Day: April 14, 2019

The Way He Looks: Worth Looking At

3SMReviews: The Way He Looks

The review:

For people willing to read subtitles, Daniel Ribeiro’s The Way He Looks is a teen romance treat.* Leonardo and Giovana are best friends and somewhat outcasts whose friendship is interrupted by Gabriel, an attractive new student. There’s great stuff in the shifting friendship department, the first love department, and the department of Other Teenagers Can be Really Mean.**

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Free via Kanopy, the Multnomah County Library’s streaming service
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*It’s one of those movies I spent a lot of time smiling through
**I did not smile through these parts.

3SMReviews: The Way He Looks

The Perfect Date: Grating, Not Great

3SMReviews: The Perfect Date

The review:

A few years ago, I re-watched She’s All That and found that a movie that I had enjoyed on first viewing was not very good.* The Perfect Date is about at the level of She’s All That, but minus an awesome mid-movie dance scene and an enjoyable first time viewing experience. Noah Centineo isn’t very good at his craft right now,** and there wasn’t much else to recommend.

The verdict:

Skip, unless you have a thing for this guy. In which case you should also watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Sierra Burgess is a Big Fat Loser.

Cost: Netflix Monthly Fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*Acting: not very good. Funny parts: not as many as I remembered. Character development: uneven
**For some reason he was fine in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and bugged the crap out of me in this movie.

3SMReviews: The Perfect Date

It Had to be You: A Rom-com About Not Wanting to Get Married

It Had to Be You movie review

The review:

As a person in a long-term relationship who does not want to be married, I was interested in Sasha Gordon’s It Had to Be You, a romantic comedy about a woman who freaks out when her boyfriend proposes. Cristin Miloti is laugh-out-loud funny in parts of this film and there’s a lot of sadness, what with all the trying to figure out what to do with a relationship where two people want different things. I could feel the movie hitting its beats* and I still found that watching it was a good way to spend my Sunday evening time.

The verdict: Good

Cost: free via Kanopy, the Multnomah County Library‘s streaming service
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Which isn’t great, but is much better than the movie not hitting its beats and me wondering when this endless film will be over.