Can You Ever Forgive Me? Is A Skillfully Subdued Triumph

Like the boys (A.K.A. Zac Efron and Corbin Bleau) in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, writer/director Marielle Heller is back after her outstanding 2015 directorial effort The Diary of a Teenage Girl. A movie bursting at the seams with authentic portrayals of all the complexities of a specific teenagers angst, anything she did as a follow-up to that excellent motion picture was gonna grab my attention. But the fact that such a sophomore directorial effort, entitled Can You Ever Forgive Me?, would also serve as a chance for Melissa McCarthy to flex her dramatic acting muscles meant this was a movie that's been very much on my radar for ages now (it probably would have been on my radar anyway though given how many times I've seen the trailer over the past seven months).

Mute Silences All of It's Potential

In their 28 month long period of doing feature films, Netflix has released a bunch of high-quality smaller-scale films like The 13th, Blue Jay and Mudbound that show the streaming service is quite capable of putting out some top-notch cinema. If only such quality extended to their attempts to release more high-profile blockbuster fare, as those (admittedly few) attempts have fared quite poorly. Bright was, of course, a disaster and now comes another subpar bigger-budgeted effort from the studio in the form of Mute, which hails from director Duncan Jones, a man responsible for two of the best science-fiction films (Moon and Source Code) of the last decade.

Too Many Generic Storytelling Turns Hinder The Interesting Titular Lead Character of Carrie Pilby

Being intellectually gifted has served Carrie Pilby (Bel Powley) well in some areas of her life, such as her academic pursuits that had her skipping grades like crazy and then going to Harvard at a young age. On the other hand, that same IQ has left her distancing herself heavily from people, meaning she's a 19-year-old with little to no social experience. Her therapist, Dr. Petrov (Nathan Lane), suggests Carrie Pilby put together a list of goals (which consist of stuff like "Going On A Date" or "Make A Friend") that she can achieve in the coming months so that she can begin to expand her horizons in meaningful ways.

Easy A Has Some Major Story Issues And Also Some Strong Humor And Acting From Emma Stone

Before the surprisingly high number of amazing High School movies we've had this decade (namely, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, The Spectacular Now, The Diary Of A Teenage Girl and The Edge Of Seventeen), before Emma Stone won an Oscar and before Will Gluck directed that remake of Annie I totally forgot about before now (I never actually saw it, surprisingly), there was the High School comedy Easy A, a trailer for which I saw on the sing-a-long version of Grease all the way back in July 2010. I had wanted to see the movie after seeing the trailer that fateful day, but for some reason, it's taken me nearly seven whole years to see the actual movie!

25 Best Films Of 2015: Part One (9-H)

OK, I've finally managed to see as many movies as possible from 2015, let's try to knock this article out before we enter the second month of 2016, shall we?

The Diary Of A Teenage Girl Review

Minnie (Bel Powley) is such a unique and captivating protagonist, I feel like celebrating her nuanced personality, a triumph of top-caliber writing, with some sort of parade. She's 15, enthralled by everything related to sex and carries with her pervasive feelings of insecurity and a delightfully bold personality. She's the kind of person convinced she's fat and then proudly declaring in a letter to a man that's insulted her that some people enjoy, nay, adore larger women, thank you very much.