🍿 What’s Your Number? (2011) - ★☆☆☆☆

This movie left an aftertaste. A taste that grows worse and worse every time I think about it on the whole.

I recall the line from Ted Lasso where the bartender, Mae Green, was telling him that it’s the hope that kills you.

In this movie, it’s the hope that it will be good that kills me.

The movie has a lot going for it:

• Notable, good actors that go on to other better projects
• Chemistry between the leads
• A chance to do the something with a premise that has been done with men. I thought it was nice to see them change it up where it’s not the charming young Batchelor who decides that he wants to see where he went wrong with his philandering life style.

I looked it up and saw that the primary writers were women. I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be a bunch of guys thinking they could write from a different perspective. “Just write what a man would do and change the roles.” I hoped that it wouldn’t just be a bunch of things that women were “supposed” to do or behave.

Well, the movie does one great thing. And that is demonstrate that everything comes down to execution. And the first thing that gets executed is the character of our female protagonist. Instead of the suave, successful Batchelor, we get an unambitious, newly unemployed woman who has a thing for what the movie would define as losers.

The most egregious issue is the motivation of our protagonist is that she’s had a lot of sexual partners and doesn’t want the number to go up any more.

Big Whoop.

The movie posits that if she has too many partners, she’ll never get married and her life will be incomplete. She just needs to find the “right one” and everything else will work out.

If you feel that being single means being lonely, I hope you get a chance to rethink that. Relationships are great and it’s amazing to share that with someone, but you can get more out of it you are comfortable being and knowing who you are. If you look for that missing piece in someone else, you might never find peace within yourself.

Enough ranting from me.

Here’s the link to the official trailer on YouTube. Watch it and imagine a better movie.

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🍿 The Beekeeper (2024) - ★★★☆☆

I’m giving this 3 stars because it delivers on the premise.

No secret plot twist.

No riddle within a riddle.

Our hero hurts bad people and that’s pretty much it.

One man’s campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.

Here is a link to the trailer on YouTube.

📺 Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023) - ★★★★☆

I really enjoyed this show. It’s pretty solid in the story telling and the pacing. I’m really glad that they took the time to make this better than the previous incarnation.

You don’t need to have seen the movie or read the books to enjoy this show. It stands alone and I came away from every episode entertained and then swizzling my head around to my kids to ask them “is this like the book?” And you know what? It doesn’t matter. This is a different medium and we have to be able to live without in order to enjoy what we have to the fullest.

I’m eager to see what the next season has in store.

Percy Jackson is on a dangerous quest. Outrunning monsters and outwitting gods, he must journey across America to return Zeus’ master bolt and stop an all-out war. With the help of his quest mates Annabeth and Grover, Percy’s journey will lead him closer to the answers he seeks: how to fit into a world where he feels out of place, and find out who he’s destined to be.

The Movie Database

Here is the link to the trailer on YouTube.

🍿 The Single Moms Club (2014) - ★★☆☆☆

It’s a Tyler Perry movie.

It’s well produced and well acted.

It had a joke that almost made me fall out of my chair laughing.

But, like all the other Tyler Perry movies that I’ve seen, it’s got a message that it’s trying to impart. Whether intentional or not, this movie says that all these single mothers need is a good man in their life to really remind them of what’s important and how to achieve happiness.

You got your troupes and stereotypes in there too. And a big splash of dirty jokes.

A group of single moms are brought together in the aftermath of an incident at their children’s school.

The Movie Database

🍿 American Fiction (2023)- ★★★☆☆

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie for a while and was rewarded with a very enjoyable experience. This is a very solid film about family and finding your identity.

I’ve been dealing with how I work with unexpected things happening in my life and how to find joy in all the chaos.

This movie gives me hope in that I can also find some mirth in all the madness.

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison’s writing career has stalled because his work isn’t deemed “Black enough.” Monk, a writer and English professor, writes a satirical novel under a pseudonym, aiming to expose the publishing world’s hypocrisies. The book’s immediate success forces him to get deeper enmeshed in his assumed identity and challenges his closely-held worldviews.

The Movie Database

You can find a link to the American Fiction trailer on YouTube.

🍿 The Godfather (1972) - ★★★★☆

It’s a running joke amongst my friends that I know a lot of plot points for popular movies and films. What?! You haven’t seen The Godfather!? How did that happen?.

Oddly enough, I know most of the movie from watching Jane Austen’s Mafia and other parodies that have come out since the movie had come out in 1972.

It is a great film. And I’m happy to have seen it. The movie shows the characters as people and I have to say that I was emotionally invested in what happened to them. I really wish Connie had a little more agency, but I think it’s part of the time frame¹ of the source material and the plot.

I couldn’t give this movie 5 stars. I think it’s because of all the discussions and hype around it. Although, this was the first time that I’ve sat and watched this film, I’ve seen its echos and shades dozens of times. The memes, the quotes, the various characters.

Shouldn’t that give it the extra star?

I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that the next time someone asks me if I’ve seen it.

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

The Movie Database

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🍿 Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) - ★★☆☆☆

Ok, the family has been watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023) TV show and enjoying it. So we decided to watch this thing again.

It’s definitely a product of its time.

Movies like Harry Potter and Twilight had spurred studios to find more and more intellectual property. You get the feeling that they were trying hard to make something. The promise of a new hot franchise. There is a sequel to this and I hope that I don’t have to watch it.

I don’t know how much different this is from the book, but from I heard the original author and a lot of fans were disappointed.

I got to sit there and hear my kids repeatedly mention that the book and new series is better. I even got a “#NotMyGrover” during the 2 hour movie

In a lot of ways, we’re all better off. The original author, Rick Riordan, made sure that future adaptations of his work had higher standards.

This one isn’t a bad movie, but not really memorable for the right reasons.

Accident prone teenager, Percy discovers he’s actually a demi-God, the son of Poseidon, and he is needed when Zeus’ lightning is stolen. Percy must master his new found skills in order to prevent a war between the Gods that could devastate the entire world. The Movie Database

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🍿 The Lost City (2022) - ★★★★☆

This was a fun movie. I was bordering on a bad movie after a very long day and at the end, I was relaxed and laughing. It takes a couple of the various movie tropes and pokes fun and them and the usual formulas a movie looks this can take.

At first, I was going to give it 3 stars but just thinking about the movie now has put a little smile on my face so here’s your extra star!

Reclusive author Loretta Sage writes about exotic places in her popular adventure novels that feature a handsome cover model named Alan. While on tour promoting her new book with Alan, Loretta gets kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire who hopes she can lead him to the ancient city’s lost treasure that featured in her latest story. Alan, determined to prove he can be a hero in real life and not just on the pages of her books, sets off to rescue her.

Finished reading: My Murder by Katie Williams 📚

Jason Snell had been promoting this book on one of his podcasts. Luckily it was available via Libby from my local library as an audiobook and I devoured it in a few days.

Truthfully, it has a lot of things that I have seen in other books but the way that it’s combined is done very well. I can see this being turned into some kind of tv mini series.

The only complaint is that it feels somehow too short and too long at the same time. I think it’s because it seems to drag after the first 3rd and then the conclusion seems to wrap up so neatly and quick that it kind of makes you wonder.

🍿 Good Grief (2023) - ★★★★☆

This was a very beautiful film. Dan Levy allows for some quiet moments where the viewer gets to see some delightful views of Paris. I enjoyed them but I could see where people might scoff and complain about the film not getting on with things.

I think that this is part of the point.

Grief is something you don’t “just get over”.

In the end, another reminder that we don’t know what will happen in the future. This one sweet in that we don’t have to dread and showing that we can move forward.

Description from The Movie Database

When his husband unexpectedly dies, Marc’s world shatters, sending him and his two best friends on a soul-searching trip to Paris that reveals some hard truths they each needed to face.

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Finished reading: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman 📚 - ★★★★☆

I’ve never been so relieved for being reminded that I’m going to die.In fact, there is humor found throughout the book related to this very topic.

Truth is, we don’t really know how much time we have and with this world. You only have this moment in time, make the right choice for you. If it doesn’t work out, you have to accept it and make another choice another action.

I’ll see you next week.

Maybe.

🍿 Wonka (2023) - ★★★☆☆

It’s fun. Very light hearted and kind of what I needed to see as we move through the holiday season.

I did like a couple of the songs, but I don’t feel that I’m going to remember watching this a year from now.

Description from The Movie Database

Willy Wonka – chock-full of ideas and determined to change the world one delectable bite at a time – is proof that the best things in life begin with a dream, and if you’re lucky enough to meet Willy Wonka, anything is possible.

🍿 Blow (2001) - ★★★☆☆

My wife really wanted to see this movie together. I think it’s a pretty solid tale. Well acted and showing that there are more ways of losing in life by dealing drugs. Usually, the people shown in these movies are killed off gruesomely or left strung out and destitute.

Also, it’s good to show that anybody could be a drug dealer. I think it’s a real precursor to the issue that we’re seeing with prescription meds.

But back to the film, I liked it but I don’t feel strong enough about it to give it more that 3 stars.

Don’t tell my wife.

Description from The Movie Database

A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950’s. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George’s father cannot make a living and the family goes bankrupt. George does not want the same thing to happen to him, and his friend Tuna, in the 1960’s, suggests that he deal marijuana. He is a big hit in California in the 1960’s, yet he goes to jail, where he finds out about the wonders of cocaine. As a result, when released, he gets rich by bringing cocaine to America. However, he soon pays the price.

Here is the trailer for the movie on YouTube.

🍿 Single All the Way (2021) - ★★★★☆

I liked this one. There were no “bad guys” except for the march of capitalism. Seriously, who ask people to come up with a whole new project Christmas Day?

As always, you know how things are going to go when it comes to the “will they/won’t they” portion of the romance. The execution is good and there were a lot of little giggles along the way.

Still, I will say that there was a section in the middle where I looked at my phone.

Description from The Movie Database

Desperate to avoid his family’s judgment about his perpetual single status, Peter convinces his best friend Nick to join him for the holidays and pretend that they’re now in a relationship. But when Peter’s mother sets him up on a blind date with her handsome trainer James, the plan goes awry.

Here is the link to the trailer create by Netflix.

🍿 The One I Love (2014) - ★★★★☆

This movie is a little statement about being the best version of yourself in your marriage. Take a moment and think about it. What are some of the things that you bring to the relationship? What separates you from all the other people they could be with?

This movie has really been trending on Hulu recently for good reason.

Description from The Movie Database

On the brink of separation, Ethan and Sophie escape to a beautiful vacation house for a weekend getaway in an attempt to save their marriage. What begins as a romantic and fun retreat soon becomes surreal, when an unexpected discovery forces the two to examine themselves, their relationship, and their future.

Here is the trailer on YouTube

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🍿 Serendipity (2001) - ★★☆☆☆

My wife recommended this one after we saw Something from Tiffany’s. I thought it was ok but she did not like it and said that she remembered it being a lot different when she saw it when it came out in 2001. My problem with the movie is that our protagonists were in relationships when they met up, broke up with their significant others, and then are in NEW relationships when they decide to get back together.

Not cool.

Still, I really enjoyed spending time with my wife, so thank you film for giving me that opportunity.

Description from The Movie Database

Although strangers Sara and Jonathan are both already in relationships, they realize they have genuine chemistry after a chance encounter – but part company soon after. Years later, they each yearn to reunite, despite being destined for the altar. But to give true love a chance, they have to find one another again.

Here is a link to the Serendipity trailer on YouTube.

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🍿 Something from Tiffany’s (2022) - ★★★☆☆

Rachel and Gary are happy enough but not quite ready for that big commitment. Ethan and Vanessa, the perfect picture, are just about to make it official. When a simple mix-up of gifts causes all of their paths to cross, it sets off a series of twists and unexpected discoveries that lead them where they’re truly meant to be.

A pretty solid romcom. I enjoyed watching this with my wife. Sometimes we don’t get a chance to watch a lot of films so this one was something that we both picked. What was interesting was my wife thought I didn’t like romcom, but I do. It reminds me that there’s always room for romance and the way that I think of romance is not the only correct way of doing it.

I really recommend this for someone who wants something a little lite and a little fun. I enjoy the fact that the people inside the movie weren’t all bad. In some romcoms, you have these archetypes are just that way so the audience doesn’t like them. They do things that are really really dishonest or social unacceptable and don’t feel bad when they aren’t part of the happy ending. In this film, the side characters had their faults but they weren’t bad people; they just made some bad decisions or they just grew apart from the leads.

If you are interested, here is the trailer for Something From Tiffany’s

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