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Reviews
The People We Hate at the Wedding (2022)
I've Always Wanted to Live by the Sea
I had zero expectations and was delightfully surpised. Is it amazing filmmaking? No. I found this to be very entertaining. We all know people like this. Some of us might be one of these people. I can understand how families grow apart. The whole financial disparity can really be a strain on family relationships. I thought it had some really funny moments, some bordering on the ridiculous, but hey it was funny. When Allison Janney was on the airplane, high on gummies, drinking her water...I don't know why but I lost it when she said she has always wanted to live by the sea...something about her delivery or just the randomness of that comment had me rolling! I really wish we got to see more of Dennis though. Mr. Bottoms.
Monarch (2022)
Like a trainwreck; can't look away
I had such high hopes because I love Susan Sarandon's work. But they decided to kill her character off immediately and then have her be in flashback scenes as a guest star. Gigi walks in and immediately knows Nicky "killed" their mom and storms out of the house instead of finding their dad, with no emotion other than annoyance. I think they auditioned people who could sing country and then picked the ones who had the look that they were going for that could half way deliver a line. This massively famous family just goes to bars and they break out into song like nothing. LOL ok. I did love the scene between Trace Adkins and the actor who plays Ace, when neither wanted to go on stage to sing. That was sweet. But I have to admit I am intrigued to find out who was murdered. My husband makes fun of me for watching the show but at this point, it is entertaining when you accept that it is going to be bad, like a campy film. I do like Gigi's rendition of Born this Way and one of Lizzo's songs. One thing I cannot understand (and maybe this will be explained in later episodes) is Catt being Albie's daughter. Albie was having an affair 40 something years ago, Dotti burns the barn with Catt's mother in it. What I don't get is that if Catt was born before the fire, why does she have burn scars on her back? And if she was born after the fire, meaning she sustained burn injuries in the womb as her mother burned to death, how was there a birth certificate with Rosa and Albie's name on it, especially if the whole point was that no one was supposed to know about the affair or pregnancy (Albie didn't know Rosa was pregnant and didn't know Rosa died) I need to know, I am in too deep LOL.
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Licorice Nepotism
This film had a lot of buzz around it. I sort of see why. But for me, the best part of this whole film was when Alana's dad exclaims "what the f!@k?" at the dinner table, who interestingly enough is Papa Haim himself, playing husband and father to his real-life family. Speaking of nepotism, this movie is full of it. Everyone is either related, or they grew up together, or friends with someone's parents, or is a neighbor, blah, blah, blah. Ok, connections are necessary. I get it. All the male characters are either slimy or smarmy, except for Papa Haim. Papa Haim dgaf. Go put some clothes on...I don't care you are a quarter of a century old, you don't come home late to my house like a street walker. LOL.
A Second Chance (2011)
Hmmm...
**CONTAINS SPOILERS**
This is a cute movie. My 6 year old daughter watches it from time to time on Netflix. Sometimes I catch myself being sucked into the movie, oddly enough.
THE ACTING... The kids featured in the movie are probably gymnasts who happened to act in a movie...not actors who happen to know gymnastics. So, yes, the sub-par acting cannot be ignored but how cool for these gymnast kids to be in a movie. I hate to criticize children, so good for them that they got to make a movie (I can only dream of it!), but I am willing to bet their main gig is gymnastics. Let's hope.
The actress that played Beverly seems to be a "real" actress and was heartfelt in her plea to Kate to help coach her 3 girls after she suffered a medical emergency. The actress that played Kate wasn't bad, but wasn't good either-I suspect she is or was a gymnast. The actor that played Shane did pretty good- he was the eye candy of the movie but he too is probably a gymnast with that crazy fit body. Kate and Shane had a good sexual tension going even though this movie is geared toward kids. The actress that played Sally good at making you dislike Sally, you really felt the resentment and hatred from her LOL
THE STORY... The story line is good. Predictable, but over all good. There is discord between a coach and a judge (Kate and Sally) who were former friends and gymnast teammates until a young Sally suffered a debilitating injury that left her in a wheelchair for life. Sally blames Kate for pushing her off the balance beam, while Kate remembers it as playfulness gone wrong. How haunting for Kate to grow up with that guilt, while Sally's life changed forever and had to give up gymnastics (something she clearly loved if she grew up to be a gymnastics competition judge.) The resentment is clearly understandable from Sally, whose whole life was changed, yet you can't help but dislike her for being vengeful and petty as an adult and using Maddy, an innocent party, to get back at Kate by punishing Maddy with low scores.
Maddy lives with her father who has to work a lot. Her mother died and they both miss her very much. Maddy is a talented gymnast with low confidence. Maddy has 2 very supportive friends at school, who are also on her gymnastics team.
Chelsea is the school "it" girl who is on an opposing team and usually wins lots of medals. She's taken it upon herself to knock down Maddy whenever she can. Maddy befriends Joshua, a boy gymnast with whom she is training, and Chelsea, for a lack of something better to do, decides to cause a rift between Joshua and Maddy. Maddy has a crush on Joshua and he seems to like her back as well, but he IS a boy, so when a pretty girl with a hidden agenda, like Chelsea, bats her eyelashes at him, he takes the bait. Luckily, eventually he sees right through Chelsea and puts her in her place and gets her where it hurts: her parents.
Chelsea's well-off parents are too busy with their social schedule to even come to her competitions and is always disappointed when she looks for them in the crowd, only to find her governess, or grandmother- not sure who that is- and 2 empty seats next to her. So you end up feeling sorry for Chelsea even though she deserves a good smack from Maddy.
The main story line is Maddy's team is struggling in competition and Beverly persuades Kate to enlist the help of Shane, a boys' gymnastics coach, to train the girls in a way that will help them win competitions. Kate and Shane start off on the wrong foot but eventually work well together, as do the girls and boys. Most people wouldn't pay much attention to this aspect, but I immediately thought "Ok, so they are saying the only way girls can be good is if the boys help." In fact, my daughter asked "Why are the boys so good and the girls are not?" (referring to the montage of the girls struggling on the boys gym equipment). I told her that the girls are good, they just aren't used to doing those exercises. This bothered me, but, after reflecting on it, it doesn't really seem chauvinist. I think it's more about being creative and a bit unorthodox- in a good way. In real life, if I was a gymnast, I would have a competitive edge if I trained on both the men's and women's equipment because I would be strengthening and conditioning differently.
The movie follows the girls as they train with Kate, Shane, and the boys. We see Maddy grow more confident but we also see Maddy give up and quit her team because of Chelsea's snidery. Kate comes to the rescue and shares a special moment with Maddy...and as one can expect, Maddy is back on the team, ready to win. Shane and Kate go on a date and Shane humorously does his impression of a girl on the balance beam... eventually in the movie they kiss a very passionless kiss- almost as if the actors did not want to- but then again...it's a kids movie so no need to make a big fuss of that.
I didn't care for the very long opening credits...my daughter thought the whole movie was going to be like that. The music selection was cheesy. And good God, why did I spend so much time on this review?...