Entertainment

Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson ‘Meet Cute’ in a ‘Groundhog Day’-style rom-com

Published

2 years ago

September 22, 2022

Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson ‘Meet Cute’ in a ‘Groundhog Day’-style rom-com

Cuoco’s Sheila approaches Davidson’s Gary in a bar, and the 2 spend a romantic evening collectively attending to know one another, even when her conduct often feels a bit off. That is earlier than she explains that she has entry to a time machine (positioned at her native nail salon, for some cause), permitting her to journey again a day, time and again, reliving and revising their first date.

Though Gary is understandably skeptical, he is additionally irresistibly drawn to her. “We simply work,” Sheila tells him, a idea that she will put to the check, time and again, altering the character of their interplay in small and not-so-small methods and seeing the way it performs out.

The components is clearly stuffed with potential, which explains why writers maintain returning to it, from “50 First Dates” to the current Andy Samberg film “Palm Springs.” But the idea can also be fraught with peril, starting with the vaguely merciless facet the longer the state of affairs drags on (even in a 90-minute film) and the query of how one can break away from the circle in some inventive manner, a problem that “Meet Cute” (directed by Alex Lehmann from Noga Pnueli’s screenplay) cannot solely overcome.

“It is OK for issues to be messy typically,” Sheila tells Gary, a line that possesses some significance within the bigger story, however which does not essentially apply fairly as nicely on this kind of train.

Having adopted “The Large Bang Principle” with a breakout car (for a season, anyway) in “The Flight Attendant,” Cuoco has demonstrated her chops as a producer and star, and he or she’s actually the main target of the story. As for Davidson, he is discovered no scarcity of movie roles, however the “Saturday Evening Dwell” alumnus appears trapped in a special type of loop, one that also makes him extra celebrated for his off-screen relationships than his skilled endeavors.

Frankly, simply the marquee worth of their teaming in all probability represents a modest win for NBC’s streaming service. That stated, it will have been good if “Meet Cute” had completed just a little extra to capitalize on the eye, though because it stands, there is not any going again in time to repair that.

“Meet Cute” premieres September 21 on Peacock.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: 'Despicable Me 4' – Catholic Review

Published

5 hours ago

July 3, 2024

Press Room

Movie Review: 'Despicable Me 4' – Catholic Review

NEW YORK (OSV News) – Though it comes across as somewhat unfocused, the animated comedy “Despicable Me 4” (Universal) retains much of the charm that has characterized the whole series of films to which it belongs. It’s an agreeable piece of fun that’s suitable for all but the very youngest.

This latest chapter in the adventures of Gru (voice of Steve Carell), the would-be supervillain whose heart of gold long ago turned him into a loving dad and a crimefighter, opens with him assisting in the arrest and imprisonment of French criminal Maxime Le Mal (voice of Will Ferrell). Le Mal vows vengeance on Gru’s family and manages to escape in short order.

With Le Mal on the loose, Gru and the clan — Kristen Wiig voices his sensible wife, Lucy — have to go into hiding and assume false identities. But Poppy (voice of Joey King), the daughter of their preppy, country club patronizing new neighbors, the Prescotts (voices of Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman), discovers their secret and uses it to blackmail Gru.

While the comic chaos wrought by Gru’s trademark Twinkie-shaped minions continues to evoke laughs, director Chris Renaud’s addition to a franchise he helped to establish goes down too many plot paths at once. Some of the details of the story — Le Mal’s goal is to kidnap infant Gru Jr., for instance — also seem a bit challenging for kids.

Genuinely objectionable ingredients are kept out of the mix. And there’s a morally interesting, though underdeveloped, subplot about the refusal of one of Gru’s adopted daughters to use the pseudonym she’s been given on the grounds that it would constitute lying.

Yet scenes of danger, a touch of potty humor and a minion mooning may give the parents of the littlest moviegoers pause.

The film contains characters in peril, a flash of nonhuman rear nudity and a scatological sight gag. The OSV News classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

The week’s bestselling books, July 1

Published

6 hours ago

July 3, 2024

Press Room

Hardcover fiction

1. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

2. The Women by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s Press: $30) An intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

3. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley (William Morrow: $30) Twists abound in this locked-room murder mystery.

4. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $29) A fusion of genres and ideas that’s part time-travel romance and part spy thriller.

5. Funny Story by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two opposites with the wrong thing in common connect.

6. Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Harper: $27) The story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch and learning to let go.

7. Table for Two by Amor Towles (Viking: $32) A collection of stories from the author of “The Lincoln Highway.”

8. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $29) A woman upends her domestic life in this irreverent and tender novel.

9. Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo (Doubleday: $30) A long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present.

10. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Crown: $30) A novel combining a missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller and a love story.

…

Hardcover nonfiction

1. On Call by Anthony Fauci, M.D. (Viking: $36) A memoir by the doctor whose six-decade career in public service has spanned seven presidents.

2. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer’s guidance on how to be a creative person.

3. The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (Crown: $35) An exploration of the pivotal five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the start of the Civil War.

4. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (Penguin Press: $30) The actor-director’s memoir of growing up in Hollywood and Manhattan.

5. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Press: $30) An investigation into the collapse of youth mental health.

6. What This Comedian Said Will Shock You by Bill Maher (Simon & Schuster: $30) The host of HBO’s “Real Time” has written a vivisection of American life, politics and culture.

7. Somehow by Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books: $22) A joyful celebration of love from the bestselling author.

8. Democracy or Else by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor (Zando-Crooked Media Reads: $28) The “Pod Save America” hosts offer a step-by-step guide to navigating the chaotic waters of American politics.

9. The Wager by David Grann (Doubleday: $30) The story of the shipwreck of an 18th century British warship and a mutiny among the survivors.

10. Inventing Paradise by Paul Haddad (Santa Monica Press: $30) An exploration of the rise of Los Angeles through six influential figures: Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland and Moses Sherman.

…

Paperback fiction

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19)

2. Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley: $19)

3. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury: $19)

4. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See (Scribner: $19)

5. Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18)

6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Atria, $17

7. Happy Place by Emily Henry (Berkley: $19)

8. Circe by Madeline Miller (Back Bay: $19)

9. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (HarperOne: $18)

10. This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19)

…

Paperback nonfiction

1. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18)

2. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton (Harper Perennial: $19)

3. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Vintage: $17)

4. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Modern Library: $11)

5. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17)

6. What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman (Penguin: $19)

7. Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza (Hogarth: $18)

8. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $19)

9. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $13)

10. The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga (Atria Books: $19)

Movie Reviews

Ti West – 'MaXXXine' movie review

Published

12 hours ago

July 3, 2024

Press Room

(Credits: Far Out / A24)

Mia Goth has reprised her widely beloved role of Maxine Minx in MaXXXine, the third instalment of Ti West‘s X film series, previously comprised of 2022’s X and its prequel Pearl. Modern scream queen Goth is joined by an impressive cast, including Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon.

Such a roster of actors and musicians proves the kind of reputation West has earned in recent years and shows the increasing calibre of entertainment figures wanting to work with him. The real question, though, is whether the films themselves stand up to those performing in them. Three movies into his 2020s era, West has largely been revealed as a director who knows how to make a horror films look fun and flashy even if they lack originality.

MaXXXine takes place six years after the events of X as Goth’s character has left behind the “Texas porn star massacre” of the first movie to find her fame and fortune in Hollywood. Initially making her way as an adult entertainment actor, Maxine eventually finds herself making a ‘proper’ film; well, at least a dodgy horror B-movie by the name of ‘The Puritan II’, directed by Elizabeth Debicki’s domineering filmmaker, Elizabeth Bender.

At the same time, 1985 Los Angeles is suffering the crimes of notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez, dubbed in the media the ‘Night Stalker’, who appears to be targeting Maxine’s stripper and porn star buddies as his victims. MaXXXine’s Hollywood is generously doused in all the nostalgic expectations of the most excessive decade of the 20th century with neon lights on every corner, shitty horror movie rental stores (including one owned by Moses Sumney’s Leon) and a groovy soundtrack comprised of ZZ Top and, of course, Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis Eyes’.

Narratively and aesthetically somewhat typical, then, but where MaXXXine excels the most is in its many moments of self-aware homage. At one point, our hero Maxine is chased to the Bates Motel (from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho) on the Universal studio lot by Kevin Bacon’s seedy private eye John Labat, while a later moment sees Lily Collins’ dodgy-accented Molly Bennett have her mouth splattered with blood by Bender in a scene likely paying respect to Andrzej Zulawski’s horror classic Possession and its iconic Isabelle Adjani performance.

In addition, West seems to have fun positing the notion that horror movies in the latter part of the 1980s were deemed B at best, toying with the idea that they could never be taken seriously. Judging from the popularity of his X series, though, such a belief has been proven wrong ten times over. Still, there are a handful of issues with MaXXXine, as well as with the films that preceded it, that prevent admittance to the canon of horror greatness.

One of the film’s most engaging and genuinely exciting moments is when Maxine’s past finally catches up with her, and a motive for the entire series, which had been starkly missing (whether supernatural, religious or just downright maniacal), is finally revealed. However, by the time this antagonism finally arrives, one can’t help but feel that it’s somewhat too late and that West has only managed to deliver a pastiche of the horror world’s past with a 1980s gloss rather than provide an effort of originality or even one that genuinely feels scary.

Sure, there are some brilliantly gory set pieces, including the splattering of a man in a car crusher and the decimation of an even more unfortunate gentleman’s genitals (let’s not forget that the X series is undoubtedly feminist in tone). Still, such standout moments do not guarantee a good horror movie and West’s most recent entry seems to suffer from a lack of an overall haunting spectre or suchlike. MaXXXine is exciting, flashy, funny, sassy, self-aware and incredibly sexy, but it fails to be anything more than the sum of its parts: a neon-lit homage to the horrible history of Hollywood horror rather than a fear-inducing glimpse into the genre’s future.