Lucy Hale

A Nice Girl Like You

/ / Home Video
  • Title: A Nice Girl Like You
  • IMDb: link

A Nice Girl Like You DVD reviewLucy Hale stars as pornophobic violinist who attempts to become less inhibited following her break-up with her boyfriend (Stephen Friedrich). Adapted from Ayn Carrillo Gailey’s book Pornology, the idea for the film is to follow the misadventures of a “good girl” investigating the world of pornography and sexual enlightenment with the help of her friends (Mindy Cohn, Jackie Cruz, and Adhir Kalyan) while also dating a new man (Leonidas Gulaptis) and struggling to earn a prestigious position with the New York Philharmonic.

While the book has received praise for being witty and hilarious, the film far is more luke-warm romcom than edgy sexcapade. Hale is likable enough in the role of the wide-eyed innocent entering a different world out of curiosity, and to prove something to herself, but the script doesn’t offer much of interest despite the subject matter. And for a film presumably based on real-life experiences, A Nice Girl Like You too often feels cliched and over-the-top. Some of the “humor” involves a horse taking a huge crap during a wedding, a public humiliation from a sexual psychic (Nadia Quinn), and a “cute” pregnancy scare.

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Fantasy Island

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island
  • IMDb: link

Fantasy Island reviewI’ll give some credit to Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island which kept me engaged longer than I expected. The film adapts the 70s television series of the same name into a modern horror film. Like on the show, guests are invited to the island to experience their deepest fantasies, only on this island there’s something far darker lurking under the surface.

The guests who Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) invites to the island include a woman (Lucy Hale) craving revenge on a childhood bully (Portia Doubleday), a pair of step-brothers (Ryan Hansen and Jimmy O. Yang) looking to live the rich life, a cop (Austin Stowell) who wants to be a soldier, and Maggie Q as a woman looking to rectify her biggest regret.

While far from great, the first-two thirds of the film in which the guests arrive, begin their fantasies, and then see them take dark turns, kept my interest. Then comes the film’s first big twist which awkwardly reestablishes the guests’ connection to each other causing events to start spiraling out of control.

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Katy Keene – Pilot

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Katy Keene – Pilot
  • IMDb: link

“Welcome to New York.”

Katy Keene - Pilot television review

The sunnier and less-murdery Rivendale spin-off is also features modern interpretations of several classic Archie Comics characters starting with personal shopper and aspiring fashion designer Katy Keene (Lucy Hale). The show’s pilot episode features the arrival of Katy’s friend Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray) in New York which helps our titular character reexamine the state of her life working for a bitchy boss (Katherine LaNasa) instead of perusing her own dreams (and pursuing one’s dreams seems to be the show’s not-so-subtle primary theme). The other Archie character’s filling out the foursome are aspiring Broadway performer Jorge “Ginger” Lopez (Jonny Beauchamp) and the less developed “it girl” Pepper Smith (Julia Chan).

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