Sundance: 'Cha Cha Real Smooth' is Frustrating, But Lands On Its Feet

by Eurocheese

Cooper Raiff wrote and directed Cha Cha Real Smooth, in which he stars as Andrew, a conflicted often frustrating man. The first scenes show Andrew in romantic situations at different ages (preteen and just after college), letting the audience know two things about him: he speaks without a filter when it comes to his emotions, and he falls head over heels when he is drawn to someone. When he isn’t romantically entangled, he stays with his loving mother (Leslie Mann) and her boyfriend (Brad Garrett), who he taunts at every opportunity. (At one point, Andrew asks the boyfriend if his purpose on earth is to make things weird… which someone should have been asking him instead!) 

Andrew’s outspoken nature is an excuse to be casually cruel at times though people find him charming. The script relies too heavily on this “charm,” including when he attends a bar mitzvah with his brother and meets Domino (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). It’s clear he feels a spark with Domino right off the bat. The feeling is mutual though he makes remarks that would have most people running away from him... 

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Ariana DeBose, Saturday Night Live, and Oscar Campaigns

by Nathaniel R

As you may have heard Best Supporting Actress Oscar hopeful Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) will be hosting Saturday Night Live when the show returns tomorrow, January 15th. That's just 12 days before the Academy starts voting on nominations. Which got us to thinking: How often is Saturday Night Live used as a campaign stop for Oscar hopefuls and is it successful? Let's do a little research. We're only going back five years for time constraint reasons but we do wonder when this became a thing or if it's always been thus? I have only ever been a casual SNL viewer but perhaps there are Saturday Night Live experts reading who could shed some light...

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Betty White (1922-2021)

by Nathaniel R

One of the most beloved actors, no... make that one of the most beloved people, period, has died. We must unfortunately say goodbye to the Emmy-winning legend Betty White. The longest lived of The Golden Girls was just three weeks shy of her Centennial when she passed away. 

Betty White was more than just The Golden Girls though that sitcom rightfully leads any discussion of her career. That's what happens when you spend eight years of your life perfecting the same character, the dim but utterly loveable/hilarious Rose Nylund, and the show housing her morphs from risky bet (a sitcom about sexually active lively old ladies in youth-obsessed prudish America?) to surprise smash (the Golden Girls spent six of its seven seasons among the 10 most-watched programs on air) to immortal favourite within your life time. People talk about The Golden Girls so often nearly 30 years after it went off the air that it truly feels as if it never did. It did. But, in a very real way Betty White did not... 

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Almost There: Rita Moreno in "The Ritz"

by Cláudio Alves

She just turned 90, but Rita Moreno is on the top of her game. The 1961 Best Supporting Actress champion is back on the silver screen thanks to Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story. While not playing Anita this time around, Moreno still manages to steal the spotlight and deliver one of the movie's most impactful songs, the emotional high point of the entire production. As pundits argue over the nonagenarian's Oscar chances, it's a good time to look back at her filmography and consider the last time she was in the awards conversation. After the success of West Side Story, Moreno's most acclaimed movie role was probably that of Googie Gomez in the big-screen adaptation of The Ritz…

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How Had I Never Seen..."Planes, Trains and Automobiles"

By Ben Miller

There isn't a long list of well-regarded Thanksgiving films, but John Hughes' 1987 comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles is defintely near the top of it.  It took me 30 years to catch up, but I finally have!. Featuring two pitch-perfect performances from stars Steve Martin and John Candy, the film continues to elicit laughter after all these years.

Neil Page (Martin) is an advertising executive on a business trip to New York City.  Eager to return to his family in Chicago for Thanksgiving, he attempts to hail a cab to the airport.  After losing a cab to Jake Briggs (Kevin Bacon from Hughes' She's Having a Baby) and getting extorted by a lawyer, his cab is inadvertently stolen by Del Griffith (Candy)...

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