Showing on Netflix.

Written by and starring Ali Wong and Randall Park it tells the story of Sasha and Marcus, childhood friends whose relationship grew until one fateful night when it moved beyond friendship. They are then separated for 16 years as Sasha moves to LA and builds herself a career as a successful chef while Marcus stays in San Francisco to care for his Dad and work alongside him in the family business as they both come to terms with the untimely loss of mum and wife.

Eventually Sasha returns to San Francisco to open a new restaurant, she and Marcus are reunited and while she has built a successful career Marcus lives at home working for his dad and smoking weed. How will their two worlds clash? Will they rekindle their relationship and rediscover their childhood love?

Let’s face it you already know all the answers, Always be my Maybe is hugely formulaic and predictable and is also bizarrely uneven, with huge swathes of very mediocre but passable comedy. However, on occasion it became surprisingly good, with some really funny set pieces and a fabulous cameo about half way in, which also spawns a humorous end credit title track. There is also a couple of well judged warm and tender moments including a heartfelt final scene.

Wong and Park are both entertaining in the lead roles and are well supported by a likeable cast, with enough laughs to keep it entertaining and of course those occasional moments of real original humor and touching warmth.

Always be my Maybe I can’t imagine will live long in anyones memory, but it’s kind of fun while it lasts and with a couple of entertaining high points it won’t be the worst thing you watch on a streaming service.

Showing on Netflix.

Issa Rae and Kumail Najiani star as Leilani and Jibran a New Orleans couple who’s relationship is faltering and as the realisation hits them they also collide (literally) with a murder and as with all films like this they decide the best course of action is to attempt to solve the crime themselves before they become the accused.

Often a film watching experience is dependant on what you bring into it and on this occasion something light and not overly taxing was the brief and this delivered exactly what was asked of it.

The story while not a new premise, had enough originality to keep it feeling fresh and fun and the two leads played well off of each other delivering humour and importantly enough belief in their relationship to at least want the character’s to end up where you expect they will from the start.

Importantly their caper never feels completely ridiculous even though it is, which at least grounds it in something nearing reality (if you choose to ignore the silliest bits!).

The Lovebirds probably won’t live long in the memory but it was solid enough comedy with likeable leads and enough gags to keep it enjoyable and fun and much better than some of the recent comedies I’ve seen on Netflix (yes The Wrong Missy I’m looking at you).

Available on Amazon Prime Video.

Written and directed by Lulu Wang, The Farewell is based on her own true family story of a now, widespread, Chinese family who choose to keep from the family head, Nai Nai, her cancer diagnosis. Her dire prognosis leads them to create a “fake” wedding to provide an excuse for the them to come together to say their final farewells.

What Wang gives us is a gentle tale of the importance of family, how we can often take it for granted and assume it will be always be there, until we realise it won’t. It also shows us the complexity of life, the lies we tell to protect others and often ourselves from some of the realities with which we live.

There’s a real simplicity to the story, focussed on a family and its challenges, insecurities and jealousies. One thing that really stuck with me was how the story was just about that, not about a chinese family, but one that could’ve been any family from any part of the world, striving to do their best and deal with the tragedy of seeing someone for the final time.

There’s nice performances throughout and while Awkwafina got many plaudits for her performance as Billi, it was Shuzhen Zhao who steals the show as Nai Nai, the widely loved and respected matriarch, as she perfectly captures what we’d expect from any loving mother and grandmother who wants to share her wisdom to ensure others are happy and live the best lives they can.

While it didn’t always work for me as occasionally its structure seemed a little messy, its a minor quibble for a film that is full of love, warmth humour and scattered with lovely understated but hugely relatable performances.

Showing on Netflix.

I’ve watched a couple of really dreadful comedies on Netflix recently, so what a breath of fresh air this wonderful warm hearted romantic comedy from writer director Alice Wu is.

Our story centres around three high school students in small town USA, Squahamish to be precise. Ellie, a Chinese immigrant, Paul and Aster all of whom have grown up in the town. Ellie is smart and articulate and earns extra money by writing papers for her classmates, until Paul asks her to write a love letter to the thoughtful, intelligent and attractive Aster whom he adores from afar, but it becomes complicated once Ellie realises she has feelings for her too.

The film right at the beginning promises this is “not a love story” or an odd one were nobody gets what they want. This is exactly what Alice Wu brings us, this is beautifully judged story telling about 3 people trying to discover who they are and what they want, Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer and Alexxis Lemire are all a joy to watch and the changing dynamic between the characters as they grow is seamless and keeps the story fresh and moving forward.

With a mix of Cyrano de Bergerac and many a coming of age comedy it would of been easy for this to have falling into cliche and predictability.

However, Alice Wu with a warm script and talented cast delivers a hugely enjoyable story but with enough depth and nuance to give us something that delivers more than you may expect.

Showing on Netflix.

Tigertail, written and directed by Alan Yang is a melancholy drama following three periods in the life of Grover a Taiwanese child shipped off to his grandmother after the death of his father and his mother’s need to leave to find work, through his teenage years and dreams of moving to the United States to fulfill his ambitions, to a tired older man living in the US but not living the life he’d hoped for.

The performances of both Tzi Ma and Hong-Chi Lee as older and younger Grover do a good job of showing his descent from youthful optimism to the frustration of broken dreams and the harsh realities of life. At the core of that descent is a regret for a lost love, Yuan, who Grover meets as a young man in Taiwan and leaves when he heads to America when the opportunity is presented to him.

We feel Grover’s frustrations as those around him fail to appreciate or take advantage of all he is doing for him and also the impact his choices have on others especially in a difficult relationship with his daughter and how his sadness and stoic privacy have impacted her own ability to form the relationship they both seem to crave.

The film is nicely shot and moves seamlessly back and forth through Grover’s life, his younger life shown shot on 16mm “grainy” film while his modern world in crystal clear digitally filmed scenes.

It is not hugely original and doesn’t break new ground but it is a warm tail and while not full of laughs, the feeling of optimism, turning to regret and disappointment permeates throughout. Yang doesn’t present us with a classic happy ending but does give us a warm and loving one that, perhaps, reminds us not to dwell on what we don’t have but to embrace what we do and appreciate it, which right now isn’t a bad message to us all.

Showing on Netflix.

One of the things I’ve done during lockdown is watch more on Netflix and what impresses me is the amount of original content, both TV type drama and movies. Mostly the Netflix original content is impressive, with their ability (similar to Amazon) to fund projects themselves it allows them more creative freedom. However with so much output occasionally we get a real dud.

Step forward The Wrong Missy, a hugely predictable rather un-amusing comedy that we’ve all seen many times before and done much better. The premise is our central character Tim Morris (David Spade) has met two Melissa’s one a nightmare blind date, one a joyful encounter in an airport, when he gets the chance to invite a guest to a company retreat he invites Missy, as the title suggests rather than airport Melissa it’s nightmare Missy (Lauren Lapkus).

While the premise has possibilities what we get is hugely predictable, Missy the nightmare, Missy as heart, people like Missy, Tim likes missy… etc… it really fails on most levels you know where the story is going from the start, the chuckles (because there’s no laughs) are very few and far between and there’s a reliance on some nonsense physical comedy alongside the occasional “gross out” moment.

While Lapkus is fine and watchable as the titular Missy around her there’s no real characters of note or performances to enjoy there’s even a cameo from Rob Schneider (can’t remember the last time I saw him on screen!) which fails to bring any humour at all!

Not a Netflix classic and not a hit very much a miss..y

Showing on Netflix

I am a fan of Steven Soderbergh’s kind of films, fictional stories like Oceans 11 or similar but more factual tales like Adam Mackay’s, Big Short which look to explore the complexities of a heist or scandal where one group exploits another through a selection of well crafted vignettes.

That’s the ground The Laundromat occupies as it tries to shed light on the murky world of money laundering, tax avoidance and corruption at a global scale that was exposed by the leaking of the “Panama Papers” and is based on Jake Bernstein’s book.

While all the component parts where there for me to enjoy it never quite delivers. The story weaves its way through global corruption but is grounded by Meryl Streep’s Ellen Martin who loses her husband in a boat accident alongside 20 others and it is a fraudulent insurance policy that introduces us to global firm Mossack Fonseca with Gary Oldman’s Mossack (channelling a heavy dose of Werner Herzog) and Antonio Banderas’s Fonseca who narrate us through the murky world their company dealt with.

The film for me was at its most interesting while it remained closely related to Martin’s story as she tries to understand how nobody is responsible for her husband’s death but as the film drifts off into other threads, which while important in trying to show the global scale and senior levels of government around the world involved in allowing the very wealthiest in society to exploit laws and facilities not available to the vast majority, the less engaged I felt by the story telling.

While there is lots of interesting things in this and a selection of good performances, Streep in particular, the story is a complex one and for me that lack of an emotional core to tie it to meant at times I lost the relevance of some of the vignettes. What it does do well is show the complexity and scope of this kind of tax avoidance and ability for those with the means to use it while it suits governments around the world to allow them and for that it should be admired, but for me it didn’t wholly work in the way it told it.

An interesting but not completely well told story.

Showing on Netflix

Based on the real life story of Rudy Ray Moore, Dolemite provided a surprising treat of a film.

I’ve always enjoyed Eddie Murphy especially his earlier work and this sees him back at his best with a story almost built for him to tell. Set in the early 1970’s It tells the story of struggling entertainer Moore, played by Murphy, who creates an act based on some old tales that have been kept alive by some of the poorest in society, Moore feels that there may be a comedy act to be built from them and sets about creating Dolemite.

The character is a success and Moore is constantly driving to take it further pushing him past what he is constantly told is beyond him, until he finally sees the lights of “the big screen” and is determined to put Dolemite on it.

That determination and will to succeed is what really won me over and delivered a very different film to what I’d expected from the first 20 minutes, which looked like it was going to be Murphy doing a 2 hour stand up routine of 1930’s jokes, but instead what we get is a heartfelt story of the battle to succeed and importance and value of taking others with you, be it spotting something in Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Lady Reed or admiring the community theatre of Keegan Michael Key’s Jerry he was keen to uplift those around him.

Dolemite provides a warm, humorous story which seems to capture 1970’s America, especially the life of it’s poorer black community, as the screen is filled with the colour and sounds of the era (well at least what I imagine the era was like) and provides Murphy with the chance to showcase so many of the things he does well.

It wasn’t the film I expected but I think it was much better for it.

Showing on Netflix in the UK.

If you were to look up the quintessential low budget, British comedy ghost story (even though it’s Irish) then you would probably find Extra Ordinary staring back at you.

None of that is a criticism, Extra Ordinary is a quirky comedy filled with likeable characters plenty of humorous set pieces and lots of nods to well known horror.

Co-writer Maeve Higgins stars as part driving instructor/part ghostbuster Ruth, who finds herself drawn into the world of Martin Martin (Barry Ward) who is haunted by his dead wife and then finds his daughter the centre of attention for a satan worshipping former pop star Christian Winter (Will Forte). Ruth is tasked with saving the day while battling her own personal demons.

The story bombs a long, with the occasional interlude from brilliantly created 80’s VHS recordings of her fathers ghost hunting TV show and a selection of ectoplasm collecting adventures and the occasional bit of theatrical gore.

It was an enjoyable 90 minute low budget comedy, with enough charm and laughs to carry it off, it won’t change your life but you’ll have fun for 90 minutes while your life stays the same.

Showing on Netflix UK.

Inspired by Lois Lowry’s book, the Willoughbys tells the story of four children who have the misfortune to be lumbered with two very unloving parents who spend all their energy loving each other leaving them with no love left for their children, this inspires them to hatch a scheme to get themselves adopted in the hope of finding the loving parents they desire.

What that brings us is a fast paced colourful animated adventure, not anything as subtle or original as the best animations that we have got used to from Pixar, but it was a fun 90 minutes nonetheless, from Ricky Gervais’s not overly annoying narrating cat to Maya Rudolph and Terry Crews’s surrogate parent figures who all keep the story moving a long after a sluggish opening and while it has plenty of site gags, the film also does what all good children’s tales do and delves into some darker areas.

The animation is striking with plenty of oversized characters and lots of colour to fill the screen. It should be remembered that the story does explore some dark sides that earn it a PG rating, so perhaps be careful before showing it to the youngest of children.

The Willoughbys is unlikely to win awards for originality but it was, for me, a fun story with plenty of energy, colour and humour to whisk you along and if you’re looking for some lockdown family fun then this may fit the bill.