• Isn’t It Romantic

    March 7, 2019 - By 

    A young girl named Natalie watches Pretty Woman in an early 1990s sitting room. Her mother pours a glass of wine and warns that they don’t make movies about girls like us. Except Hollywood does. Isn’t It Romantic is a romantic comedy disguised as a parody of the genre. The characters run through every convention of the sometimes unfairly maligned genre while proclaiming that they are not falling for its charms. You can guess what happens next. Adult Natalie (Rebel Wilson) is disenchanted with idea of love and a cynic about romantic comedies. After a mugging, she wakes up in…

  • Velvet Buzzsaw

    February 11, 2019 - By 

    What’s the point of art if nobody sees it? This is one of the questions posed by a character in Velvet Buzzsaw, a satire released last weekend on Netflix that wants to sink its teeth into the contemporary art world but fails to leave a lasting impression. The discovery of a series of revolutionary paintings by an unknown and reclusive artist sets off a feeding frenzy among the galleries, museums and art buyers based in Los Angeles. This space is dominated by critic Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal), a man who views everything through the lens of critique but is struggling…

  • Polar

    January 29, 2019 - By 

    The world’s greatest assassin is about to retire when his former boss decides he’s a liability. Hoping for a silly shoot ‘em up like The Mechanic or John Wick? Sorry to disappoint but Polar, released this week by Netflix, isn’t it. Instead, this is a film so terrible that it’s an early contender for the year-end worst of lists. Duncan Vizla (Mads Mikkelsen) is the great assassin preparing for his 50th birthday and mandatory retirement. He’s already started to wind down by moving to a snow covered one-street town in Montana. There, Duncan wanders around his log cabin, buys a…

  • Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

    January 21, 2019 - By 

    The word “hustle” used to denote a ruse or con game, a trick to fleece someone out of their cash. In the current parlance of hyper-go morning-routine capitalists, it’s taken on a new aspirational aura, now the religion of twenty three year-old dudes with Tim Ferris quotes in their bio. Following close on the heels of Hulu’s doppelganger doc Fyre Fraud, unavailable outside the U.S., Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened makes clear that, in many ways, the meaning of the word hasn’t shifted at all. Directed by Chris Smith (Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, another doc about…

  • To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

    August 31, 2018 - By 

      There’s little in life as complicated and intense as first love. The near-universality of this experience makes it the perfect source material for film. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before is the latest Netflix original film and it happens to be a cute, screwball coming of age story wrapped inside a rom-com for the digitally native teen. Based on the successful YA novel by Jenny Han, five love letters (never intended to be seen by the objects of affection) find their way out of a hatbox and into the world. When Lara Jean (Lana Condor) realizes her crushes…

  • Set It Up

    June 21, 2018 - By 

    A romantic comedy designed from the stuff of nightmares for HR departments, Set It Up is an entertaining if slight story about workplace romances, demanding bosses and overworked employees. The main romance is between two overworked assistants who decide to set their demanding bosses up in the hope of spending less time in the office. Harper (Zoey Deutch), a sports and popcorn obsessive, wants to write and date but struggles to do either because of the hours she puts in at the office. Charlie (Glen Powell) is looking to secure a promotion to increase his salary while maintaining his relationship with his model girlfriend…

  • Mercury 13

    April 26, 2018 - By 

    We might not be able to change the past, but there is always the opportunity to learn from it. This is the central theme of Mercury 13, the latest release in Netflix’s original documentary strand. It tells the story of the women who aspired to be among the first astronauts but faced rejection because of their sex. In 1960, 25 women were chosen to take part in a privately funded ‘women in space’ study. The project was organised by Dr Randy Loveless who had supervised the selection tests for NASA’s first astronauts, the Mercury 7. Each woman was a highly…