Roy Orbison crooning “Pretty Woman” over the opening titles of Todd Strauss-Schulson’s Isn’t It Romantic is just the first of many touches meant to signify how steeped in the world of romantic comedies the film and its world are. In practice, though, that choice is just a foreboding clue about what’s to come. Strauss-Schulson and screenwriters Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox and Katie Silberman want you to think they’re ripping the genre open and letting you see the gears but, really, they’re content to let those gears do the work for them without adding anything new...

Read the full review at Battleship Pretension:
battleshippretension.com/isnt-it-romantic-i-dont-believe-you-youre-not-the-truth-by-david-bax/

Made me wish I was never really there.

It’s starting to seem like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just an excuse to perfect that time-reversing face CGI thing used to restore veteran movie stars to their youthful glory. In the latest installment, we get not one, not two but three Hollywood legends briefly appearing like they haven’t in years: Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Laurence Fishburne. The dream of the 90s is alive in Ant-Man and the Wasp. But that’s just one of the tricks director Peyton Reed has up his sleeve in this sequel that’s bigger, more inventive, funnier and more fun than its predecessor...

Read the full review at Battleship Pretension:
battleshippretension.com/ant-man-and-the-wasp-bigger-and-better-by-david-bax/