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Materialists was mostly flat and inconsistent and seemed manipulative.

First the problem of the trailer. Not the first time a trailer is not entirely accurate about what sort of movie to expect. In this case, the trailer suggests a standard-entertainment rom-com - but Materialists is not really a comedy. But at the same time not really drama either.

Then the director's apparent social/cultural commentary context. I knew Celine Song was the director but shocked to realize she had written it. And so really shocked at the non-diverse cast. In various interviews she has discussed the immigrant experience, the issues of class and marginalization etc and somewhat implies related suffering. She is from an educated artist family, has a master's from Columbia, is married to an Ivy League grad who is a successful writer/Hollywood screenwriter and non-immigrant. Kind of disingenuous.

Here's a suggestion for a movie that would be interesting - immigrant parents come to a new country sacrificing themselves for their children and then contend with a life in which they are no longer relevant to their children when their children become adults....

As for entertaining rom-coms with a bit of a message, consider Two Weeks Notice that has something to say about gentrification.

And older movies about dating/social culture, perhaps Someone Like You with Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman.

And for Chris Evans performances, check out Gifted in which he is the guardian to his brilliant 7 year old niece.

Very surprised by all the positive reviews (both critics and movie-goers) of The Wedding Banquet.

My partner and I were very much looking forward to it - but were seriously disappointed.

Various reviewers described the film as hilarious, charming, heartwarming.

We did not see that movie.

It was like spending time - too much time - with neighbors who mostly converse in therapy-speak platitudes, irony-speak chatter and in the case of one of the characters, complain incessantly about their mother.

In addition to the annoying therapy-speak dialogue, the characters were not so interesting in our opinion. Angela's character (Kelly Marie Tran) was especially churlish and unappealing - it was impossible to see why Lee (Lily Gladstone) would have been in a relationship with Angela. For different reasons, it was difficult to see why Chris and Min were together.

The few interesting and thoughtful parts of the movie, in our opinion, were the scenes of Min and his grandmother.

I recall admiring the original Wedding Banquet - will watch it again to see.

See Twisters in theaters!

A smart, well done, summer popcorn movie.

The leads Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell are terrific and have tons of chemistry!

IMO the "romance" plots in most of these action movies are trite and useless - but here, the natural, low-key dialogue, the "slow burn" is terrific and makes one hope to see them together again in more movies.

Daisy Edgar-Jones' "Kate" is lovely, smart, nice and exudes strength in a focused, straightforward way.

What a refreshing change - no overwrought histrionics or nastiness to mistakenly exemplify strength.

And thankfully the film lets her wear sensible clothes - not force her to don absurd objectifying clothing.

Glen Powell is vibrant, heroic and charming as "Tyler" and skillfully handles the transition from the weather "cowboy" we first meet to later showing us the real Tyler.

Huge kudos to the director Lee Isaac Chung, especially as this is his first big action movie.

Check out Ty Burr's review in the Washington Post -he says it all.