This is a series called “Best of the Decade.” It’s a list including 10 movies that I found to be the best in a specific genre from 2010-2019.
Several great romantic relationships were brought to the big screen over the past decade, with some getting more attention than others. Here were my favorites.
An Oscar and Golden Globe winning director, a writer with several charming hits, along with a fantastic concept ripe for all sorts of possibilities. On paper, “Yesterday” looked like a slam dunk, which makes it a total shame that it turned out so poorly.
The movie follows a struggling singer named Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), who lives day-to-day playing small gigs with help from his manager Ellie (Lily James). Getting fed up with his lack of success and his dead-end job, Jack considers leaving music all together.
However, during one bike ride home, Jack is hit by a bus at the exact same moment a blackout occurs worldwide. When he wakes up and recovers from his injuries, he comes to find himself in a world where the Beatles never became a band and their music does not exist in the pop culture landscape. Seeing an opportunity, Jack starts singing the songs and claims credit for the work, which of course leads him to his own fair share of fame.
Continue reading “REVIEW: One can just move on to tomorrow, because ‘Yesterday’ doesn’t offer much”
“The Sun is Also a Star.” The North Star is also a star. And now I just miss the North Stars.
Anyway, there’s a movie to review. “The Sun is Also a Star” is the latest romance film based on a young adult novel. Of course, the movie follows two young adults, Natasha (Yara Shahidi) and Daniel (Charles Melton). Natasha is a Jamaican whose family is about to be deported back to Jamaica by the U.S. Government, while Daniel, whose family immigrated from Korea, is preparing to apply for college.
One day, through a chance encounter, the two meet and after talking, find out that they have differing opinions. Daniel believes in fate, destiny, and thinks that the universe brought them together. Natasha is much more of a skeptic, to the point where she doesn’t believe in fate or love. To convince her, Daniel suggests they spend the day together to prove who’s right and see if they fall in love.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The Sun is also a Star’ is only a two star movie”
What? No general or midterm election this year? Well let’s have a political film to fill that gap. At least it’s a comedy.
“Long Shot” tells the story of Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), the Secretary of State for a fictional president, who’s looking to run in the 2020 presidential race. She has a good amount of experience under her belt, but her campaign staff sees opportunities to improve her speeches and become more personable.
Enter Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen), a loose cannon investigative journalist who recently found himself unemployed. However, because he knows Field, Fred comes to work as a speech assistant for Field, especially with helping punch up the statements. However, on top of working together, Frank and Charlotte find themselves falling for each other.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Chemistry with leads boosts ‘Long Shot’”
I’m convinced the makers of this movie have never been to college.
So, upon some digging, it turns out “After” is based off a novel, which originally started as a fanfiction about the band One Direction on the website Wattpad. I’m not making this up.
In that case, what can one expect from the story? Well, it follows Tessa (Josephine Langford), a young woman who’s just starting her college career at Some Random University as a freshman. Tessa is what one could call a goodie-two-shoes, as she plays by the rules, is a book-worm and never seems to get into trouble.
However, there’s a chance that will change when she starts attending. See, her new roommate does things like drink and hangout with friends that attend parties. The horror. In the first act Tessa goes along with her roommate to a party and meets Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), a British guy who wears ripped jeans, a leather jacket, is well-read and is too cool to do anything but brood. You guessed it, he’s the love interest.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘After’ is a romantic drama disaster”
Over the last few years, going back to at least 2014 with “The Fault in Our Stars,” there’s been quite a few films focused on older teens with terminal conditions. Fortunately for audiences, “Five Feet Apart” is one of the better ones.
“Five Feet Apart” focuses on three young characters living at a hospital as part of a clinical drug trial. The trio includes Stella (Haley Lu Richardson), Will (Cole Sprouse) and Poe (Moises Arias). Of the three, Stella is the main character and is the most positive about fighting her cystic fibrosis.
Will, meanwhile, is not as optimistic, and it annoys Stella at first. However, the two come to understand each other and eventually fall in love. However, they can never get too close with the threat of getting infected.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Five Feet Apart’ has just enough to engage an audience”
This isn’t the first time the romcom genre has been poked at in satirical fashion, and likely won’t be the last. In terms of quality, “Isn’t it Romantic” isn’t the best or worst of its kind, but falls somewhere in the middle.
“Romantic” centers on Natalie (Rebel Wilson) an architect who lives a fairly straightforward life, but is rather skeptical of love, largely because of her hatred of romantic-comedies.
Her worst nightmare is realized, though, when one day she wakes up in a generic romcom world, complete with perfect jobs, romantic rivals and even somewhat of a love triangle.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Isn’t it Romantic’ has the laughs, charm to engage an audience”
No matter what neighborhood you grew up in, you will leave this movie knowing how it feels to live on Beale Street.
“If Beale Street Could Talk” follows the story of a young woman named Tish (Kiki Layne) and her boyfriend Alonzo (Stephan James), who’s sitting in jail because a police officer suspected him as the assailant in a rape case.
As the movie goes on, Tish is coming to terms with the fact that Alonzo was wrongly accused while also learning that she’s become pregnant. Over the course of the picture, Tish goes through the stages of her pregnancy while also trying to clear Alonzo’s name, with the help of her family.
Continue reading “REVIEW: A walk in ‘Beale Street’ is worth taking”
I’ll admit, when I hear the title, I think of the song at the end of the Disney “Hercules” movie.
In all seriousness, “A Star is Born” is actually a remake of a 1937 film with the same name. In fact, along with this most recent adaptation, that 1937 movie has been remade two other times in 1954 and 1976. This newest version was directed and co-written by Bradley Cooper, who also stars in the film as the lead character Jack.
Jack is a successful musician with plenty of hits, but also faces problems. Not only does one of his ears have a medical issue, but he’s also suffering from alcoholism. Despite, this, though, he meets a talented singer named Ally (Lady Gaga) who’s been overlooked her whole life. Not only do the two strike up a relationship, but Jack also helps Ally get her talent noticed. A strain remains, though, because of Jack’s health.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘A Star is Born’ will hook you in with passionate musical scenes”
Subjects such as wealth, power and differences in the social hierarchy based on income are all packaged and put before audiences in this summer romcom.
As the name implies, the film centers around very affluent Asian individuals. However, the main protagonist Rachel (Constance Wu), isn’t one of them. Rachel is an economics professor living in New York City and is in a relationship with Nick Young (Henry Golding). The two are a happy couple, yet when Nick invites Rachel to his best friend’s wedding, she finds out that he’s been hiding something.
It turns out that Nick’s family is extremely wealthy and holds great influence in Singapore. Upon arriving in Singapore, Rachel experiences some of the perks of her boyfriend’s wealth, but at the same time, their relationship becomes strained. This is mainly because Rachel isn’t remotely close to being a rich person, and some of the individuals close to Nick look down on her for it.
Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ is a charming, insightful romcom”
