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‘This Is Me…Now: A Love Story’ movie review: Jennifer Lopez on the path towards self-love, healing and a fairytale ending

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‘This Is Me…Now: A Love Story’ movie review: Jennifer Lopez on the path towards self-love, healing and a fairytale ending

Somewhere around the midway mark in This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, Jane Fonda ruminates, “She’s smart and she’s strong, why does she need to be with somebody.” A noisy debate breaks out as she, and the zodiacal council watching over The Artist a.k.a. Jennifer Lopez, continue to scrutinise her love life and string of relationships. 

A cinematic accompaniment to her latest album, This is Me…Now: A Love Story, described as ‘genre bending’, and a ‘narrative-driven cinematic odyssey’, feels like a musical, a deeply biographical feature, and a chaotic collection of music videos all at once. And yet, there’s an earnestness that cuts through this amalgamation of fantasy, romance, introspection, and music, all from Lopez herself. 

In storybook style, the film’s opening montages take us through the Puerto Rican tale of star-crossed lovers Alida and Taroo, which culminates in her on a motorcycle behind a faceless driver as they race through an expansive desert. The Artist, soon enough, crashes into a heart factory and JLo gets a musical introduction befitting the star she is. She choruses along to ‘Time is Precious’, sings grimly to the camera and races against time to solve a problem with the rose petal supply there. It is however in the song that soon follows, Rebound, that we see her at her best. Trapped in a glass house with a manipulative partner, this song showcases the best of her dancing skills, and her earnest on-screen presence. 

This Is Me… sets out to be an exploration of Lopez’s tumultuous relationships, marriages, and journey of healing over the last few decades, and has her real-life confidante Fat Joe playing her therapist. As The Artist, we see Lopez navigate her emotions, struggle to unpack her ‘love addiction’, and embark on her journey of healing through conversations with him. These interactions veer between heartfelt and being too on-the-nose, but the star doesn’t shy away from baring her soul. The references to her career’s highs and lows and her relationships are hard to miss, given how all of this has been scrutinised over the years. 

Overseeing all of this is the eclectic zodiac council with Jane Fonda, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Kim Petras, Jay Shetty, Tervor Noah, and Sadhguru, who discuss and dissect her relationship patterns. This is a truly bizarre collection of people that one wouldn’t expect to see sharing screen space, but also befitting. Simple horoscope columns won’t cut it, for a star. 

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Ben Affleck, left, and Jennifer Lopez arrive at the premiere of ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’ on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
| Photo Credit:
JORDAN STRAUSS

Following an intervention staged by her friends, numerous therapist visits, and disappointing relationships, The Artist tearfully  asks what is wrong in wanting to spend your life with somebody. Following a high-profile engagement in 2002 and a break-up a couple of years later, Lopez and actor-director Ben Affleck rekindled their romance in 2021 and got married a year later. This Is Me… too alludes to this finality of sorts, and Lopez does not shy away from admitting that while it is okay to love and heal, she does eventually get her fairytale ending. 

This Is Me…Now: A Love Story (English)

Director: Dave Meyers

Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Fat Joe, Jane Fonda, Keke Palmer

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Run-time: 60 minutes

Jennifer: An accompaniment to Jennifer Lopez’s latest album, the musical feature follows the star a.k.a. The Artist on a journey of healing and love

As a companion piece to her album This Is Me…Now, there are high expectations of the music. The songs, however, fall short of being memorable, and are saved by the innovative visuals and choreography. For instance, Lopez attends a Love Addicts meeting where she opens up, and soon breaks into song and dance with the other members. There is also a very fun song pictured at her wedding, with different grooms. Lopez’s charisma as a performer hasn’t dimmed one bit. She is comfortable and confident on screen as an actor, reminiscent of how amazing she was in the 2019 film Hustlers. It truly is hard to take your eyes off her, especially during the songs. Each song is pictured differently, and she glides effortlessly from one dance sequence to another. 

A still from ‘This Is Me...Now: A Love Story’

A still from ‘This Is Me…Now: A Love Story’

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While This Is Me… clearly has its sights set on being an emotional exploration of Lopez’s life, the writing  doesn’t attempt to go beyond the surface (Lopez is credited as a writer and for the story). The film is daring in the way it attempts to balance its many genres. There is sci-fi, fantasy, old school romance (a quick singing in the rain tribute), and of course the music. There is even a whole sequence where she goes back to her roots, looking for answers and yet, we are left with more questions than before. 

The attempt at bringing all of this together onscreen for her music is audacious, no less. And while it might not always come together well, there’s much to enjoy in this deeply personal, rocky journey of healing and love. Lopez truly lights up the screen, and you can’t get enough. 

This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is now streaming on Prime Video

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I Know Exactly How You Die – Review | Indie Slasher | Heaven of Horror

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I Know Exactly How You Die – Review | Indie Slasher | Heaven of Horror

Watch I Know Exactly How I Die on VOD

The director of I Know Exactly How I Die is Alexandra Spieth, who ensures a tight pace and some gorgeous shots. She previously directed Stag and created and starred in the web-series [Blank] My Life. The screenplay comes from Mike Corey, and I do really like the plot and evolution of this story.

As already mentioned, the star Rushabh Patel is the executive producer. As a result, this movie is billed as “Rushabh Patel’s I Know Exactly How I Die“, which I am not a fan of. Unless Rushabh Patel is famous in ways I am not familiar with – nor is IMDb, as this is his first and so far only credit there.

This is like people wondering if Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is connected to Stranger Things, because the media keeps referring to it as a new show from The Duffer Brothers. Sure, they produced it, but Haley Z. Boston created the original story and wrote the screenplay. And she’s not even a newcomer.

Okay, rant over, but I just don’t understand the marketing and press decisions of it all.

Anyway, as already mentioned, the practical effects in I Know Exactly How I Die are gorgeous. Any slasher fan should enjoy the concept of the plot as well as those amazing practical effects. And yet, you will have to endure a little terrible CGI, but this is an indie production, so budget restraints come into play. Of course, so does choosing the best talent, and that did not happen for CGI here!

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I Know Exactly How You Die is out on VOD from April 7, 2026. You can rent it on Digital HD from your preferred platform, including Prime Video and Fandango at Home. The film will also be available on DVD.

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‘Super Mario’ fans ignore weak reviews and send sequel to $372.5 million global box office debut, biggest opening of the year for a studio film | Fortune

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‘Super Mario’ fans ignore weak reviews and send sequel to 2.5 million global box office debut, biggest opening of the year for a studio film | Fortune

Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which scored the biggest opening of the year for a Hollywood movie. The Illumination and Nintendo co-production earned $130.9 million over the weekend and a massive $190.1 million in its first five days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.

The animated sequel, Illumination CEO Christopher Meledandri’s 16th movie in 16 years, is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.

It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It made $15 million from the IMAX screens alone.

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“It’s exactly the kind of broad, crowd-pleasing release that brings people into theatres,” AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron said in a statement.

It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.

“These kind of audience reaction scores just point to a ridiculously strong run, not only throughout the spring, but likely into the summer as well,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will open in Japan later this month.

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Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reignof the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $30.7 million, bringing its running domestic total to $217.2 million. Worldwide, it’s made $420.7 million to date.

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.

“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five. And the box office outlook looks bright overall, up around 30% from last year.

“There’s no better opening act for a great summer than a huge month of April powered by a mega blockbuster like the ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’” said Paul Dergarabedian, comscore’s head of marketplace trends.

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Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1.“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $130.9 million.

2.“Project Hail Mary,” $30.7 million.

3.“The Drama,” $14.4 million.

4.“Hoppers,” $5.8 million.

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5.“Reminders of Him,” $2.2 million.

6.“A Great Awakening,” $2.1 million.

7.“They Will Kill You,” $1.9 million.

8.“Dhurandhar The Revenge,” $1.9 million.

9.“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” $1.8 million.

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10.“Scream 7,” 915,000.

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Movie Review: THE YETI

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Movie Review: THE YETI
Rating: R Stars: Brittany Allen, Eric Nelsen, Jim Cummings, Christina Bennett Lind, Gene Gallerano, Linc Hand, Elizabeth Cappuccino, William Sadler, Corbin Bernsen Writers: Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta Directors: Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment Release Date: April 4, 2026 and April 8, 2026 (AMC theatrical); April 10, 2026 (digital) Written and directed by the team of Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta, THE YETI is set in the ‘40s and aspires to look as though it was made in the ‘50s. Its style seems to be part of its reason for being. It’s agreeable as a […]Read On »
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