Because Everybody Else Has One

I haven't reviewed Me and Earl and the Dying Girl yet so I thought I'd team it up with this week's much tougher coming-of-age story. They certainly make for an interesting double bill. My review of The Diary of a Teenage Girl is up at Channel 24 , but first a couple of quick words on Me and Earl. In many respects, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the quirkier, more indie version of the Fault in Our Stars. Again, it's about teenagers dealing with a terminal disease and again there is still the irony of it also being about growing up. Our hero of the piece, Greg (Thomas Mann)  makes amateur parodies of classic films with his co-worker (really best friend) Earl and he spends his whole life trying to remain invisible in a school divided along arbitrary but rigid lines. When Greg befriends "the dying girl" Rachel (Olivia Cooke) though, who has just been diagnosed with a otentiallyp curable form of leukemia, he is forced to confront his aloof relationship ...

A Royally Silly Night Out. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Based (extremely) loosely on the true story of how Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret joined the common folk in their celebrations of V.E. Day, 1945. What we thought A Royal Night Out is, in absolutely no uncertain terms, utter nonsense. Not only does this “historical dramedy” have really very little do with any events that ever actually happened (the princesses apparently did little more than stand outside the palace gates on V.E night and were home by 1:00 AM), it also has very little of any real merit as a piece of storytelling. Basically a posher take on something like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or After Hours, it's very silly, very shallow and very ill disciplined in terms of both plotting and tone. It's also, however, quite a lot of fun. The real story, of course, would have been quite boring so it's understandable that they invented much o...