Romance

Art of Love

  • Title: Art of Love
  • IMDb: link

Art of Love

If you can make it through the first-half of Art of Love, which is asking more of the audience than any movie has a right to do, there is some fun to be had in the film’s final 40 minutes of this story about an Interpol agent (Esra Bilgiç) attempting to prove her millionaire ex-boyfriend (Birkan Sokullu) is a world-renown thief. The film struggles heavily before getting to our thief’s last big score which will shift the focus of the film from the awkward cat-and-mouse game the two are playing and finally push both characters, each of whom has lied about their present motives, together into admitting their feelings.

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Upgraded

  • Title: Upgraded
  • IMDb: link

Upgraded

Upgraded is one of those films that makes you pity those involved in the production who will have to wear the stain of being a part of the film on the career resume like a scarlet letter until the end of time. The braindead romcom (apparently unaware its stealing random characters directly from Cinderella) offers almost no examples of a normally-functioning human being on-screen. If this is what it feels like to be upgraded, leave me in coach.

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Romancing the Stone

  • Title: Romancing the Stone
  • IMDb: link

Romancing the Stone

When her sister (Mary Ellen Trainor) gets into trouble, reclusive romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) finds herself on the way to Colombia with a treasure map unaware of the adventure or dangers ahead in this fish-out-of-water tale that is as entertaining today as it was nearly 40 years ago. Trailed by the dangerous Deputy Commander of Colombia’s secret police (Manuel Ojeda), Joan’s life is saved in the middle of the jungle by a man straight out of one of her romance novels (even if she doesn’t recognize him at first).

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Role Play

  • Title: Role Play
  • IMDb: link

Role Play

Role Play is a mediocre romcom mashed-up with a so-so thriller for forgettable results. Kaley Cuoco stars as international assassin who has managed to keep her job a secret from her husband (David Oyelowo) for the better part of a decade until, in an attempt to spice up their marriage, the pair do some role playing in an upscale hotel bar which sets a series of dominoes in play that expose our assassin’s line of work and the organization whose head (Connie Nielsen) is hunting her.

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Fallen Leaves

  • Title: Kuolleet lehdet (Fallen Leaves)
  • IMDb: link

Fallen Leaves

Written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki, Fallen Leaves gives us two lonely souls (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) wandering  in and out of each others lives, and various jobs they each work to get by in modern day Helsinki. By a series of circumstances, some of which they control, others of which they cannot, and many of which border on comical, they are kept apart for most of the film.

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