To The New Girl: The Conversations You Wish You Could Have

To The New Girl is a drama anthology film directed by Adriana Gonzalez Vega, Aurora J. Culver and Amika Leigh. The plot sees various women scorned address their exes and their new lovers in a powerful open mic night, to be remembered through the ages.

Films like this are important, as they give voices to new talent: specifically in this case female talent that might not otherwise have had the chance to write/direct/star in a film like this. We need more films like this if we ever hope to make filmmaking truly open for everyone.

This film is brutally honest, I mean that as a compliment, it does not pull its punches. It tells things like they are for a lot of women and shows how things like cheating and infidelity can really hurt a person on a deep emotional level, if nothing else this film is true.

The open mic format makes it quite unlike anything else I’ve seen recently and really adds a sense of personality to the film whilst also giving it more of an intimate feel. You really connect with these women telling their stories which help you to empathise with them thereby giving there stories more impact. It is multi-layered

Overall, I applaud this film for being as direct and forging a repour between performer and audience member and for being bold enough to tell the truth.

Pros.

The novel format

Supporting new voices

Creates a personal connection with the audience

Brutal and honest

Cons.

It becomes a bit repetitive after a while

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

Daddy’s Home 2: Mel Gibson As His Arsehole Self

Daddy’s Home 2 is a comedy film directed by Sean Anders. The plot this time around focuses on Brad (Will Ferrell) and Dusty’s (Mark Wahlberg) dads. As both grandfathers come into town to spend Christmas with their families, but can they all get along?

I want to preface this review by saying that I think Mel Gibson is an awful human being, the comments he made to Winona Ryder (which if you don’t know, I advise you to look them up), are nothing short of sickening. I personally don’t think he should still be getting work. That said I tried to ignore my feelings about him whilst writing this review.

The one thing I will give this film credit for, because this film is hot trash, is the fact that they made Mel Gibson’s character an asshole. It is done in an almost knowing way to real life, and it is implied that because he is such a terrible person that he screwed up Dusty, showing where being an asshole gets you.

The main reason I dislike this film, just like I disliked the previous film is the comedy. It is a mixture of too safe family friendly fluff that isn’t funny, painfully repetitive slapstick that boils down to oh look Brad has hurt himself again and mean-spirited hurtful jokes. Said jokes make even the nastiest most cynical Adam Sandler joke look happy and well intentioned, they make fun of things that just seem needless and in poor taste why?

The dynamic between the actors is fine, weaker than the last film and a world away from The Nice Guys, but it really isn’t enough to sit through this.

Overall, don’t touch this with a ten-foot pole avoid at all costs.

Pros.

They make Mel Gibson’s character an arsehole

Cons.

It is worse than the first film

The jokes aren’t funny

It either feels too safe or in poor taste

The chemistry between the leads is basically non-existent at this point

It doesn’t justify its own existence

0/5

Reviewed by Luke

Ride Along: The Angriest Man In The World

Ride Along is a buddy cop, comedy film directed by Tim Story. The plot follows Ben (Kevin Hart), an avid gamer who dreams of becoming a police officer and making his fiancé proud. One day said fiancé tasks Ben with winning her brother’s approval, so they can wed. The issue is that her detective brother James (Ice Cube), doesn’t think Ben is good enough for his sister. In an effort to see what Ben is made of James invites him on a ride along.

So, I have recently been going through the filmography of Kevin Hart, this is the third movie of his I have seen to date. Sadly unlike Night School and Get Hard, this one isn’t very good.

The issue with this film doesn’t lie with Hart however, he is mostly funny throughout. It is his on-screen foil that I find weakens this film. The buddy cop formula works when both characters are very different and are at odds with each other but are forced to work together, and though that is the case here it just doesn’t work.

Yes, James is the antiphrasis of Ben, but other than that he doesn’t feel like a character. The only emotion Ben seems to feel for the whole film is anger, I get that is the bit, but even still it makes the character feel very one note and cliché. He is the brother in law cliché, as well as the overprotective brother cliché to a tee and not much beyond that. Even when he is supposed to be happy, he comes across as angry- though maybe that is the result of Ice Cube’s lack of acting ability.

Overall, good for a few laughs, but the dynamic just doesn’t work.

Pros.

Hart

The videogame stuff

A few laughs to be had

Cons.

Most of the jokes don’t land

The buddy cop dynamic doesn’t work

Ice Cube feels miscast

2.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Get Hard: What Is Your Mad Dog Face?

Get Hard is a comedy film directed by Etan Cohen. The plot follows James (Will Ferrell), an investment banker who is so rich he is almost untouchable, then one day he gets arrested for fraud. The industry giant is brought down, and his friends desert him. Faced with a long jail sentence he hires car wash attendant Darnell (Kevin Hart), to teach him how to survive prison; after James’ assumes based on Darnell’s race that he must have been to prison at some point in his life.

I must admit I am a new convert to Hart, but so far both of the comedy films I’ve seen him in have been very funny; this being the second. I think Hart’s pairing with Will Ferrell works well, they play off each other strongly and the race-based humour, which pokes fun at James’s inherent racism, feels both rewarding and also enlightening.

Though the comedy often skewed towards the low brow and the crude, I still found myself laughing. It was gross out, but not to the point of being off putting.

I thought though the story was predictable I liked where it went and thought that the film had the right amount of heart. I thought the friendship between James and Darnell felt not only real but earned.

Overall, a funny comedy film that never allowed my face to be without a smile.

Pros.

It is funny

Hart and Ferrell are a strong paring

The friendship feels earned by the end

It has many memorable moments

Cons.

It does go too low a few times and is quite predictable.

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

Clueless: Austen Revisited

Clueless is a coming of age comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling, loosely based on the Jane Austin novel Emma. The plot sees teen socialite Cher (Alicia Silverstone), Queen of her high school, take the new girl Thai (Brittney Murphy), under her wing.

I have heard a lot of people talk about this film for a while, it has a real strong cult following, so I decided to check it out for myself. I was naturally comparing it to the other adaption of Emma, the more recent adaption from this very year.

I found this to be the better of the more recent American Emma adaptions, it had that lively spirit and wit that I feel the 2020 version was lacking. I always enjoy when they modernise classic tales and give them a newer twist, like the Leo Romeo and Juliet film from a while back.

I thought that all of the characters felt warm and had a good amount of rootability, though Cher did nasty thing it never reached a point where I didn’t like her as a character, she never felt cold or mean spirited.

The one thing I would flag up is the icky main romance. They changed a lot of things from the classic story for this film so why they kept this in is beyond me. In the film Josh (Paul Rudd), is Cher’s stepbrother, to add to that he is in college (University for non-Americans) and Cher is in high school she is 16 years old, both of these factors make for a deeply troubling romance, that honestly shouldn’t happen.

Overall, a quirky fresh take on an old classic. The characters felt warm and the humour landed even if the odd nearly incestuous age inappropriate relationship didn’t.

Pros.

A fresh take

The humour

Fun rootable characters

Cons.

A few things were lost in translation

The main central romance was deeply troubling

3/5

Reviewed by Luke

Johnny English Strikes Again: Emma Thompson Is The Prime Minster We Never Knew We Needed

Johnny English Strikes Again is a British spy comedy film directed by David Kerr. The plot sees English (Rowan Atkinson), come out of retirement to save the world when all of M17’s current operatives become known to the public therefore rendering them inefficient as spies.

I will give this film some props for feeling more like a continuation of the first film rather than a retread of it, like the second film. I thought bringing back Bough (Ben Miller), was an inspired move as the two have great chemistry together.

The comedy here has the added dimension of having Johnny be at odds with the modern world and not understanding technology, which is funny briefly for the first ten minutes or so. However, once again I don’t find the rather obvious slapstick comedy funny and I find that it pushes the film to be more and more like Mr Bean.

I find the idea of an evil tech CEO as the baddie a touch predictable at this point, it has been done to death and this does nothing new with it. We need to move away from these sort of cliches.

I enjoyed seeing Emma Thompson as the Prime Minster and whenever she was on screen I found myself laughing and enjoying the film that bit more. She is definitely the highlight of the film.

Overall, a step forward after Reborn, but even still it is far too repetitive and clichéd, also the slapstick humour is getting actively worse film on film.

Pros.

Bringing back Bough

Emma Thompson

Johnny Vs. Tech is mildly funny

Cons.

The evil tech CEO is cliché

The slapstick is overused

It doesn’t justify its existence

3/5

Reviewed by Luke

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

Love, Guaranteed: A Quest Of Thirst

Love, Guaranteed is a romantic comedy film directed by Mark Stephen Johnson. The plot follows Nick (Damon Wayans Jr), a man who has been on over 1000 dates with the dating website Love, Guaranteed and is still yet to find ‘the one’. Enter Susan (Rachel Leigh Cooke), a lawyer who is in desperate need of a winning case, sparks fly and love blooms.

This film very much gets worse as time goes on, the characters become more and more unlikable and considering the fact that start off as poorly conceived cliches you can imagine how bad they are by the end. The message of the film seems to be oddly inconsistent and change on the fly. At one point the film is pushing that it is wrong to guarantee love, but by the end of the film it is fine to guarantee love because the baddies payed the main characters some money; the film is morally bankrupt.

Wayans Jr tries his best to inject some much-needed charism into this film, because god knows that Cooke is a wet blanket, but the poor script leaves him with little to work with. Everything about this film feels artificial and as though it has been made by comity, that is to say everything feels just a bit too safe and false.

Overall, this is a very by the numbers rom com, you can tell no real thought or effort was put into it. The romantic spark isn’t there and the characters and their dialogue is just awful.

Pros.

Wayans is trying

Cons.

It is on for too long

It feels low effort

The leads have no chemistry

The characters start off as cliches and quickly get worse

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

The Babysitter Killer Queen: Netflix Really Doesn’t Understand Teens, How To Regress Characters And Ruin A Good Thing.

The Babysitter, Killer Queen is a comedy horror film directed by McG. The plot follows on directly from The Babysitter, where we now see Cole (Judah Lewis), live a life of ridicule. No one believes him, but one day events transpire to prove just how real his ordeal was.

So, I was a big fan of The Babysitter and was quite excited for this sequel, even if Samara Weaving was going to have far less of a role. It brings me no pleasure to say this is bad, it is bad for a series of reasons that I believe came about as the creatives didn’t realise what worked and what people liked about the first film.

The characters are walked back on from the first film, they behave in ways that don’t really add up with how they would do based on what we know of them from the previous film, it is contradictory. Like there is nothing to suggest that Cole’s parents would just give up on him and send him off to a mental institution. Likewise the end of the first film suggest that Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind) and Cole, might have feelings for each other and that they might start dating, yet that seems to be set back a ways here; most likely so they can string the same beats out.

The character dialogue I found to be incredibly cringey a lot of the time, it feels once again like an adult trying to guess/replicate from a false understanding how teen’s today talk. The returns and reveals all felt quite hollow to me, as though they were trying to make the best out of bad situation.

Overall, this film proves conclusively that not every film needs a sequel.

Pros.

It is still entertaining

There are a few good moments

Cons.

The characters are altered in ways that make them inconsistent

The dialogue is awful

It doesn’t have the same tension or sense of fun as the first film

2/5

Reviewed by Luke