Category Archives: Comedy

My thoughts on Love Actually

Directed and Written by Richard Curtis | 135 min | Netflix, Crave, Amazon Prime Earlier this month, one of my favourite film writers, Christopher Orr of The Atlantic, wrote a piece excoriating the Richard Curtis film Love Actually. It generated quite a bit of discussion, which Orr kindly gave a nod to in his follow-up…Read More

Inside Llewyn Davis review

Written and directed by Joel and Ethan CoenI love the Coens. They've carved out for themselves a wonderful, peculiar corner of Americana. No matter the subject, their films exhibit an intellectual, anarchic wit that's all their own. Only a handful of their peers, US filmmakers and writers—maybe Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Nicole Holofcener, Charlie…Read More

American Hustle review

Directed by David O. Russell, written by Russell and Eric Singer Russell likes to tell his stories on an edge. That's what I like about him and his movies. It feels like his tales could fly apart at any minute, become total, unwatchable messes, but he always manages to keep it together just this side…Read More

Philomena review

Directed by Stephen FrearsWritten by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, based on a book by Martin SixsmithWhen Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) was a teenager (Sophie Kennedy Clark) in Ireland, she got pregnant. For her sins, the nuns at the Roscrea convent made her work in the laundries, seven days a week for four years, and…Read More

Enough Said review

Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener | On Demand Holofcener is the writer-director of a number of awkwardly funny American indie films. To call them comedies, or romantic comedies, is too reductive. They're independent films, and tend to avoid easy catagorization, but centre on urban relationships, about women and men and their friendships and love…Read More

Don Jon review

Written and directed by Joseph Gordon-LevittFull marks to a first time feature filmmaker who writes and stars. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, already a performer with cred in blockbuster (The Dark Knight Rises, Looper) and indie ((500) Days of Summer) films, now can count director among his abilities. And he starts smart, with this fairly modest character study.…Read More

The World’s End review

Directed by Edgar Wright | Written by Wright and Simon Pegg | 109 min | On Demand You nerds know this: The World's End is the third and final film in Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, all made with buddies Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The thematic thread is pretty thin, but basically these three British guys…Read More

In A World… review

Written and directed by Lake BellA lovely indie from writer/director/actor Lake Bell, In A World... manages to make a few very coherent and political points about women in Hollywood while telling a feather-light story set in the moribund romantic comedy genre. When you think about it, achieving all that is kind of a wonder.Bell is…Read More

The To Do List review

Written and directed by Maggie CareyOh, the damage to my own innocence from having given up 100 minutes of my life with Tom Cruise and Shelley Long in 1983's Losin' It. The movie belonged to a genre of teen comedy that has very happily gone the way of the dodo: the devirginizing romp. Oh, it still comes…Read More

Blue Jasmine review

Written and directed by Woody AllenJasmine is actually Jeanette. Somewhere along the way she changed it, because Jeanette didn't have the requisite flair. Jasmine married up, to Hal, a New York one-percenter if there ever was one. Except Hal is crook and when he's arrested, the lawyers take everything. Jasmine, desperate, heads to San Francisco…Read More