That non-licensed free-use Netflix logo (that I made myself, thank you) will have to do until I watch more Netflix. Netflix Netflix Netflix you can’t get away from it. More than fifty-percent of the film and television production in my area is for Netflix. Now they are advertising on bus shelters. That’s how my partner and I agreed to watch it: because we were bombarded by this ONE choice on a service that I can spend minutes scrolling looking for content that appeals to me and find NOTHING. My partner loves the service though, especially those dime-a-dozen “teen vampire academy being attacked by werewolves from another dimension” shows. So it isn’t my first choice to pick something there. But like I said, there was NO OTHER OPTION. Even with the bus shelter poster being vandalized it proudly proclaimed that even you, yes YOU, can watch this NOW on Netflix. Fuck why not try it for free? You have NO EXCUSE. Okay okay okay I’ll watch your Ali Wong romcom if you’ll just stop annoying me. But they don’t stop. Now they know. My carefully-curated list of Shark Tank and Star Trek TNG is RUINED.

Always Be My Maybe was cute. Slight but funny. Overlong but watchable. It reminded me of Jack and Jill (the Adam Sandler movie that sits as the worst reviewed major studio film on Rotten Tomatoes), where a mediocre film was saved by a famous cameo. This film, however, is a serviceable comedy that is nearly derailed by a famous cameo. So THIS was where that Keanu Reeves meme came from! He appears about halfway through – playing himself – as a foil to main character Marcus’ plan to profess his love to his long-time BFF Sasha. He struts his stuff as an amplified version of his cool dude media persona (like how the Al Pacino in Jack and Jill was dialed to 11) and suddenly this semi-serious film turns into full-blown parody. We could buy it in Jack and Jill because come on, you aren’t taking a cross-dressing Adam Sandler movie seriously AT ALL, are you? But as funny as some of the material with Keanu is (highlight is the scene from the meme, where he eats at a high class restaurant where you can hear the cries of the animal you are about to eat), it is from a different movie: one where there aren’t valid points about cultural differences and the tragedy of loneliness and time being made.

Take out the Keanu material and the flow, even with Wong and Randall Park being predictably immature and sarcastic at points (a drunk Park pissing on an amp at a BIG LIFE EVENT could have been cut too), would have been more consistent and the film would have been shorter and made a greater impact despite its generic mainstream feel-good intention. Touche Netflix. TOUCHE.