Tag: review

Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

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Director: Marielle Heller
Writers: Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty

This has to be one of the best movies about writing that I’ve seen, one shows, in a realistic way, the difficulty of making a living as a writer, and the special cruelty of the New York publishing world. Based on Lee Israel’s memoir of the same title, it’s about a down-on-her-luck biographer (Melissa McCarthy) who turns to literary forgery as a way to pay her bills. Israel, who died in 2014, found plenty of work as a journalist and author in the 1970s and 80s, but had a dry spell after her biography of Estee Lauder was panned by critics and sold poorly. Can You Ever Forgive Me? takes place in the early 1990s, when Lee begins to forge letters by famous writers like Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward to sell to collectors. Continue reading “Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?” →

Set It Up

Hannah Gersen1 Comment

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Some nights, you’re in the mood for a movie but not something that’s heavy. But you don’t want to watch TV because you want something that ends. Preferably in two hours. Something that won’t insult your insult your intelligence, and might possibly cheer you up. Because it’s been a hard news week. (It’s always a hard news week.)

Enter Set It Up, a Netflix original movie that Netflix has probably already recommended to you if you watch sitcoms on its platform. I’m here to second that recommendation. It’s not a great movie, but it’s a fun, romantic comedy that is very happy to be one. The conventions are all in place: it takes place in New York City, and our star-crossed lovers work for vague, unnamed media companies.  The girl, Harper, works as a Girl Friday for the editor of a sports news website. The guy, Charlie, also works as a personal secretary for, hmm, I can’t remember what his boss does. It doesn’t matter! This movie is not making any important observations about the modern day workplace and that’s okay. Continue reading “Set It Up” →

Hooked by The Lure

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The fishermen never had a chance. Once they saw the beautiful faces of Golden and Silver, two young mermaids swimming in the bay, they were goners.

“Help us come ashore, we won’t eat you!”

First rule of fairy tales: If someone says they won’t eat you, it means they’ve thought about eating you, and they won’t be able to stop thinking about it until they’ve eaten you.

Continue reading “Hooked by The Lure” →

Review: PROFESSOR MARSTON AND HIS WONDER WOMEN

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This movie has a terrible too-long title, but having seen it, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a better one. The only titles I could think of were longer: The Unconventional Life of Professor Marston and His Wonder Women. Or: The True Story of Wonder Woman as Told by its Under-Appreciated Creator, Professor Marston. Or: The Two Women Who Inspired Wonder Woman. Maybe it would have been better to go with something vague like Marston. I can’t be the only one who was confused when it was in the theater. I knew that it wasn’t Wonder Woman with Gal Gadot, but the “Professor” threw me off. Was it a campus movie? A biopic? A romance? Continue reading “Review: PROFESSOR MARSTON AND HIS WONDER WOMEN” →