Category Archives: Romcom

#FIN2018 reviews — Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, Hopeless Romantic, Halloween Party

September 15, 2018 flawintheiris

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch It's been something, watching Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky meld their visual storytelling from Manufactured Landscapes (2006) to Watermark (2013) to this, completing the trilogy with cinematographer Nicholas de Pencier, an observation of the sublime beauty and horror of human industry. This final film is simply about the nightmare of there being…Read More

Juliet, Naked review — Byrne and Hawke bring it

September 4, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by Jesse Peretz | Written by Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins, from a Nick Hornby novel | 105 min | On Demand My mother read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and recommended the book to me, telling me that the lead character was just like me. Really, Mom? You think I would cheat on my…Read More

Crazy Rich Asians review — Traditional romcom with diverse approach

August 22, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by John M. Chu | Written by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, from the novel by Kevin Kwan | 120 min | On Demand First, lets all celebrate the arrival of a full-on, undeniably old-fashioned romantic comedy. Crazy Rich Asians triples down (is that even a thing?) on all the well-established cliches of the…Read More

VOD Reviews — Chappaquiddick, Hampstead, Borg vs McEnroe

July 17, 2018 flawintheiris

Chappaquiddick Directed by John Curran | Written by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan | 106 min This must be the final piece of the Kennedy legend to find its way to the big screen. If they've finally arrived at the Ted Kennedy story, the scandal of his having driven drunk leading to the death of…Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix: October/November 2017 reviews

December 4, 2017 flawintheiris

Here are a cross-section of a number of mildly-to-firmly recommended films now available on Canadian Netflix. (You can click on the movie titles to read my original reviews where I’ve written them in the past.) You may note the exchange of a vowel in my post title: Previously in these Netflix-related reviews I've tended to…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 Big Sick review — A little bit of heart is what it takes

July 4, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Michael Showalter | Written by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani | 119 min | Netflix A shaggy, surprisingly dramatic romantic comedy, The Big Sick does exactly what I wanted from last week's Rough Night: it isn't afraid to steer into pathos and have people behave and react like real people. Maybe that's because…Read More

Paris Can Wait review — A day (or two) in Provence

June 10, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Eleanor Coppola | 92 min | On Demand The name you might recognize: Coppola is the wife of Francis Ford and mother to Sofia and Roman, aunt to Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzmann. Her cinematic experience is mostly related to her work on Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about the making…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

Top 10 Under-The-Radar films of 2016

January 17, 2017 flawintheiris

As per usual, plenty of the year’s best cinema found their way to us on platforms other than the Cineplex screens, or if they did show at the multiplex, they often came and went relatively unheralded. It’s the fact of Halifax being a small market: Many quality features won’t find distribution in theatres. Here are…Read More