Every year I pick out one or two cheesy christmas movies as part of my holiday season. Last week I watched the mediocre Lindsay Lohan movie and this week I settled on this movie. More cheese, right? Um, no. This movie is good. I mean really good. Sure, there are the occasional reminders that it is the holiday season but it almost certainly is not a holiday movie (although I do expect that the christmas village scene in the middle of the movie was a wink at the audience from the director). First, the two leads have ridiculous chemistry. And it isn't the crappy syrupy kind that we see in so many other xmas movies. The supporting cast is also excellent, of course (Bonnie Bedelia should have been a bigger star). It is the rare movie that completely sucks me in and allows me to give myself up to it. I didn't want it to end. Some reviews were critical of the fact that there is a bit of a mystery in the movie. I don't agree with that sentiment. As I said earlier, this movie would have been just fine on its own if it hadn't gotten tagged with the "holiday" tag.
Finally, the best thing about the movie is that it is subtle. It didn't beat you over the head with the potential for romance. I would image that many people were disappointed in the last scene (probably the same group that hated the ending of the Sopranos) because they didn't show you exactly what happened. The best movies allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. We don't need to see everything on screen to know that something happened. That's not the point.
The worst part about the movie? I think that this movie ruined the Hallmark-ish kinds of movies for me. The movie started in a traditional way and for the first 20 minutes I had the mindset that cheese was on the way. Instead I was blown away. How do I go back to the traditional schlock? Damn you, Netflix.
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See my reviews of at christmas movies at https://ihatebadmovies.com/movie-reviews/?tx_post_tag=christmas&_orderby=wp_review_total%2Cdesc
The show returned with an unbelievable episode. It started of a bit slow, but the scene with Deborah and Hannah alone in the room was magnificent. They were friendly to each other, but there was sooooo much more bubbling underneath. Finding good comedy on tv is so hard - I am so happy to have this show return.
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Fantastic film. You can tell a lot about a person's taste in film based on what they think about a movie like this. This is why I watch indie movies.
https://ihatebadmovies.com/movies/the-station-agent/
I'll say right up front that I am not "burdened" (that doesn't feel like the right word) by having an intimate knowledge of the book so my review is not affected positively or negatively by the director's interpretation of the original work. That said.... I really loved it. While the jumping between timelines seemed somewhat arbitrary at first towards the end of the movie it all started to come together. It doesn't always work but when it does (Godfather Two, Once Upon a Time In America, Blue Valentine) the film can take on the feel of an epic. I think this technique gave us the best view of the complex character of Jo, and in the final scenes the struggles of her complex character resulted in a beautiful bloom. While I thought Lady Bird was terribly overrated I thought that Gerwig did a masterful job with this film. It was at different parts funny, touching, sad and hopeful. And as you might expect, the acting is phenomenal.
It's in my top 5 for the year.
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I went into this movie with fairly low expectations. After all, the movie got pretty mediocre reviews (not to mention I can't remember the last time I saw a good Will Ferrell movie. Stranger Than Fiction?). And what else could anyone do with this story that hasn't been done before? In short, I was blown away. The movie is too much of everything, and it is gloriously so. Yeah, there is probably too much singing and most of the songs aren't very good. The movie was just so much fun to watch... it really was joyous. As it ended I could have watched it again right away, and that almost never happens to me.
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This is a classic example of where a movie might appear on my "favorite" list but not necessarily my "best" list. Is the movie perfect? No. Have we seen a lot of this before? Of course - it's hard to come up with something completely original when there hundreds of movies made every year. It doesn't matter. Sometimes there is something about a movie that just sucks you in and doesn't let you go. This movie had such an effect because the quality of the acting was phenomenal. All of the actors seemed to understand that there needed to be an understated tone to the characters and nobody does that better than Jason Bateman. The film is first and foremost a drama and because of the understated approach to the movie the comedic parts were very funny yet did not take away from the depiction of broken people inside of a broken family. There is a heart in this movie that is undeniable. Probably the highest compliment that I can pay it is that I was ready to watch it again the moment it ended and that almost never happens to me.
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This was part comedy, part fantasy and part geek. I quite enjoyed it. More films should take chances like they did in this film.
I know that this may sound odd, but this movie reminded me of a rom com that masqueraded as a drama. Don't get me wrong, this movie is a straight-ahead drama and is not trying to be anything else. Sometimes a movie just grabs you from the opening scenes and doesn't let go, and this movie was that for me. The chemistry between the two leads was ridiculous, and I didn't want it to end. I think what is all the more surprising for me is that I can't recall liking Anne Hathaway in any other movie. When it ended, I wanted to go back and watch it again.
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I so wanted to love this movie. And for a while, I did. After all, there is a very worthwhile message in the movie, and Emma Stone gives the performance of a lifetime (side note: every time someone gives a performance like this, I can't help but remember that Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for playing a sassy housewife in The Blind Side, and I throw up a little in my mouth). And Willem Dafoe is, of course, fantastic. It just became a slog to get through after the midway point. It was as if Wes Anderson re-made Bride of Frankenstein. That said, it was beautiful to look at.
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I think there needs to be a category for rom-coms that transcend the traditional meaning behind the label. While the movie starts off innocently enough (an almost-hookup at a wedding), what follows is deeply intimate. The characters bond by sharing their past mistakes and often wonder if it left them broken. I don't know if this is meant to be metaphorical or not - maybe the point was to show that our histories (for better or worse) make us who we are today. Either way, it doesn't matter. I thought that it was a fresh take on dating and the "are we broken" question. I don't know if this works with any other leads as they had ridiculous chemistry. At the end of the day it is another movie in the rom-com bin, but I could have watched it again when it ended and that is one of the highest compliments that I could pay a movie.
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On the surface, this movie has a lot going for it. The two leads do an excellent job of portraying famous people. The movie looks great, and there are some great secondary performances. That said, the movie just feels... empty. Without color or taste. It feels a bit lazy to say that it is style over substance, but maybe the shoe fits. The story seemed more interested in detailing the scandalous details of his private life rather than telling a story or giving us a full view of who the man was. It felt especially empty after watching Oppenheimer, which is a storytelling masterpiece. I can't fathom how people thought that this was good, let alone a movie of the year candidate. If anything, it felt like a commercial for the best actor award.
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If you're looking for a movie that doesn't have quite the over-the-top cheese that come with the Hallmark movies, you could do worse than this movie. The whole thing is... fine. Zoey Deutsch plays a very endearing main character and there are some really strong performances by the supporting actors (in particular, the women and the girl).
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I wanted to like this movie more than I did. The premise was somewhat unique: we get to hear the inner voice of a woman with severe confidence issues as she goes through a tumultuous week in her life. This was interesting for the first twenty minutes or so but then the audience was left looking for something more.
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This was a film where adults had to come to terms with the mortality of a parent but it is really so much more than that. This is another example of why it is so important to watch films made in other countries - they aren't bound to a specific way of telling a story.
Roger Ebert said it best:
The actors all find the correct notes. It is a French film, and so they are allowed to be adult and intelligent. They are not the creatures of a screenplay that hurries them along. The film is not about what will happen. It is about them.
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Holy s, another great episode. While the girl-meats-mother story has been done countless times what really puts this episode over the top was the last line that the mother said at the end of the episode. I completely was not expecting that and it was genius.
A little long but it was well-acted and very interesting. It also appears to be very accurate in its portrayal of what actually happened, although it had the "advantage" of not knowing what really happened.
Just when I thought that I could not see a movie that is more overrated than Lady Bird I saw this film. The acting is fantastic (Shannon is the real star of this film), the look and feel of the movie are excellent.... but we've seen this film so many times before. It feels like Del Toro just put a new skin (admittedly a nice one) and tossed it out for our viewing (at least previous versions had Darryl Hannah to look at). The social commentary was very much appreciated but was done much better in movies like District 9.
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Several really interesting and inspiring stories. You can't imagine watching a documentary about typewriters? If nothing else hearing Tom Hanks and John Mayer talk about typewriters in such a passionate way is worth the time.
https://ihatebadmovies.com/movies/california-typewriter/
The reviews on this episode are depressing.
"It was too political" says the people that try to bring politics into everything
"It wasn't sci-fi enough" says the people that watching it on that level
"There weren't enough twists" says the people who watch this show on a superficial level.
"It was brokeback mountain for tv" said the homophobic people
"They've covered some of this stuff before" says the people that think that every story has to not resemble any other story in any way.
"They wrapped it up too quickly" says the people who value the destination more than the journey (shoot me now)
I don't know what more people want from this series. The series is meant to discuss the human condition in our quickly-changing world. It is meant to provoke thought and conversation and make us think about where we are going and the challenges we will face. In that regard it very much reminded me of San Junipero - probably my favorite episode of the entire series. While not being as uplifting as that episode (which is irrelevant as I don't watch media to be uplifted) it was actually interesting that the leads in the show had actually found what seemed to be a balance where they could co-exist.
There were so many layers and things to think about - I can't believe that others didn't see it the same way. While so many of their episodes are cautionary tales I thought this did a fantastic job portraying the complexities that we are now starting to do deal with in our relationships.
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I am going to assume that anyone reading this already knows that the film is about a couple going through the divorce process (if you didn't know this you find out right at the beginning). Halfway through the film I asked myself why the film wasn't called "Divorce Story" as the story is really about the difficulty that families face when a relationship falls apart. After mulling this over for a day or so I think I realized the answer. The film isn't about divorce as much as it is about relationships. In the film the couple doesn't seem to have problems that couldn't be worked out. In the opening sequence we see that there is actually a lot that they like about each other. As the film plays on we see that there is a fair amount of baggage that each of them has.
And that's where the heart of the film is. Much of the baggage are things that the characters have carried around in silence and thus they were allowed to grow and mutate internally. The film isn't so much a cautionary tale about divorce as it is a cautionary tale about relationships. The key to the film was said by Alan Alda's character in the middle of the film: after all of this is said and done you're still going to have to work this out between the two of you. So yes, the repressed feelings ended up being spoken by lawyers at the cost of hundreds of dollars an hour. And yes, when it was all said and done they did have to learn how to get along. But the real problem is that they had not learned to talk to each other years before and they were just starting to learn how to do it when the dust settled. What if they had learned how to do so years before?
It is wonderful to see A-list hollywood actors doing adult dramas again. Adam Driver has really been on a role with some fantastic films (including the criminally unseen Paterson). This wasn't the most entertaining Baumbach movie that I've seen but it may be the most intelligent (and in some ways, the most important). The writing and acting are superb.
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This movie does something really fantastic: the entire movie is essentially dialog between the two leads in a hotel room(s). The highest compliment that I could say about it is that I was captivated by the characters, the acting and the story. Emma Thompson is always fantastic but the male lead was right there with her. Their chemistry was ridiculous.
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This movie was recommended by a friend from work. I've been known to not particularly be a fan of love stories or fantasy movies and this movie was a bit of both. However, I'm going to use it to prove a point. As with many other forms of art, quality is quality. I can't stand country music but a good song would shine through (wouldn't it?).
Anyway, the movie does something that is somewhat rare these days: it drops you into a world that you know nothing about on an adventure that seems to have no boundaries or rules. At times it is sweet and other times it is funny but it is always mysterious. The movie is somewhat cheesy but despite being a fantasy it is always believable. Many of the reviews that I read compared it favorably to "Princess Bride".
For the life of me I can't figure out why there wasn't more run on this movie before it was released. I'm not saying that it was the second coming of the Godfather but it was a really nice movie for all ages and it had an all-star cast (Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Peter O'toole, many others). I watched it with Rebecca and her brother and all three of us enjoyed it immensely despite having decidedly different tastes in movies.
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Before I begin, I need to get one thing straight. I watch movies because I like to see good films. I do not watch movies to kill time or feel good or to "not think for a while" as so many people say. It doesn't mean that I mind when a movie is inspirational as long as it is intelligent and gives me something to think about. The backdrops will change but quality should remain. This does not mean that I expect anyone else to watch a movie the way I do - I just want you to know where I'm coming from.
The more I think about it, the more I hate this movie.
The film is based on a real-life event where a rich southern family took in a semi-homeless black teenager. That part (and maybe only that part) is actually true. In itself, that story is amazing and incredibly touching. Too often in life we all look the other way when we see something uncomfortable on the streets.
It is this core story that is what is heartwarming. If I gave you the synopsis in one or two minutes you would be touched and your heart would be warmed. You're a better person for hearing about it. But there is a huge difference between relating the story and what was done in this movie and that is where my problem is. Just about everything that happened in the movie was contrived and superficial and meant to pull at your heartstrings.
And I know what you're saying - so what? It is a movie. If this were a novel or something like that, great. I can tolerate and even partially enjoy a movie like Serendipity that is meant to be pure sugar and meant to make you feel good. This movie had a touching core. The saccharin that was poured on top of it was at best unnecessary.
You want uplifting? Go see Precious. Now there was a film that was gritty, awful, beautiful and uplifting. It didn't need to cue the sappy music to let you know a scene was coming. The story stood on its own.
Anyway, here are the reasons why this movie was so bad.
The majority of the events never happened. Sandra Bullock didn't call the coach on the field during a game or run onto the field during practice to save the day. They didn't pick up the boy while he was walking along the street on a rainy night. There wasn't a dramatic moment where the coach fought to get the boy into school. All these dramatic scenes were standard Hollywood formulas for contrived emotions.
There was a single character in the move and that was the mother (Bullock). Every other character in the movie was either a prop (the boy) or a doormat (the husband, coach, etc). Worse, they all are expected to crown her as some queen while she insults them and ponders if this makes her a great person or not. Why? I think the answer is simple - it was meant to be a vehicle for Bullock and it was to be her show (even though, by all accounts, the real-life husband was very responsible for what happened).
Why are people so impressed with the sassy women? They should have called this movie "Erin Brockovich 2". I don't know what was more cringe-worthy: the scene where she drives into the hood and threatens some thugs with violence or where she verbally assaults the father in the stands at the game. If you met this woman in real life you'd want her dead. Can you imagine if someone called your kid's coach during a game to give advice (or worse, walking into a practice and treating the players like infants)? Would you talk down to him or your husband the way she repeatedly did? But for some reason people see it on screen and like it.
Speaking of condescending, what about her treatment towards the boy? He was essentially a pet in this movie. She ordered him to go here, there and everywhere. The big "trick" was teaching him how to play football. Think about it - he didn't have a meaningful line until the last 5 minutes of the movie and he was on screen more than anyone. I want to know what he thinks about the culture shock that he's been through. Was it difficult for him to move in with this family? What does he think of his past? We hear none of this because it is written to be a coronation of the mother.
I can see why black Americans were a little upset by this movie. Once again, don't get me wrong - it is admirable that they did what they did. But a bored and rich housewife takes on a project and they make a movie about it? There are scores of grandmothers that raised their grandkids because the parents weren't around - I can't imagine being one of those people and seeing this movie (and I can't imagine Hollywood making that movie). Also, the popularity of this film is more proof of the way we look at black Americans. We think that we need to protect them and be parents to them - you see it everyday in speech, movies, tv, etc. That is the real racism in this country.
Why the constant need to remind us that they are Christians and conservative? Besides, the message was hypocritical. Was it Christian to have academic standards to the Christian school? Was it Christian to live in that huge mansion? I think not.
Cliched. The whole movie was one cliche after another! You could see the next scene coming at every step of the way. Once again, this takes away from what the movie should have been about.
So, there you have it. If you like cheesy books written by the likes of Mitch Albom (other than "Morrie") or Glen Beck, you probably liked this. And I get that. But lets not pretend that it was anything more than a sunday night movie that you'd see on ABC (do they still have those?). Worse, lets not pretend that Bullock should have won the award. It is a crime that the leads in Inglorious Basterds or Precious didn't get it. Hell, I'd toss in the woman from Up in the Air also.
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When was the last time you watched a movie where after the first hour of the movie you didn't know any of the main character's names or what the movie was about yet you were completely engrossed? Ah, the genius of Sergio Leone. Once again, Leone paints a detailed picture with scant few words and captivates the audience while doing it. This film is also widely regarded as the greatest "face" movie of all time. While Henry Fonda was at the top of the billing, it is actually Charles Bronson (I kid you not) that is the star of this film.
One thing I love about Leone is that he's never trying to make a point. There isn't a moral to the story and there aren't any feel-good moments. He brings together a group of characters and spares you the details of who they are and where they come from. There are no good vs. evil confronations. In fact, the most sympathetic person in this movie was a reformed prostitute and the lead in the movie (Bronson) is never actually identified by name.
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Holy S, I can't understand the previous comments. This was one of the best 30 minute episodes of a comedy that I've ever seen. Surely there is a network sitcom that you can be watching if you want the same thing over and over again.
First, the episode was genius and in a sense reminded me of last season's first episode where they just kind of went free-form and didn't rush to get into the season. After all it is a larger story that they are telling - there will be lots of time to get to the train wreck that is surely coming. The episode also reminded me of shows like moonlighting that weren't afraid to have a theme show once in a while. If you saw the show's tag line it shouldn't have taken 20 minutes to figure out what they were going for. I was rolling towards the end of the show.
And finally... the point wasn't to show them all cute and cuddly. They aren't and that was the point. They are both dark and the episode showed how when the stars align they can be dark together and have a beautifully dark relationship that is all their own.
EDIT 5/20/2019. As I said in my review of the season premier there was a larger story to tell here. This episode set the scene for the last few minutes of the finale (not unlike how the first episode of the Sopranos last season set the scene for the magnificent ending).
I loved this movie on so many levels. One of the things that I really enjoy about watching movies made in other countries is that there is such a different approach when it comes to how a story is told. For example, in this movie you aren't even necessarily sure what the main conflict is. It isn't assumed that the male lead and the female lead are going to be romantically linked. There isn't a music bed to tell us when something dramatic is happening. With this movie I just fell into a nice groove with it and let it take me away for three hours. I swear that the movie felt shorter than many of the ninety minute movies that I've seen recently.
Of course, this means that the movie isn't for everyone. The acting is fantastic but the pacing is.... deliberate? I laughed out loud when the opening credits started rolling forty minutes into the movie. It's been twenty four hours since I watched it and I am still pondering the central themes of the movie. I've seen some people say that they didn't like the movie because they believed the central theme to be grief. It may have been for some of the movie but clearly not for all of it. Also, the movie is beautiful to look at and it provides an excellent backdrop to ponder what is happening in the film.
Anyway, I would easily put this up with Licorice Pizza and Coda as the best movies of 2021.
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I've read that Bill Murray and Harold Ramis had huge fights over how Groundhog Day was going to be created. Murray wanted a film that feature existential questions while Ramis wanted something more of a screwball comedy. It seems as though the film ended up somewhere in the middle and that both men must have gotten at least a little bit of their way. Palm Springs seems to pick up a little bit where Groundhog Day left off. The main characters are placed into a situation where they are to question (along with the viewer) what makes up a life and what it means to have a tomorrow. Is it so wrong to have a life filled with comfort? What does the person in such a role owe the others that are not in the same role? And so on.
While I enjoyed the movie I wouldn't say that it is great. The leads were excellent (Samberg is a revelation) and the story was good even though I found the science part of the resolution to be pretty iffy. The movie was fun to watch and that's often the most you can hope for.
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Whenever I watch a movie or a documentary I try to avoid knowing much about what I am about to watch as humanly possible. Quite often I go by the score on rotten tomatoes and maybe the first line of the description. If both seem agreeable I might give it a go.
I knew the basic premise of this film: three men find each other later in life. You pretty much know this by the title and watching the first few minutes of the film. I also knew that here had to be much, much more than this. And boy.... wow. At various points of the film my wife and I would stop to discuss something because we could not wait. There was no shortage of empathy, outrage and disbelief as the story continued to be told. The final five minutes are absolutely breathtaking - I won't say more than that. That said, I would have left out the last minute of the documentary because it seemed like less of a take-away than what had just been revealed.
One side note: the way that the story is told is absolutely perfect. The director could have easily played games and made it more suspenseful than it needed to be.
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Don't get me wrong, I love that show is sweet and has a lot of positive messages. At some point there has to be some character development. The first season was excellent but ever since then this show has devolved into the characters becoming caricatures of themselves. The dialog is so bad that it feels like someone had an AI bot watch the first season and then write future episodes. If you tell me which characters are in a scene I could tell you pretty much exactly how the interaction is going to go. Rinse, repeat.
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There are so many things that I loved about this movie. I loved how clean the whole setup is - it only took about twenty minutes to give the viewer an excellent glimpse into where the movie was going and what the main conflicts are. While the girl was at the center of the story the movie really had nothing to do with the girl. The acting by everyone in the movie is absolutely top notch, especially Florence Pugh (she very much reminds me of a young Kate Winslet). Once the story was set up I was extremely curious as to how they were going to wrap it up - the resolution was amazing and did not disappoint.
I do have one last note on this movie. I am a man that embraces science and discounts religion. On the surface it seems as though this movie be a movie about science vs. religion but I think the exchange between the nurse and the nun at the end of the movie shows that the issue was not necessarily religion but fanaticism.
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