FILM REVIEWS:
ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOUR (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Paul Feig
At the end of the Paul Feig 1981 film A SIMPLE FAVOUR, it is revealed that Emily has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the double murder of her father and sister. Husband Sean has become a successful professor at Berkeley, where he currently lives with his son. Stephanie's vlog has garnered one million followers; her knack for solving crimes has made her a part-time private detective who has successfully solved thirty cold cases.
The sequel, ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOUR is directed by Paul Feig, who rose to fame with his most successful 2011 comedy BRIDESMAIDS. And there is a big wedding in this film as well, as a widow marries into the mob. The weird thing is that the neighbour who slept with her ex-husband is invited to her wedding, for some reason not made known to the audience.
ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOUR follows protagonists Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) years after the action of the first book. She is touring on her book, but sales are sagging, and she could use a sequel. Clearly, the events of this movie will serve as material for her second book. That door opens when Emily (Blake Lively) drops back into Stephanie’s life. Her fiancé’s high-priced attorneys found a way to get her out of prison on appeal (never credibly explained how this is achieved), and Emily insists that Stephanie stand as her Maid of Honour. Destination wedding! The pair jet off to Capri, in a private jet, though not given good seats, where they’re joined by Sean (Henry Golding), who has been forced by the courts to bring Nicky (Ian Ho) to the ceremony. Golding gets some of the best lines in the first act as Sean hurls half-drunk insults at his ex-lovers. The groom is Dante (Michele Morrone), who happens to be the heir to a mafia empire run by his mother, Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci), who is reluctantly navigating a conflict between the Versano family and a competing one at the ceremony. And so the plot thickens. The story moves along at a leisurely pace, a good thing as the film, though running over 2 hours, makes for a leisurely watch.
There are a few notable, clever set pieces like Sean’s murder in the shower, a hilarious variation of Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. Golding, who was so cardboard in his acting in CRAZY RICH ASIANS, does major over-acting in this film, which is also plain hilarious.
A few flaws involve the script. The film could be shortened easily to under two hours. There is also a weak motive for the whodunit, as well as no clear desperation in discovering the killer. Otherwise, the use of social media in the story brings the whodunit into the present day, and the use of the exotic location of Capri helps the story as well. The use of the feuding mafioso in the story seems largely wasted and leads nowhere.
Everyone loves a good mystery or whodunit set in a beautiful location. The location is stunning, Capri. Capri is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. The largest settlement on the island is the town of Capri. The island has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic. Salto di Tiberio, also known as Tiberius’ Leap, is a historic spot for the Emperor. It was said that during the Emperor’s particularly cruel years, he threw his enemies and those who displeased him off the cliff, for them to perish from the fall. The film’s climax takes place at what could be that cliff, where an enemy is tossed to their death.
ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOUR opens for streaming on Prime Video May 2. Good harmless entertainment, murders considered.
Trailer:
THE BIGGEST FAN (LA MAS FAN)(Mexico/France 2025) **
Directed by Maria Torres
THE BIGGEST FAN follows disgraced actress Lana Cruz (Kate del Castillo), who has been cancelled by Hollywood. Hence, she heads back to Mexico to work in a film and prove that she's still a star. Still, she is not prepared for Polly (Diana Bovio), her biggest fan and worst nightmare.
Maria Torres’ THE BIGGEST FAN, which she has co-written with Enrique Vazquez, tells the story of TV star Lana Cruz, whose show, a seven-season Special Crimes, has been running successfully. But, after a particularly difficult day of shooting, when she goes out amongst her fans, Lana ends up hitting one of them. The incident goes viral and Lana Cruz becomes as unpopular as fast as she became liked. And so goes social media. Poor Cruz is out of work until a year later, she is offered an art spy period piece by an artsy director to be shot in Mexico. This is also when and where she meets Polly, her biggest fan.
Films have been made time and again about stars and their big fans. And fans who have gone too far. Notable is Ed Bianchi’s 1981 horror slasher THE FAN, in which Lauren Bacall plays a stalked movie star. The film was a flop, though it also featured Maureen Stapleton and James Garner. This Netflix original comedy, THE BIGGEST FAN, takes a lighter side while attempting to cover a few dramatic issues as well. Lana Cruz’s biggest fan only appears 20 minutes after the film starts. Polly is totally obsessed with Lana but is a hell of an annoying and ends up being her sort of personal assistant to the Cruz’s breakout movie in Mexico.
How is Polly irritating? She screams at any time to let it out, startling Cruz and annoying her as well. Polly’s cell goes on during a shoot. Polly also turns up at any inappropriate time, sometimes bringing stew as well. Unfortunately, all the antics are only mildly funny. The relationship finally turns sour when Polly causes Lana to miss the final day of the shoot.
The film could have worked if it had been funnier. A lot of missed opportunities, though the actors playing Polly and Lana try their best.
A few dramatic subplots include Lana trying to make up with her estranged daughter, whose graduation she is forced to attend because of the Mexican movie shoot. Director Torres ups the melodrama, which brings the film down, considering that it should be funnier. Another subplot includes Lana’s late and over-obsessive mother, whose advice “smile’ is taken too seriously by Lana.
THE BIGGEST FAN is a female film with largely female characters, with the males mostly treated as idiotic (like the director) or given secondary roles.
THE BIGGEST FAN is a Netflix original film, a co-production between Mexico and France that is ultimately quite a bore to watch, demonstrating nothing new in terms of ideas or entertainment. THE BIGGEST FAN is open for streaming this week on Netflix.
EGGHEAD & TWINKIE (USA 2022) ***
Directed by Sarah Kambe Holland
EGGHEAD AND TWINKIE, written and directed by Sarah Kambe Holland
plays as a road trip teenage movie about two teens who don’t know much about themselves, life, what they want, or anything else. The film is a mix of live-action and animation and is breezy and light. It looks and feels like a film with a limited target audience of LGBTQ+ or teens, but despite the fact, EGGHAD AND TWINKIE has its charm and has moved the hearts of many a moviegoer, earning a solid 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing this review.
EGGHEAD AND TWINKIE begins with voiceover claiming that these two have been friends for life and have never had an argument. Of course, they do as depicted at the start when the two meet at a restaurant to sort out their differences. Twinkie has left Egghead stranded during a road trip. I would never forgive any person who would do that to me, but apparently Egghead does, as he is in love with her. And then she comes out to him that she is gay.
The simple premise of the film involves an Asian American teenage girl, Twinkie (Sabrina Jieafa) who after coming out to her adoptive parents, takes off on a road trip to meet her online crush, BD (Ayden Lee) with the help of her nerdy best friend, Egghead (Louis Tomeo).
The two leads, Jieafa and Tomeo, deliver charming, goofy and innocent enough performances for the audience to identify with. The raid trip encounters are eventful enough, leading them to try to ditch paying a restaurant bill. But they pay after finding the money showing them to be liable characters with no bad stuff in their hearts.
Besides the funny stuff. The film hits some high emotional notes with its coming-of-age dramatic moments. This is a film that would be difficult to dislike
EGGHEAD AND TWINKIE is available on demand April the 29th in Canada and the US.
Trailer:
THUNDERBOLTS (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Jake Schreier
Disney has milked their STAR WARS franchise to death, It looks like their Marvel Cinematic Universe is heading for the same demise. It is not easy to come out with something different and distinct. As for THUNDERBOLTS, it is a case of the Avengers becoming the new Avengers. Not that anyone cares. But maybe Comic-Con fans do. And unless one is perhaps a Marvel comic book fan. I myself dread going to any Marvel superhero screening, despite the high budgets, but at least it brings audiences back to the theatres. In that respect, the Disney people have tried really hard with THUNDERBOLTS and it succeeds within reason, all things considered. Form a non-Marvel comic fan, THUNDERBOLTS is still an ok watch, though the film has garnered rave reviews so far on social media.
As CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) faces impeachment for illegal activities, she sends Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr, (Hannah John-Kamen) and Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko) to a secret compound to battle each other. After Starr kills Dreykov, a man named Bob (Lewis Pullman) suddenly appears. Upon learning that they were sent by de Fontaine to be incinerated along with evidence of her activities, they manage to escape from the trap. Belova, Walker, and Starr flee from the scene after Bob distracts de Fontaine's forces, who open fire at him. Bob gets up from the gunfire and flies upward before crashing back to the compound. The story gets bot of variation from here, but basically it is a case of anti-super heroes having to put their differences aside and cooperate to take Valentina down.
As far as plots go, adversaries arguing with each other forced to join forces to combat a common enemy is not fresh fodder. So, this premise is taken into the MCU. The premise does get overworked and shows its tedium in the middle,
Louis-Dreyfus and Pugh are both great, Pugh doing a Russian accent with David Harbour who plays her characters father, and with Sebastian Stan and they lift the film out of the doldrums.
Special effects and action set pieces-wise, Marvel fans should be satisfied. There is an impressive disaster movie-type set pieces reminiscent of films like EARTHQUAKE and TOWERING INFERNO. Buildings collapse amid a busy city street. But the superheroes trying to save innocent bystanders is a bit too hokey. Not everyone can be saved, though the film attempts to convince the audience to believe so.
On May 2nd in Toronto, fans attending a screening of “Thunderbolts*” at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto were in for an unexpected treat when Julia Louis-Dreyfus made a surprise appearance to personally thank the audience for their support. Julia’s appearance was met with thunderous applause as she shared a few words about the making of the film and what it felt like to have her character, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, return to the big screen.
THUNDERBOLTS opens in theatres this week, May 2nd. It should make it number one at the box office.
Trailer:
