It’s about time Hollywood started admitting that Nia Vardalos is a one trick pony. After her wildly successful vanilla sitcom romantic comedy in 2002, she returns to the original premise fourteen years later. After many more failed cinematic vehicles, and a really embarrassing attempt to turn her movie in to an actual Television sitcom, Vardalos goes back to the well to deliver what feels like a pitch for another sitcom. Or maybe a TV drama comedy, since sitcoms are so passé and old fashioned. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” is a painfully contrived and moronic sequel that takes everything that was likable about these characters and turns them in to shrill and obnoxious plot devices.
Tag Archives: Drama
Turnabout (2016)
If Richard Linklater and Neil Labute got together to write a movie, you’d pretty much get E.B. Hughes’ stellar drama “Turnabout.” While E.B. Hughes sums up the film quite simplistically in most of the press materials, “Turnabout” will very much surprise anyone going in to it expecting a drama about a suicidal man and his long lost friend. “Turnabout” feels a lot like Linklater’s “Tape” except so much wider in scope, in the end. While director Hughes starts “Turnabout” like something of a man experiencing a revelation, he injects small doses of menace here and there to completely undercut every expectation we have when the film begins.
The Devil’s Dolls (2016) [Blu-Ray]
It’s a shame that people still think there’s some horror fodder to be mined from worry dolls, because so far I’m not seeing it. “The Devil’s Dolls” plays out like a gory TV movie, or an extended episode of some supernatural series. There are a lot of bland characters trying to stop what is a pretty convoluted and goofy plot device involving a murderer and evil dolls. Director Padraig Reynolds’ film isn’t a complete misfire as it achieves some level of eeriness in some instances. I really do like how our characters look when they’re possessed by evil worry dolls that turn them in to psychopathic maniacs, but that’s lost in a haze of pretty mediocre melodrama and a hazy sub-plot about voodoo.
Two Lovers and a Bear (2016)
In the very Northern part of Canada, where not much happens and people do as best they can to survive and entertain themselves, two damaged but passionate souls in love are trying to make it and better their lives. Written and directed by Kim Nguyen, based on an original idea by Louis Grenier, the film follows the lives of two young adults fighting inner demons and rough past and trying to love each other and do what is best for each other. Their struggles feel rather real and the way they push and pull at each other grabs the viewer and brings them in. The characters built feel like actual people, filled with issues and difficulties, self-loathing and worries.
If There’s a Hell Below (2016)
A young, ambitious journalist meets up with a mysterious woman in the middle of nowhere as she has a big revelation for him. She puts him through a lot before starting to talk and having things take a bad turn. Written by Nathan Williams and Matthew Williams and directed by Nathan Williams, this thriller gains from its simplicity. The setting is almost desolate with fields and wind farms as far as the eye can see and mountain background.
The Demolisher (2015) [Blu-Ray]
Director and co-writer Gabriel Carrer’s vigilante thriller film “The Demolisher” is one of the highlights of my coverage of Fantasia Fest back in 2015. While the plot points here and there are sloppily constructed, “The Demolisher” is an overall very good and strong tale about grief, sadness, and delusion that can stem from ones own guilt, in the end. While Gabriel Carrer’s film struggles to find its pacing and momentum in the first half hour, “The Demolisher” does inevitably pick up steam to build in to one hell of an interesting revenge thriller.
Leslie (2016)
It’s really striking how well director Alejandro Montoya Marin understands the experience of being an artist, most of all a starving artist. You feel something of a fire in your belly to express yourself and show the world how much you can give to them in the way of art, and sometimes it’s so difficult to get by. Alejandro Montoya Marin’s is a pretty remarkable short drama that focuses on the life of a singer and songwriter named Holly, who is struggling to get a solid gig at local clubs to perform for audiences. She’s barely scraping by and is now experiencing the end of a very intense relationship with the love of her life.