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The Apprentice (2024)

Practically made him human

Everything we know about him already was in this movie & frankly I thought it was a little soft on him and humanized him from what I've read, even early on. Yes, there were some negative things, but not much more than we already know.

The performances were great, although this was a pretty restrained performance by Sebastian Stan of a person who IS a caricature of a "tycoon" and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn going from arbiter of politics & fixer to ill and becoming a pariah to Trump. Interesting background about Pritzker (Hyatt Hotels, I assume J. B. Pritzker's father/grandfather?) Was confused with "Mary Trump's" accent but it was better later in. But still everyone was great & not too over the top.

Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023)

Needed the WHOLE crew back

I liked the idea of this but didn't like the story. Agree that Channing & Salma had NO chemistry and did not get the whole relationship thing.

The first was sexy but there was too much blah blah in between that and the end dancing and couldn't even do Pony right. 🙄 if i you sure going to say they're going to do Pony, then do it.

I feel like the dancers in the movie were from the actual MM show in London and we're too perfect. What made the original & evens XXL good is the companionship with the other guys and it felt like they really cared about the women they danced for. This was just about Max, whose character was just a caricature of a spurned, older, wealthy other woman. What does she want? She can barely be in the same room as her daughter & forces Mike to dance even though he doesn't to at all. Does that make her empowered?

Anyway, it's still fun to see on the big screen.

Otherhood (2019)

Good for not having to think too much.

I am sick and was looking for something to watch that wasn't too taxing, etc. And found this. I liked it - I don't have kids but I am a daughter who moved 1000 miles from her mom for college. My mom never showed up like this but I would have been happy to see her!

It seems like these women didn't have anything else in their lives besides their sons so when they didn't have them to fawn over, they didn't have anything else in their lives to do. BUT, send a card to your mom on Mother's Day! No excuse for that!

Pat Fields (Sex and the City) did the costumes but Patricia Arquette's were bad-maybe she got them from her own closet. I know she's supposed to be a free spirit but still.

A couple things didn't make sense:

• Crossing the new "Tappan Zee" bridge to go from Poughkeepsie to NYC?

• Carol's husband was a high school basketball coach and had that gorgeous home? Not saying he or they had other careers before then but it seems a bit of a stretch.

Offspring (2010)

Repetitive and Exhausting

This show started out fun, a show about Nina Proudman who's an obstetrician who is great on the job, but when it comes to family & love life is absolutely a shambles. She has a husband who blows up her stuff, a "quirky" mom & dad, a man-child of a brother & a mean & selfish older sister.

How do these people sustain themselves when they barely work? It's a good thing they have jobs where they can just get up and leave them at a moment's notice, but Nina has an important job. Does she wear scrubs at work? No! She wears flowy skirts and drapey scarves. How clean is that?

I did enjoy the show until the third season, and there were some good parts but in general, all the drama is exhausting. Nina's anxieties are exhausting, her family is exhausting. I'm not sure how it sustained 7 seasons.

Maybe I'm projecting, but seriously, the family is the worst of all. Except the father, but he's a serial cheater so, there's that! Oh, and Mick is pretty decent, too.

Not much in the way of diversity: A lesbian co-worker, gay brother, person of color friend/co-worker...not trying to be "woke" just putting it out there.

The Royal Today (2008)

Don't watch after watching The Royal

I started watching this just after The Royal ended and I thought it might be in the same vein - but not.

I understand that it's supposed to be 40 years later - but the whole vibe is just - ewwwww.

The first episode has something that echoes that last episode of The Royal and it's never addressed.

The surgeon is awful, the radiologist is awful, the porters are about the same, but it's like they took the same show and threw it up in to the and put it back but the pieces are all wrong!

The Royal (2003)

The Swinging 60s in a British Hospital

Watched this on BritBox through Amazon and was hooked immediately. I was really into Call the Midwife, but haven't watched the episodes that I recorded from earlier this year. That show is currently in mid-to-late 1960s but started in the 50s, but in London's East End.

I've also been watching Chicago Med (U. S. show) and notice how that there might be more machines, but otherwise, a lot of the treatment is very much the same. I also binged Grey's Anatomy and that is only a medical show after all the personal drama.

This show was very quaint and had a real air of enjoying itself and people liked each other for the most part. They were a family. Even the porters - Alan & Ken were a part of the family. They reminded me of Cliff from CtM - always getting into some kind of trouble with dubious schemes and adventures!!

The rotating nurses and the Lothario ambulance driver, new interns and Mr. Rose's pipe (surgeons in UK are called "Mr." not "Dr.".

It was a shame that they couldn't have at least had one last episode to know what happened.

The music was wonderful, with Cat Stevens, Manfred Man, Cream, Gordon Lightfoot, and some that I wasn't familiar with. If you can, watch with subtitles and you'll find the song names & singer.

Live in Front of a Studio Audience: 'The Facts of Life' and 'Diff'rent Strokes' (2021)

Memories!

I loved these. We're some parts better than others, sure, overall, I loved it!

I also loved the classic ads for real products...three's Company for the Bachelor, Oscar Mayer with a nod to Calvin Klein jeans. Alfonso Ribiero @ Maya Rudolph nailed them!

Facts of Life: They could have picked a better episode but enjoyed it with the guys (Will Arnett, Jason Bateman & Jon Stewart). Kathryn Hahn was great as Jo. I've been watching Crossing Jordan and she's so"good" and seeing her play scowling Jo was fun. I feel like Jennifer Aniston should have had a better wig and that would have helped - as well as having a bigger attitude. Nice "I'll be there for you" thrown in for good measure at the end.

Diff'rent Strokes; This felt nearly 100% like the show. Nice dynamic among everyone! So sad that Todd Bridges was there by himself. Also, loved The final comment about "Vernon" smelling like weed.

Congratulations to Norman Lear!

Luca (2021)

Sweet and Fun

It's Thursday night and a little chilly for late June and watched this. It was very sweet and cute and fun. A little "oh no" but you know it will be resolved in the end.

Beautiful animation and coloring. I would love to see this in 3D.

Rock of Ages (2012)

Worth it for nostalgia

I was a freshman in College in 1987 and wasn't into hard rock at all (hair bands) and kinda wish I had been. This movie is so much fun - who care if it isn't serious or whatever...no one's asking it to be. Love that it's 80s, but not too self-aware and don't make it too OTT; it's just set in the part of the 80s when hair bands were making way for more pop music (not that it wasn't around).

Tom Cruise is great as Stacee Jaxx - he really gets into his roles and inhabits them. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bryan Cranston as "upright" citizens with murkey pasts who want to rid the city of bad influences. Paul Giamatti is perfect as the slime-ball producer/manager and Alec Baldwin/Russell Brand and the long-suffering and finally in-love owners of the "Bourbon Room" (Whiskey A-Go-Go stand in).

Just sit back and enjoy the 80s!

In the Dark (2019)

Very Bingeable!

When we first meet Murphy Mason, a blinded-at-14-years old Millennial, she's selfish, self-pitying, self-destructive and spoiled. Her (adoptive) parents run a seeing eye dog foundation that trains dogs for other blind people and Murphy is supposed to be their spokesperson, or at least be their star. And she hates it.

At times, Perry does a great job making us believe she's blind and there are times when you just have to suspend disbelief. She's surrounded by her parents and friend who enable her lifestyle and another worker at Guiding Hope - Felix, sort of the Junior Exec Director, can't stand Murphy because she gets away with so much.

Murphy gets involved with solving the murder of a friend whose body mysteriously disappeared. Because she's blind, she's automatically dismissed by the police (and basically everyone). As Murphy learns more, she's also gets more involved with the drug world that her friend was involved in (of course he's Black).

As others have said, this is an interesting departure from the typical CW show that usually focus on teenagers and superheroes. It's definitely darker and it's nice to see a person who is blind (at least playing blind) and an LGBTQ+ woman.

Some of the situations that they get themselves out of are truly Deus Ex Machinas that I can imagine the writers had a great time trying to figure out how to get themselves out of.

Murphy's relationship with Chloe, whose father comes into Guiding Hope for a dog for, is delightful and the actress who plays Chloe is a huge bright spot in the show.

Just ended Season 2 and headed into Season 3.

Blockers (2018)

Barely worth my time to review

But wanted to save you the trouble of watching it.

I'm only catching this in the middle of it on TV. Take every trope for teen movies, single parents, etc. throw it into a mixer of "isn't it funny girls want to have sex, too", Superbad and American Pie without the heart.

Hard to believe this was directed by a woman, and even Pitch Perfect wasn't 10/10, but it has and had heart. This seems like a Judd Apatow movie (although he is married to Leslie Mann), but surprisingly not.

Puke jokes, dads getting into "drinking" situations, parents complaining about their sh***y lives. Man, just awful.

Some have said this is some sort of liberal movie, BLEAH. I don't think so. Again, I'm coming into the movie halfway, but from what I've seen, I won't be seeing the first half.

Unbelievable (2019)

You won't be able to stop watching.

I started watching Sunday evening, stayed up way too late watching and finally finished tonight (Wednesday), leaving the final episode to be savored.

It's not just a procedural, it's not just a "women's show", or "woman's issue". It's affects everyone.

Marie's life already on the edge made even more razor thin by the unbelieving cops in her town. Not just because they're men, the women in Marie's life aren't much better, especially one of her former foster mothers who should be a protector.

All of the actors were amazing, even the people you want to hate. It's not fair to put Netflix shows against regular TV shows. The quality can't be topped and subjects touched in such depth and honesty.

WOW. Just WOW.

1922 (2017)

Best of Stephen King Adaptations

So much of Stephen King's novels/short stories take place inside the heads of its characters so to translate that from book to screen so much can get lost. This one did not. The movie is very faithful to the book, which I listened to. It's in the story collection Full Dark, No Stars.

Just watched this and have to say it's remarkable. Thomas Jane is unrecognizable as Wilf James, a farmer living on the Nebraskan country before the dust bowl. His wife wants to move to the city, but he doesn't. It's his wife's family's property, and will never be his, so he decides there's only one thing to do, and brings his son into being a grudging ally since leaving the country would mean leaving his girlfriend who lives in the country as well.

This is a very nuanced performance from Jane and all involved in the production, even Neal McDonough, who usually chews through scenery like, um, a rat.

This is not for someone expecting an all-out scarefest with a bunch of jump scares or ghoulish creatures. This is a psychological story and will draw you in before you know it. The ending is a little weak, which often happens with King's stories and novels, but the overall story is really worth it.

The Snowman (2017)

Don't read the book or see the movie

So I listened to the audiobook of this and hated it, but my husband wanted to see this...so...costing more than our dinner, we went to see it.

Harry Hole is the absolute epitome of "standard cop in a crime novel/move". Drunk, but brilliant, women love him, but can't be with him, yada, yada, yada. So now that his ex-girlfriend and her son are living with another man, he is still in her son's life, but forgets about him when there's a big case.

Definitely some strange editing choices, meaning that scenes were cut and then we were left wondering why something did or didn't happen, just what??

Val Kilmer. Does he really look like or was he made up to look like that? I was so distracted by his scenery chewing that it was barely understandable what was going on with that aspect of the case.

Michael Fassbender is fine as well other performances, except Val Kilmer as mentioned above. Although, Michael Fassbender seemed to be sleepwalking through it all.

Question for someone in Norway. Do houses and buildings really have such large windows, including windows between rooms and rooms and the hallway? Seems like nothing good can come of that.

There are a couple of minutes of atmosphere that are good. Also, it's too bad there aren't more Norwegians as main characters in the movie.

For something that Martin Scorcese has his name on, this could be a lot better.

Down with Love (2003)

When you need something light, this is the pick

I hadn't seen this for a very long time. I put this on when I needed something light to watch after coming home sick from work. This was so much better than I remember it being and well worth the watch.

There is literally no flaw with this movie. Quick, witty, flip, flamboyant, and fierce. The writing is so much better than most of what comes out now. Whoever wrote this did their homework, watching all Rock Hudson and Doris Day, Katherine Hepburn and any of her co-stars.

Ewan MacGregpr is "Catcher Block", a "ladies man, man's man, man about town" who tries evading Renee Zellweger who plays Barbara Novack (Novick?) a "spinster from Maine" who wrote a book saying that women can enjoy sex just as much as men without the trappings of love.

Hijinks ensue with Barbara Novak's editor, Sarah Paulson, and David Hyde Pierce, Catcher's editor at KNOW magazine, who is trying to get Catcher to write an article about Barbara Novak for his magazine.

Airy, breathy, light as a feather, but with excellent performances, including excellent comedic timing and some excellent editing and production design to boot.

Having a girls' night? Watch this movie. Or, just watch this movie.