Outlaws - For Greater Glory (2012)

If a movie about a strange and crazy day is commercially successful, why not recycle it and double the kookiness quotient? That seems to be the logic behind this followup to Freaky Friday.

Netflix’s new comedy drama, Don’t Say Good Luck, is a heartwarming tearjerker as well as a love letter to the transformative power of being a theater kid. Directed by Julia Hart, Don’t Say Good Luck follows Sophie (Sunny Sandler), a theater kid who finally gets the lead role in her school’s production of Waitress - just as she finds out her mom Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey) is dying of cancer. While the singing is by no means spectacular and Sandler’s acting is stiff, the film is grounded in the moving performance of Lynskey as a mother who wants nothing more than for her daughter to achieve her dreams, even if she can’t be there to see them.

Its predictability shouldn’t distract from the enjoyment that the pure cinematic imagination behind the camera elicits. It is a movie of crises both moral and mortal, oozing with CGI, and thoroughly enjoyable.

'Midnight at the Paradise' premieres tomorrow at Toronto's Paradise Theatre! I had the pleasure to sit down with Vanessa Matsui to discuss the making of this film.

Films and TV series often tend to misrepresent or not acknowledge bisexual characters, but recent trends show that bi-erasure is now under deserved scrutiny. So, I’m genuinely happy about the direction bi-representation seems to be taking.

In this high-flying mission, the pups gear up with jets to stop the Duke of Flappington and save Barkingburg.