The Broken Hearts Gallery: A Love Story For The Hoarders

The Broken Hearts Gallery is a romantic comedy film directed by Natalie Krinsky. The plot sees recently dumped Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan), open up an art exhibit dedicated to all the items that people still have of their exes; post breakup. She hopes by doing this she can get some form of closure from her own breakup as well as help others find the same.

Forget Tenet, forget The New Mutants, this is the film cinemas need to get people to come back. There is something so communal about this film, it is something that we can all relate to, it is so personable that it is hard to not form some sort of attachment to it.

Yes, some of the lines are cringe (they name the film title in the dialogue multiples times), and they feel the need to throw in some hot topics here and there to prove that they’re trendy. However, in spite of these two things I found myself really getting into this film.

The comedy is strong, and it genuinely had me laughing quite a few times, I found Viswanathan to be a really likeable lead and easily the best thing about the film. The romantic chemistry between the leads is strong and believable and will drive you to finish the film to see how things end up.

Overall, this is just a warm feel good film, that is something I needed right now, and I am sure a lot of you reading this do too. It is not going to be the best film you’ll see all year, but it is a fun hour and a half and that is enough.

Pros.

The heart

The humour

Warm and wholesome

Very personable and relatable

Cons.

A few cringe lines throughout

4.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Unpregnant: Dispelling Myths And Taboos, Redefining Female Friendship, The Most Important Film Of 2020

Unpregnant is a comedy drama film directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg. The plot follows two friends as they drive cross country so one of them can have an abortion. Along the way the two rediscover their friendship and learn what it means to be a young woman in these modern times.

This film deserves all the applause you can give it, the way it handles the topic of abortion is frankly refreshing. It ignores the outdated, old fashioned and quite obviously patriarchal myths and taboos and just shows the truth of the matter, and how it is for young women going through this. It both shows the gravity of the decision, as well as the need to do what is right for yourself and your future.

I enjoyed how the film focused on religion and how much of a hold it can have over one’s life. Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson), is deeply religious and you can see how that societal pressure almost forces her to do something that would ruin her life. I was impressed by how the film was not afraid to show the extremism towards the matter, which is mainly brought about by religious reasons, even going so far as to show pro life people picking up the girls and effectively holding them prisoner so that they would miss their termination appointments.

Overall, I think this is an incredibly important film for a number of reasons, I think it starts conversations that we need to have, and normalises something that a lot of women go through in their life, and shows how an individual breaking away from their norm to protect their future despite communal pressure is always the right thing to do.

Pros.

It is brave, I know that term is overused but it is true here

It starts important conversations

It shows female friendship beautifully

It tears apart myths and lies on the subject

It is not afraid to get crazy

It is moving

5/5

Would give higher if I could

Reviewed by Luke

Four Brothers: Marky Mark Learns The Importance Of ‘Family’

Four Brothers is an action crime film directed by John Singleton. The plot sees four brothers reunite after their mother is killed seemingly by accident. The brothers decide to investigate for themselves and finding answers in the depths of the local underworld.

So love him or hate him, this is Mark “Marky Mark” Wahlberg’s film. It rests on his unhinged kind of charm. He goes from very meek and mild to in a fit of murderous rage in a very quick amount of time, whilst also having the character stay likeable. Wahlberg’s character does some quite bad things and by the end of the film is basically the new leader of the underworld, if unofficial, yet you are still rooting for him.

The action is solid and quite intense, the issue on this front though is that the film takes quite a long time to get to this action and drags its feet. The first twenty minutes of the film feel far too long and a bit like filler.

The wider supporting cast were all pitch perfect Terrance Howard captivated my attention whenever he was one screen, though he was killed off without much fan fare and I found that to be disappointing. Tyrese Gibson is good and gives off emotion better than Wahlberg, who seems to constantly just be angry. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a very menacing villain and he plays the calculating gang lord with cold relish.

Overall, an entertaining action film that has it moments, but can never truly be considered great because it mostly wastes its cast and suffers from numerous structural issues.

Pros.

Mark Wahlberg

Tyrese Gibson

The action.

Cons.

The first act is a slog

It wastes the potential of a strong cast

3/5

Reviewed by Luke

Sandy Wexler: Exploitative And Mean Spirited

Sandy Wexler is a comedy drama film directed by Steve Brill. The plot follows the life of talent manager Sandy Wexler (Adam Sandler), as he tries to become ‘the King of Hollywood’.

Before we get into this I want to say that I find this film to be exploitative, very much little something like Billy Maddison the joke here is that Sandy is a little off, (indicated by the fact Sandler is doing a voice), he is dumb and seems to have incredibly poor social skills. The film goes out of its way for you to laugh at this person, rather than feel sorry for them, and personally I didn’t find it funny at all I found it to be incredibly mean spirited. Humour is subjective remember.

This film almost feels like a tragedy, rather than a comedy film. It is depressing, I am not going to lie to you, I found it very hard to finish. Sandy’s life is so awful, and he is treated so badly by almost everyone, yet you are still supposed to laugh at him, it reaches a point past desperate where it just became cruel.

Unrelated, this film is on for over two hours and there is no reason for it. The ‘jokes’ get tiresome after 10 minutes and none of the characters or their stories are worth sticking around for. It is a pain to finish

Overall, don’t watch this please. Spare yourself.

Pros.

It has one or two laughs spread out

Cons.

It feels exploitative

It isn’t funny

The characters are intensely unlikeable

It is on for far too long

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Jungle: Lost In The Wilderness

Jungle is a biopic survival film directed by Greg McLean. The plot follows young Israeli explorer Yossi Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), who gets stranded alone in the amazon for three week, the film details his fight to stay alive.

This is a harrowing film especially towards the end when you can see the physical and mental tole the whole ordeal has had on Yossi; it makes you question just how much the human spirit can endure. Adding to that when it is revealed that Karl (Thomas Kretschmann), was not who he said he was and that he had taken other people out to the jungle before, with said people never coming back, it adds a whole chilling other tone to the film.

I think for his part Radcliffe is trying his best, he gives a strong performance especially with the physicality of it but is limited by a weak script. That would be my fundamental problem with this film, the way it is structed and set out from a writing sense. The bit up until Yossi is left behind feels like it goes on for ten years, it is painfully dull and takes up far too much of the film. Likewise the actual survival parts of the film, the interesting bits, feels far too short almost rushed.

Overall, I can only recommend the last half an hour of this film, as that is the only bit that is compelling and interesting. The rest feels torturously slow and drawn out being crippled by poor writing.

Pros.

Radcliffe

The very real feel of the survival parts of the film/ the physical transformation

Cons.

It is incredibly slow

The writing is bad

There is only half an hour of the film that is interesting

1.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Lucy In The Sky: The Reason Why Noah Hawley’s Star Trek Film Is ‘On Hold’

Lucy In The Sky is a drama film directed by Noah Hawley. The plot follows Lucy Cola (Natalie Portman), an astronaut who has a great deal of trouble returning to normal life on earth.

This film is the definition of the word pretentious; Hawley thinks that by using some cool transitions and fancy cuts that he can disguise the fact that he has a stinker of a film on his hands. I found the smugness or more aptly the self-importance of this film to be incredibly off-putting. I like Hawley’s TV projects, but yeah this bad, put your Star Trek film on indefinite hold kind of bad.

Portman is okay, she is clearly trying a lot with her performance, but her character come off right from the start of the film as loathsome. The film goes out of its way to try and make her sympathetic, but she just not. By the end of the film you want her to go to prison, she deserves it.

The worst crime of this film is how long it feels, yes it is on for just over two hours which is already quite long, but it feels double that. A lot of the section just feel needless drawn out as though they’re trying to kill time.

Overall, this may be the worst film of Natalie Portman’s career

Pros.

The artsy transitions are cool for five minutes

Cons.

It is boring

The lead is incredibly unlikable

It is smug and in your face with it

It has severe pacing issues

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

This Is Where I Leave You: Depressing Realities, Don’t Watch This For A Laugh

This Is Where I Leave You is a comedy drama film directed by Shawn Levy. The plot follows a family as they grieve the death of their father, and are trapped together for a week, by their mother. Old rivalries are reborn and the past rears its ugly head once again.

So, this is a depressing watch. I put it on because I enjoy the comedy of Tina Fey and I thought it might make me laugh, boy was I wrong. I didn’t laugh once not once, and that wasn’t through a lack of trying on the films part, but when I left it I was bummed out. I had to watch a series of funny shows and programs to try and shake it off.

It is a failure as a comedy film, that we have established, thought comedy is subjective. Sadly, it is not much better as a drama film, I felt like the film was not as deep as it thought it was and a lot of its big revelations about life just came off as obvious clichés. The writing just wasn’t up to snuff to make it an impactful drama film in the way it wanted to be.

Overall, this is a failure as both a comedy and drama film, moreover it manages to waste a great cast and be thoroughly disappointing

Pros.

The actors are trying

Cons.

Sadly they have nothing to work with

The writing is bad and over reliant on clichés

It is not funny

It feels laughably shallow when trying to be deep

1.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Survival Skills: A Few Steps For How To Survive On The Job

Survival Skills is a drama film directed by Quinn Armstrong. It is a fake police training video done in the style of an 80s after school special. We follow officer Jim (Vayu O’ Donnell), during his first year on the job. As the film goes on we learn that nothing is at it seems, and things start to get trippy.

I have to hand it to this film; I have not seen anything this unique in a long time. It is a wild crazy ride and it is very hard to tell what is going to happen next. I enjoyed the retro style of the film and think that it added a keen sense of personality to it. However, it did come with a few noticeable visual draw backs.

I found the story of Jim trying to stop a domestic abuser whilst keeping to his policing rules to be truly riveting. It was compelling and we much like Jim really want to see the abuser get what is coming to him, the film shows Jim’s breakdown as he is roadblocked by red tape and turns to taking the law into his own hands.

Overall, I found this to be a very fun watch, nothing was quite as it seemed, the drama was compelling, and the horror was chilling. A very well-done film that is guaranteed to be the most unique film you see this year.

Pros.

The Style

The overlap and crisscrossing worlds

The trippy nature of the whole thing

The horror and the drama

Cons.

The style is a double-edged sword

4.5/5

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Going Back For Round 2

The Second-Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a comedy drama film directed by John Madden. The plot this time around is far more centric to Sonny (Dev Patel), seeing him and Muriel (Maggie Smith), attempt to secure finance to build a second hotel.

I enjoyed this film more than the first, there was an air of finality to it that I thought worked well. The spectre of death hung over the characters, but rather than be depressing it felt real and earned. It furthers the idea that we have to enjoy the time we have while we have it, which is the philosophy these films seem to live by.

Judi Dench takes a backseat, really only having a b side plot, with Smith taking centre stage, I believe this is for the best as of the two Smith delivers a better more nuanced performance in both films. As Judi Dench is just playing Judy Dench.

I enjoyed see Dev Patel getting more of the centre stage, he is a very likeable lead and an enjoyable on-screen presences; the first film wasted him, but he is given time to shine here. The new additions to the cast are okay, they don’t bring much to the dynamic and fail to match the energy of some of the actors that didn’t return.

Overall, a better more thought out film.

Pros.

Giving Patel centre stage

Feeling like the end

Maggie Smith

Cons

The new characters don’t add much

Some of the drama feels a little clunky and forced

3/5

Reviewed by Luke

Mother: A Lot Of Pretentious Allegory

Mother is a horror thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky. The plot tells the story of a couple whose happy tranquil retreat is ruined by the arrival of unexpected, unwanted guests.

So this one is going to be a controversial for sure, even now years after it has come it is still polarising people, you either love it or you hate it. I find myself torn.

There is a lot of debate as to whether this is even a horror film, but I think it is. I also think the later in the film sequences where all hell breaks loose, which are arguably the horror scenes are strong and work well. The scenes when the followers descend to the house and fight to get a glimpse of the new baby are downright menacing and claustrophobic.

On the flip side, I hate the narrative of this film in so many ways. Firstly it has no story or plot just random events and allegory, it is one of those films where the director wants you to put it together yourself; in other words an excuse for poor writing. Moreover, the clear Bible reading (that everything that happens in the film is reflective of the Bible and the events therein), are so incredibly obvious that it basically beats you in the face with it. Yet in has to be pretentious and act like that is not true and that it has multiple meanings.

Jennifer Lawrence does an admirable job and I will applaud her for steeping outside of her comfort zone.

Overall, divisive to the core you will have strong feelings about it, for me I thought the narrative was weak and obvious, but the practical execution and the acting was spot on.

Pros

The acting

The ending

Some genuinely quite tense scenes

Cons.

The stupidly pretentious narrative

Having no form of story

3/5

Reviewed by Luke