopez as a way to show how her personal love life has gotten better over the years. But everyone else watching I’m not exactly sure if they can really feel the same way.
With that said This Is Me Now is very bizarre and I actually do recommend giving this one watch, it’s the perfect movie to gather a group of friends together and truly witness how off the rails this gets.
On the verge of securing a golden opportunity, American conductor Leonard Bernstein begins a tumultuous relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre, upturning their lives.
Maestro is directed by Bradley Cooper which is his second film in his directing career the first being A Star is Born (2018). After A Star is Born came out and ended up being one of my favorites of 2018 and the 2010s in general, I was very excited to see what Cooper would do next with his directing career. It’s unfortunate to say that Maestro is a step down from his previous work.
Maestro centers around the relationship between famous American composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre, it’s not a biopic in the tradional sense so at the very least it isn’t trying to do the exact same thing as a lot of other biopics. However that doesn’t mean it fully works as there are a lot of glaring issues here.
I’ll start with what worked well here, Bradley Cooper gives a solid performance as Leonard Bernstein. There’s definitely a few hiccups at times but for the most part he does a pretty solid job, I do think he is much stronger during the last portion of the movie especially during it’s final moments. Carey Mulligan’s performance I was a bit harsh on when I first watched it, I called it “not good” which is not exactly true and would be sort of dishonest to say it is. Like Cooper there are a few hiccups but I actually think she gives the stronger performance, her entrance to the movie being the strongest moment for her performance. Everyone else does a pretty solid job outside of Sarah Silverman (I have no idea what she is trying to go for here but whatever it was it doesn’t work).
The movie itself is beautifully done, the black and white portion of the film looks like you are looking through a very old photo album. Looking back at memories through the years, the color portion is just as strong with great use of color and combine that with the cinematography that does have some genuinely gorgeous shots. The music moments are also quite powerful, there’s one in particular that’s hands down the best part of the movie and is an example of some really strong acting and direction from Bradley Cooper.
The main problem here with Maestro is lack of gaining investment from the viewer and doesn’t have quite the power it needs. It’s quite clear that Cooper did not want to make this a traditional biopic as I said before. However I think he goes a little too far with this, we aren’t given anything on Leonard Bernstein if you are unfamiliar with Bernstein or haven’t heard of him that you are out of luck because this movie isn’t going to tell you about his career. The movie itself is very focused on the marriage which is fine but it’s not very investing and doesn’t really capture what makes Bernstein so exciting. Which is a shame because there are some genuinely beautiful moments between Bernstein and Montealegre that really show during the music moments of the movie, showing just how important their marriage was. But a lot of the time it’s way too slow and doesn’t quite bring enough emotion to the table.
Maestro is not a bad movie don’t get me wrong, it’s just one that had a lot of potential but everything doesn’t quite come together unfortunately. I’m sure there is an audience for this movie, this is just something that didn’t quite click for me unfortunately.
Two self-obsessed businessmen discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric, divorced parents.
Dicks: The Musical is a film on the off-Broadway musical Fucking identical Twins by Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson who are also the leads of the film. The film is directed by Larry Charles who directed Borat, The Dictator, Bruno and a few others, Charles mostly goes into satire with his films and there’s plenty of satire in Dicks: The Musical although it’s not very good.
Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp are actually quite entertaining here and their singing voices are genuinely pretty entertaining, some of the music has no business being as good as it is the prime example being “No One Understands Us” and “You Can’t Give Up” two songs that are pretty much poking fun of the moments in a musical when the main character is at their lowest point. Both songs are genuinely entertaining and the scenes they are used for matches they completely well.
Megan Thee Stallion is actually not bad here either, granted she isn’t given a whole lot to do but she does get song “Out Alpha The Alpha” which is another pretty solid song here, the whole sequence of her song is perhaps the most memorable of the movie as well as the most fun.
Unfortunately that’s where the positives end because everything else in this movie is either not funny, repetitive or falls flat, the humor itself unfortunately is a lot of the same jokes just repeated every 10 minutes. The rest of the songs are incredibly forgettable and while I do get the point that they aren’t supposed to be good, and that would be fine if the rest of the music was entertaining and genuinely funny which is not the case here.
I’m not sure what really happened here because Larry Charles has made some great satire in the past especially with Borat, so it’s very frustrating to see this movie be this forgettable.
Dicks: The Musical is available on all VOD platforms.
Single mom Flora is at a loss about what to do with her rebellious teenage son, Max. Her efforts to keep him out of trouble lead to a beat-up acoustic guitar, a washed-up LA musician, and harmony for this frayed Dublin family.
Flora and Son is directed by John Carney a director who is known for his musical drama films such as Begin Again (2013), Once (2007) and Sing Street (2016). Flora and Son might not be that much different than his other films but everything that makes his previous musical drama films so likable is here in Flora and Son.
The performances all around are quite great the standouts being Eve Hewson, Orén Kinlan, Jack Reynor and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. They all deliver emotional and quite touching performances, as well as having beautiful singing voices that deliver some really strong songs including Dubin07 (really caught me by surprise on how catchy it was), Meet in the Middle and High Life all three of which are beautifully put together and fit the film incredibly well.
The story itself is very familiar if you have seen Carney’s previous work which I’m actually okay with, he still has this theme of showing the beauty of music and how it brings us together and much like in his other films he nails that down quite well. We also get to see the theme of crafting music from two people who have different music styles, Flora (played by Eve Hewson) is seen trying to learn about the guitar and likes love songs while her son Max (played by Orén Kinlan) is more into electronic dance music. We get to see two songs that Flora and Max craft and perform together which is some of the film’s best moments.
There’s tons of character moments particularly with the beautiful mother and son drama that Flora and Max have, we get some of Jeff’s (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) character development through his interactions with Flora and through his songs as well. Flora and Son is truly a beautiful film that you can tell quite easily had a lot of heart poured into it.
If you liked John Carney’s previous work you are most definitely going to really like Flora and Son!
The story follows a young and fiercely independent woman who is forced to flee her home in the Mexican desert following the brutal murder of her mother, another strong and mysterious woman. Carmen survives a terrifying and dangerous illegal border crossing into the US, only to be confronted by a lawless volunteer border guard who cold-bloodedly murders two other immigrants in her group. When the border guard and his patrol partner, Aidan–a Marine with PTSD–become embroiled in a deadly standoff, Carmen and Aidan are forced to escape together.
Carmen might lack in story and it does admittedly get a little more noticeable as it goes on, however the movie makes up for that with just about everything else being quite solid.
Melissa Barrera and Paul Mescal are both fantastic here, there’s a handful of scenes that really build the chemistry between the two characters. There’s plenty of emotion building the film creates and the end result is actually really sweet and beautiful.
What Carmen completely nails is the filming, choreography and the music, all of which combine to paint a quiet and meditative picture that you can easily get your mind into. The music itself actually does act like a third main character alongside Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera, it has so much personality and depth that the music really does create it’s own character. Jörg Widmer does a fantastic job shooting the film, adding so much detail to every shot while also creating this meditative feel to the filming.
The music from Nicholas Britell, Taura Stinson and Julieta Venegas is beautiful and like the filming and choreography really blends well into the film, creating a picture that is captivating and very pleasing to the eye.
As I mentioned before, Carmen might lack in story but absolutely makes up for it in just about everywhere else. It most certainly won’t be for everyone but I do recommend giving it a go!
In the midst of navigating the hardships of adolescence, 12-year-old Prem Patel discovers his deceased father was a rapper. He sets out to pursue a career for himself as a rap superstar and is determined to find out if hip-hop is in his DNA.
Got to say I’m a bit surprised from World’s Best, while it does fall into the typical Disney+ movie hole where it does end up feeling like a Disney Channel Original Movie. There’s a genuine amount of fun to be had here with this one.
Utkarsh Ambudkar is a whole lot of fun here and really puts his all into a performance that may not always give him the best material, but during the music segments he takes advantage of it and really pulls some great moments. Manny Magnus is a solid lead and does a pretty solid job of making his character feel quite grounded in a lot of ways, it will be interesting to see where his career goes.
The rest of the cast while not anything necessarily amazing, they get the job done and are genuinely charming as well. As I said before World’s Best can feel like a Disney channel original movie at times with the script being the main culprit plus some of the humor isn’t quite great either. Granted it is less noticeable as a lot of other Disney+ original movies, the movie itself does follow a lot of story beats about a child (in this case son) who wants to follow the footsteps of their deceased parent (in this case father).
But what makes this one standout a bit more is the direction from Roshan Sethi (who previously directed 7 Days), he brings a handful of heartwarming moments that are just enough to push the movie over the finish line. It has a lot of heart and does manage to make some of the characters feel a bit more grounded.
Overall World’s Best is flawed but a quite charming movie that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.
After having a nervous breakdown that caused the cancellation of her last tour, an aspiring pop star begins a complicated relationship with a self-help guru and the head of a contemporary cult.
I don’t normally make TV show reviews, outside of the MCU shows and a few Star Wars shows, but with the whole controversy surrounding Sam Levinson and The Weekend’s “The Idol” I knew I had to throw my hat into the ring. Let’s talk a bit about the background first, for starters the show was in development for awhile. Which was mainly due to the many people involved not knowing which direction to take the show. Originally Amy Seimetz (director of She Dies Tomorrow) was supposed to be the show’s director.
Amy Seimetz wanted a more woman-led story (which would have been far better than what we got) while Sam Levinson and The Weekend wanted a more graphic and in The Weekend’s own words “felt the show was heading too much into a female perspective” so the script was redone which leads us to the Cannes Film Festival where the controversy really gets underway.
While I do believe that a lot of the reactions of the show were overblown saying how it was “torture porn” or comparing it to the likes of A Serbian Film or Salo 120 Days Of Sodom, that still doesn’t mean it wasn’t edgy. There are plenty of very try hard scenes that even the most try hard disturbing movie such as The Bunny Game (2011) would point its finger and laugh at.
Sam Levinson had a previous success with Euphoria which I genuinely really liked, season 2 left a lot more to be desired but there were still a decent amount of episodes that I quite liked (Episode 7 of Season 2 is one of the best of the show.) what got me interested in the Idol was the cast, Lily Rose Depp, Suzanna Son, Rachel Sennott, Hari Nef, Daniel Levy and Jeannie Kim. It was an absolute stacked cast filled to the brim with talent but as the series goes on you quickly realize the show does not take advantage of that at all.
Let’s start with episode one since this series is only five episodes, episode one is the most bare bones you can get, granted there are a few decent things here such as Lily Rose Depp (get used to her being in the positive section she’s phenomenal throughout the series), the few minutes Jeannie Kim gets is pretty alright but ultimately doesn’t amount to anything. Daniel Levy is pretty decent here as well which is the most screen time he ever gets throughout the series. Rachel Sennott is probably the best part about this episode, she really tries to make the script work and actually does manage to get some quite great moments in there. Finally there’s the ending which is fine enough, everything else however blows there’s one line in particular talking about loving rape and it’s about as edgy as you think it is.
Eli Roth and Hank Azaria in particular are pretty awful here, Azaria for some reason is given this accent that’s truly awful and Roth spews some of the worst dialogue of the show. The episode tries to make it look like Jeannie Kim’s character Dyanne is going to have a major role but that’s absolutely not the case here, she gets very little screen time throughout the series. Honestly the main problem with episode one is that it really doesn’t do anything, it especially gets worse when The Weekend’s character Tedros shows up, The Weekend easily has the worst performance out of everyone in the cast and delivers edgy line after edgy line.
Episode 2 is actually quite an improvement but still suffers from terrible writing and the whole Tedros plot a common theme you are going to be noticing, the positives are once again Rachel Sennott, Lily Rose Depp who is given a fantastic scene where the show does actually try to capture its commentary on the music industry. Where we see her character Jocelyn really overworking and trying really hard to keep going, between the bruises, atmosphere and music it is quite a strong scene that really stands out as one of the show’s most memorable.
Finally we have the introduction to Suzanna Son and her character Chloe who’s perhaps one of the show’s highlights heck it could be argued she’s the best part of the show. Suzanna Son gives the show another very memorable scene where she sings Family, it’s truly a beautiful scene that actually ends the episode quite strongly. Between Suzanna Son’s beautiful voice and acting she truly was a great choice for the show.
As I said earlier the Tedros stuff really hurts this episode which is a shame, it’s more very bad dialogue that really doesn’t go anywhere and the whole Jocelyn and Tedros part is more or less the exact same sort of stuff that was in episode one.
Episode 3 is hands down the worst episode of the show, this honestly felt like filler which is certainly strange given that there’s only five episodes. Outside of Lily Rose Depp giving a very strong closing scene to the episode there really isn’t anything here that stands out at all, Jeannie appears once, Suzanna Son says a few lines and the dialogue is atrocious. Tedros encourages Jocelyn to use her trauma in her music which leads to a bondage session while using the hairbrush her mother abused her with. The episode attempts to give backstory but it’s not done well at all and it’s just poorly edited.
Episode four is probably the best of the show to be quite honest, while it’s not great it’s at the very least interesting. Things actually do happen here and there’s plenty of moments here that are quite great. Suzanna Son gets a decent amount of screentime again and gets to sing which is always fantastic, her scene with Da’Vine Joy (who is finally given something to do) is genuinely fantastic. Lily Rose Depp is once quite excellent here and there’s one scene involving Troye Sivan that actually did surprise me, Sivan’s acting is genuinely pretty strong here, not a whole lot of complains here.
Spoiler warning for episode five
Finally there’s episode five which leaves a lot more to be desired, honestly the biggest problem here is that the episode contradicts itself, the first half of this episode is fine enough. There’s some great singing from Suzanna Son and Lily Rose Depp gives a phenomenal performance. Then the second half of the episode shows up where Jocelyn for no reason at all forgives Tedros for everything he’s done, the show makes Tedros out to be a victim which is truly laughable and baffling at the same time. It completely assassinates Jocelyn as a character and truly makes her whole character arc seem rather pointless.
The Idol acts like it’s saying something profound about the music industry but in reality is saying things that have either already been said in a far better way or completely contradicts itself, it’s such a shame to because there absolutely was potential here. With every strong moment with Suzanna Son or Lily Rose Depp there’s at least ten horrible moments of The Weekend poorly acting.
None of these characters are given proper development at all, most of them are given one singular character trait and that’s all there is to their character. It’s mostly the Jocelyn and Tedros show, Tedros being such a dull and unlikable character that’s main purpose to be as edgy and shocking as possible. Jocelyn just did not get nearly enough development as she should have, the show keeps mentioning about her rough past and her mother, which is fine and great but we are given very surface level information about it. How does it help her with her career? How else did her mother impact her? Where else did she grow up? There’s so many other questions that the audience is just not given.
It’s a shame because had Amy Seimetz stayed on and the show was released when she was the director I actually think this could have been quite great, Seimetz’s direction would have solved a lot of the character development issues especially with Lily Rose Depp who as I said earlier needed the development. As it stands The Idol is a massive disappointment. There’s some fantastic music, some really strong performances from Lilly Rose Depp, Suzanna Son and Rachel Sennott but really not much else unfortunately.
Follows 17-year-old Tim Walker as he travels from London to the Austrian Alps to attend the legendary Mozart boarding school. There, he discovers a centuries-old forgotten passageway into the fantastic world of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”
The Magic Flute is a German musical fantasy film that is based on the 1791 opera of the same name, I have to give credit where credit is due this movie is completely not what I expected.
The movie is an opera which I have to say some of the singing voices are quite great, there really isn’t anything here that I’m going to remember for years to come or actively listen to. But it does get the job done and at the very least is a bit different from other fantasy movies, Jack Wolfe is definitely standout when it comes to acting, I can absolutely see his career evolve as it goes on.
What mainly hurts this movie is that it does go on for way too long it’s 124 minutes long and unfortunately the pacing doesn’t really help at all, some scenes overstay their welcome. The opera scenes are by far the most interesting but the rest of the movie falls into the “seen it and done far better” category.
With that said I don’t think The Magic Flute is necessarily bad, it’s competently made, has some decent filming and the writing does have some great moments that do have some emotion to it. A lot of it just falls in very familiar territory that is outclassed by several other movies.
The Magic Flute is available on all VOD platforms.
Jerome Reviews... 