Hey! There’s a bonus movie in here that I completely forgot I watched last week (if that’s any indication of how it was…), along with everything else that made the cut!
Falling for Christmas – This Christmas movie courtesy of Netflix and Lindsay Lohan was so forgettable that I literally forgot to review it for you all last week. Look, I know a lot of Christmas romance movies are pretty hokey, but this was just kind of painful to get through. Lohan plays Sierra, a hotel heiress who gets temporary amnesia during a bad storm and an awful proposal. Another local ski resort owner finds her and offers to keep her while she’s recovering and hopefully people are looking for her. Of course they fall in love with each other, but the chemistry isn’t there, nor are there that many scenes for them to develop it! Just bad overall, so do yourself a favor and skip this one.
I’m Totally Fine – Vanessa is still reeling after the sudden death of her friend Jennifer just after they signed a distribution deal for their organic soda. She still travels to the house they rented for the celebration of the deal, and instead of a weekend wallowing, she instead gets to see Jennifer again. In the form of an alien inhabiting her body so she can study Vanessa’s human behaviors. We learn it wasn’t always rainbows and butterflied between these two best friends, but the more Vanessa learns, the more she realizes how good she had it with Jennifer anyways. It’s definitely the closure she needed. Overall, this movie was enjoyable but just kind of there – good cast though!
Dear Zoe – Another middle of the road movie here. Tess’s life is spiraling after the accidental death of her young sister, Zoe. So much so that she leaves in the middle of the night to go live with her biological father. He’s somewhat aimless, but ultimately a good father and it was nice seeing these two really connect for the first time. Tess’s mother is struggling, but she wants to take care of herself first. I guess that means getting a boyfriend with a sketchy background? I did really enjoy that she worked at Kennywood, although Adventureland and The Way, Way Back are much better amusement park movies.
The Menu – This movie was delightfully wicked! Another film about punishing the upper crust, and honestly, most of them totally deserve it. Twelve snobs head to the reclusive restaurant at Hawthorne, promised to have their culinary dreams come true. Each course gets more sinister, and they get about halfway in before they realize they’re doomed. There is one outlier though, Margot, who was not on the original guest list and threatens to ruin the entire evening for Chef Slowik. I can’t reveal anything else for fear of ruining it, but there are some intense scenes, so it’s definitely not for everyone, but I loved it.
She Said – This is a powerful look at The New York Times reporters who poured everything into exposing Harvey Weinstein. I personally never read the article, so I was certainly learning horrid details I never knew about. It was also interesting to see how hard these two reporters had to work to get the story told. It’s horrible that all of these women had to live in fear because of this disgusting man. Definitely a taut and worthy drama.
The Good Boss – Oh man, this has been on my watch list for quite some time and sadly, it just didn’t live up to my expectations. Javier Bardem plays Julio Blanco, the head of a factory that manufactures scales. We meet him high up on a lift addressing all of his employees. It looks pretty convincing that they are a tight-knit company that looks out for each other, but that façade is pretty quickly cracked. Blanco is concerned with winning an award for business excellence and will stop at nothing to get it. That means getting a little too personal with his employees. This movie was definitely funny at times, but overall, the story just felt slow.
Knives Out – Given that Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is hitting theaters this weekend (in order to qualify for the Oscars), it was almost mandatory that my sister and I watch the original again. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen it, so some reveals felt fresh, and the plot remains delightful and full of clever twists. The cast is exceptional and I can only hope its sequel delivers as much fun as this whodunit did!