1/27/2019 1 Comment Mothers and Daughters (2016)Somehow Mothers and Daughters takes 10 minutes from every mother-daughter movie/tv show and meshes them all together then adds some famous people and that’s it- that’s the movie. My mother and I watched this movie together, and for the first hour, we were very confused about why we continued to watch it. I thought it was a complete mess and there were too many things happening to give let the viewer connect with the characters. The movie starts with a band photographer who is living the dream then finds out she is pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s baby. But before we can even process that we switch to a long list of other mother-daughter relationships including: couture bra designer who gave up her daughter for adoption decades ago, a woman who just found out her sister is actually her mom; a bickering mother-daughter duo; an estranged mother-daughter duo; a male rock star who bonds with his mom over the remorse he feels for taking advantage of a drunk woman; and, a father-son who lost their wife/son recently. If this hasn’t completely overwhelmed you yet, there is a young woman who is dying with leukemia, and I’m not even sure what she adds to the movie since she isn’t pictured with her mother.
There were too many characters that it was impossible to connect with any of them. I think that if Paul Duddridge and Nigel Levy directed this as a mini-series- setup like Amazon’s The Romanoffs (independent stories but all attached somehow) it would’ve been fantastic. I liked the independent stories, but it was weird how the movie switched back and forth between them all. Despite all of this, it did accomplish the emotion that was aimed for. Rugby, the photographer documenting these relationships, closes the movie with a monologue basically saying that a mother's love is so strong that you don’t understand until a woman has a daughter. It was heartwarming and made me feel bad for the multiple times that I have been rude to my mother or did something to make her disappointed in me. I will say that at the end, when the plot came together, my mom and I had a great time watching this movie that documented other mother-daughter relationships.
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1/20/2019 1 Comment The Founder (2016)So, when The Founder arrived on Netflix, I added it to my list and had the intention to watch it. I always pushed it back because it wasn’t something that I wanted to watch in my free time. It wasn't until Mr. Murray HEAVILY encouraged me to watch The Founder. So, I did and enjoyed it. I was so engrossed with what was happening that I missed dinner with a friend because I couldn’t pause the movie. The Founder starts with Ray Kroc trying to sell a five spindle milkshake machine to diners all around the country. The viewer begins to see him as a failure until he gets an order for six milkshake makers in San Bernardino, California. Kroc is so fascinated by the quantity of this order that he grabs a map and takes a trip to visit this diner. Once he arrives, he loves it! It was a new concept that he believed would be revolutionary. Kroc proposes to franchise the restaurant, but Mac and Dick McDonald (founders) do not want that because they think the quality of McDonald's would decrease (I definitely laughed out loud during this part). Kroc finally talks the brothers into letting him grow the business but Kroc losses the original vision of the restaurant and prioritizes profit over quality, leading to many disputes between the brothers and Kroc which leads Kroc to buy out the business and remodel it.
While watching The Founder, I saw a man who was persistent and would not give turn into a sleazy businessperson, and it was awful (the acting was good though). I was so excited that Ray was a fantastic person with a vision, but it turns out that he isn’t. It was very disappointing. I thought that all of the actors did a phenomenal job portraying the real-life people. I also really liked how the movie inserted pictures from back when McDonald's opened. Overall, I thought the film was stunning, It used angles, space, and color, to remarkably bring out the essential themes in the movie. *I was so excited by this movie that I made my whole family watch it the next night (haha). The Guernsey Literary and Peel Pie Society was terrific. First off, it had Lily James, and my theory is anything with Lily James has to be good. The movie is set in 1946 after the German occupation. James plays Juliet Ashton, a London writer who is living her life writing under another name. Her publisher, Sidney, and she have a close friendship and knows she wants to write under her real name. He aligns an incredible opportunity for her to write a serious article for the London Post. Around this time correspondence with Dawsey Adams, Guernsey island resident, begins. He writes her to request a book, but then they start talking beyond that. Ashton finds out that Adams belongs to a book club that only has five members. Feeling a strong desire to visit the island and meet these people, she sets off to visit the island. Ashton quickly learns what the occupation was really like and grows a close relationship with everyone.
I loved this movie; it was fun to watch and had a happy ending- so, all in all, a great film. Once I found out that Lily James was in The Guernsey Literary and Peel Pie Society, I was super excited and had to watch it. I think that James is fantastic- but, one thing I noticed is that she is excellent at playing the strong-willed girl who wants adventure. Her character is definitely seen in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. I have not seen Cinderella, but that is next on my list. What Watching Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, I felt compelled to travel and live in Greece after graduation (still have that desire- other than the fact that Greece is in a state of crippling economics, well getting slightly better since Wall Street imploded in 2008). I felt the same thing after watching The Guernsey Literary Peel Pie Society. I really wanted to travel to Guernsey Island and live there. I was also amazed by the director's use of space and the ability to make an island look beautiful while it was still in despair. Over the weekend I was babysat for another Villa family. There were two kids, the oldest is a girl and in the eighth grade and the younger is a boy in the second grade. We watched a ton of Disney Christmas movies and made cookies, but my favorite out of all we watched was Good Luck Charlie, it’s Christmas!. It wasn’t that the movie was fantastic, because it wasn’t, it just reminded me of watching it on it’s release date with my best friend. It was a pretty tipical tween movie. Teddy is a junior in high school and wants to go with a friend to Florida for spring break and her parents are making her pay for the flight. In the typical fashion of overbooked planes, the flight attendant calls asking someone to take a different flight in return for a free round trip ticket. The mom doesn’t trust that she is old enough to figure this out alone, so the mom goes with her. They face a series of weird encounters and don’t make it on the plane. Their only option is to drive to Nevada from Colorado two days before Christmas. The mother daughter duo experience many setbacks but figure out a way to make it to their family on Christmas morning.
The movie was very similar to every other Disney movie by the way it was set up and filmed, but there was a super cool part that I noticed. The youngest child is Charlie and she was at her Grandmother's house. On the TV screen it was playing Godzilla and showed Godzilla knock over the Empire State Building and at the same time showed Charlie pushing off a glass reindeer from the table. 12/10/2018 1 Comment The Grinch (2000)The Grinch is based off of the Dr. Suess book “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. The Grinch decides to ruin Christmas for the happy residents of Whoville with the assistance of his dog Max. The Grinch comes down from his mountaintop home and sneaks into town to swipe everything holiday-related from the Whos. However, the bitter grump finds a hitch in his plans when he encounters the endearing Cindy Lou Who. She sees The Grinch as an actual person and not someone utterly repulsive. This warms The Grinch’s heart and he joins in on the merriness of the holiday.
I really like this movie. It is probably one of my favorites. Every year I watch it with my family and every year I laugh more and more. Some of the jokes are hilarious and end up becoming a meme. On twitter I found a thread of Grinch GIFs relating to High School. It was hilarious. From a young child, I always was afraid of the grinch and couldn’t help to still shudder when the movie first starts and The Grinch turns around and give a sly smile (pictured above). It is so freaky. It use to give me nightmares- and it still does. But, I think that the effectiveness of the music contributes to the freakiness of the scene. A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding is the sequel to A Christmas Prince. A year after helping Richard secure the throne, Amber prepares to become a part of the Aldovian royal family. She goes to Aldovia a week before her wedding and works on getting acquainted with her new life. Amber is challenged with following protocols and traditions that Prince Richard and his family have followed for years. She wants to have a stronger voice than what protocol allows for, so she insists on finding a way- even if that means going under cover.
So, I started watching this movie because I love all things that are related to Royal Families. I thought, okay this will be fun! Yes, it was- but, very cringy. It was hard to watch due to the amount of second hand embarrassment. I thought it was good but I do not have to watch that movie again. The filmmaking was not a priority because Netflix wants the viewer to be obsessed with the storyline, but I noticed some of the shots we learned about in class. The jump shot was the one that stuck out to me. The Royal couple was picking out a christmas tree and to show time passing they used a jump shot. Since I am obsessed with the British Royal family, I saw many parallels to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding. For one, Amber has a blog and Meghan had a personal website. Then Amber's dad was very unfancy when he first met the royals which is the same with Megan's dad. So, I googled to find out if there were any parallels that were intended and many sites claimed that Netflix tried to create similarities and used the actual Royal couple as inspiration. 11/25/2018 1 Comment Midnight in Paris (2011)Midnight in Paris opens with a lovely sequence of pictures/videos of Paris, France. While this opening was very long, I thought it was perfect because it made the viewer feel like they traveled to Paris and are currently sight-seeing. At first, I was not a huge fan of that but quickly grew to like it. After the opening sequence we are introduced to the main characters- Inez and Gil. I throughly enjoyed watching the characters interact, especially after being introduced to Inez friends- they were such a bore! AnywayAXS, Gil begins to tour the city alone at night and comes across this cab at midnight. He gets in and is magically transported to the 20’s and meets many literary and art icons. He tries to bring his fiancee to meet these people with him, but she refuses. In this other world, Gil meets another woman and falls in love with her. Together they travel to the 1800’s and she decides to stay but Gil goes back to the present. Gil breaks off the engagement with Inez and meets someone who works in a cute little shop in Paris.
I loved this movie!!! It has removed The Glass Castle and is now ranked in my top five. I loved the way it was directed and fell in love with the feel of the movie. I watched this with my entire family, and everyone was enamored by the movie. I saw similarities with Midnight in Paris and The Purple Rose of Cairo, but nevertheless I still really enjoy both movies. The one thing I thought was weird, and I am catching a theme, is dysfunctional relationships. This is my fourth Woody Allen movie, and everyone has some form of weirdness in the main characters relationships. Maybe this is from his own life of dysfunctional relationships? I listened to a podcast from Ronan Farrow on the way to Alabama and was shocked by how weird his relationships are/were. 11/19/2018 1 Comment Trolls 2016After the Bergens invade the Troll Village, Poppy, the peppiest Troll ever born, and the overly-cautious, boring Branch set off on a journey to rescue her friends from being kidnapped. Their trip is full of adventure, singing, dancing, and oopsies as this polar opposite duo try to handle each other long enough to get the job done.
I LOVE THIS MOVIE!! It is so much fun and always brightens my days. The colors are amazing! It has such a bright color palate that when you see the vibrant color of poppy and her friends you can’t help to be happy. It is interesting because in Bergen town, al of the objects colors are dreary and bland. This is because the Bergens aren’t happy and only see life as this miserable thing. This is the same with Poppy and Branch. Poppy is hot pink and Branch is a gray/blue color (very boring) (until the end!!). I also really like the music because it has great songs that easily convey the tone of the movie and make the viewer really understand what is happening. * I am definitely eating Troll fruit snacks right now 11/12/2018 1 Comment Whatever works (2009)After a failed suicide attempt, New York former physicist Boris Yellnikoff exchanges his fancy uptown life to slumming it in Chinatown following his divorce. He meets his exact opposite Melody, a pageant queen from the Deep South who's very sweet but extremely stupid, on the stairwell into his apartment. She ran away from home due to committing the sin of sex before marriage. Against all odds, Boris and Melody marry, but it really heats up when Melody's Christian mother arrives and finds liberation instead of damnation in the big city.
The main message of this movie is basically to say whatever works to make you happy- do it. I really liked the way that Woody Allen, the director, had the character develop to really show that whatever works is what you should do. With saying that, do not encourage the extremities that the characters went through, but again whatever works. While watching the movie, I caught onto some interesting things. Like, I thought it was fun to watch Boris reassess his pretty ranking on Melody as she stayed in his apartment longer. It was a bold choice to have Boris talk to the audience and play it off as apart of his character. It worked, but it was very risky- meaning, that in the first scene it was a little weird until the viewer got to know Boris a little. I enjoyed this movie a lot and am so excited to watch other Woody Allen movies to see the common themes. |