Category Archives: Comedy

Logan Lucky review — Chill heist comedy from Oceans 11 filmmaker

August 28, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Steven Soderbergh | Written by Rebecca Blunt | 118 min | Crave Plus Steven Soderbergh has always been half in love with the form of film, the craft of it, and half in love with genres. In that he shares these preoccupations with the Coen Brothers—with the parallels between their styles maybe most…Read More

Ingrid Goes West review — Social media satire delivers laughs, cold sweats

August 26, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Matt Spicer | Written by Spicer and David Branson Smith | 97 min With this and The Little Hours, Aubrey Plaza has ascended to queen of the summer's American indies—producing and starring in both of these weird, wonderful pictures. We meet her Ingrid crashing the wedding of a supposed former BFF before pepper-spraying…Read More

Landline review — Lots of laughs despite familiar tropes

August 11, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Gillian Robespierre | Written by Robespierre, Elisabeth Holm, and Tom Bean | 97 min An unexpected and charming dramedy about a family dealing with intergenerational angst, sex and infidelity. It's set in an interesting liminal age, the mid-'90s, that pre-millennial period before cell phones, just as home computers were beginning to change our…Read More

The Little Hours review — Terrific sex comedy with nuns

July 26, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Jeff Baena | 90 min It's 14th Century Italy, and the nuns are restless. Massetto (Dave Franco) is about to find out how restless. He's a handsome servant in the house of Lord Bruno (Nick Offerman), sleeping with Bruno's unsatisfied wife, Francesca (Lauren Weedman). When Bruno twigs on the infidelity, Massetto has…Read More

New On Canadian Netflix: June/July 2017

July 24, 2017 flawintheiris

Here are a cross-section of a number of mildly-to- solidly recommended films recently made available on Canadian Netflix. (You can click on the movie titles to read my original reviews where I’ve written them in the past.) *One note: In May I recommended Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, a film when I first saw it back…Read More

Baby Driver review — Wheelman can’t drive 55

June 30, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Edgar Wright | 113 min It feels like Brits want Edgar Wright to be their own personal Tarantino, the pop-culture obsessed filmmaker who will absorb all those Hollywood influences and create perfect, post-modern genre films for the 21st Century. He succeeded the first time out of the gate with Shaun Of The…Read More

Rough Night review — Talent isn’t enough in rote comedy

June 21, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Lucia Aniello | Written by Aniello and Paul W. Downs | 101 min Granted, I don't see a lot of mainstream comedies these days. I find they don't commit—either to the comedic possibilities of their high concept, or to risking any realism crawling into their film, where some genuine comedy could be mined…Read More

New on Canadian Netflix: May 2017

May 26, 2017 flawintheiris

Here’s a cross-section of a number of mildly-to- solidly recommended films recently made available on Canadian Netflix. (You can click on the movie titles to read my original reviews where I’ve written them in the past.) For me, Netflix is a go-to to revisit movies I’ve already seen or to give the odd TV series a…Read More

12 Films To Get Excited About: Summer 2017 (aka the Anti-Blockbuster Blues)

May 15, 2017 flawintheiris

Usually I do a summer preview between now and mid-June—I did in 2015, and in 2014, but last year I couldn't find my thrill for the summer, so just did a post-mortem around labour day. With analysts expecting the Hollywood blockbuster season to be a total dud, thanks mostly to franchise fatigue—did anyone ask for fifth…Read More

Colossal review — The sleep of sobriety produces monsters

April 26, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo | 109 min It may not make you feel as awkward or uncomfortable as, say, The Lobster or Swiss Army Man, two of 2016's most singular features—delightful in at least their resistance to easy categorization—but Colossal is the first of this year's indie films to reach for righteous individuality, and deserves to…Read More