Private Life: Movie Review

Hilariously flawed people going through life.

Private Life is a bitter-sweet exploration of a marriage and two people’s struggles to conceive. I know from that description that you might assume that the movie would drag on, that it might not offer anything new to the thousands of characters that have struggled with those issues in many movies that came before this one. But this one is different, trust me. There’s a sharp wit to these characters who are very true to themselves.		2018 Directed by: Tamara Jenkins Screenplay by: Tamara Jenkins Starring: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti

Little Italy: Movie Review

Terribly-clichéd romantic comedy about family rivalry.

I’ve heard Little Italy most often being described as lazy, but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Is it lazy to hire Emma Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts, in a movie which borrows from Mystic Pizza both on the surface and in its design? No, it’s more luck that the filmmakers were able to get a capable and known actress for their little movie about pizza. That’s what this movie was originally - a celebration of pizza and the unique cultural cross-section of Toronto’s Little Italy.		2018 Directed by: Donald Petrie Screenplay by: Steve Galluccio, Vinay Virmani Starring: Emma Roberts, Hayden Christensen

Crazy Rich Asians: Movie Review

A heart beneath all the glitz and glamour

Crazy Rich Asians is an enjoyably funny romantic comedy because it succeeds with two distinct but equally important fundamentals of the genre: lead characters who are real, relatable, empathetic and decent people at their core, and supporting characters who are funny and/or conniving, and not necessarily decent people at their core. It’s a world of money and glamour and so much of both that it can be very hard to imagine that any humans actually live like this.		2018 Directed by: Jon M. Chu Screenplay by: Peter Chiarelli, Adele Lim Based on the novel by Kevin Kwan Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding