Go-With-the-Flow Saturday #3

Today really was a go-with-the-flow. I woke up way too early and spent the morning working on some personal things. Then it was another movie day. I don't know why I'm "watching" all these movies, but it seems to be relaxing enough, while I jump up every hour to walk 500 steps.

Jerry Maguire
At first I thought I hadn't seen Jerry Maguire and then it dawned on me I had. It's kind of a depressing movie about failure and I don't think the ending really gives us, the view, an idea of how to solve our failures. Loving someone doesn't fix a job. Sometimes you can't put all your love into all aspects of your life (it's exhausting). I don't know. It was cute, but there were also quite a few places where they could have trimmed up the movie to make it a reasonable length. Two hours for something like that is absolutely absurd. Plus... he wrote a "memo" and had it printed and distributed to all of his coworkers? In one night? Drunk is what told him to do that? It felt slightly unbelievable. If it was an email, that's different, but this took lots of effort to pull off. The whole beginning of the movie feels forced and weird.

After watching JM, I decided to throw on Area 51, since I now had access to it. It's an Oren Peli film (Paranormal Activity, Chernobyl Diaries).

Area 51
What a disappointment. I was kind of excited for the movie, but it just had some huge errors and I really didn't care at all for the characters. They did too many seriously stupid things, despite being smart enough to trick government security technology. It also felt like the actions of the characters led to bigger problems than them simply being on the base. Plot issues all over the place. I love found footage and this was a film that I thought would bring a new take to it, being alien and all, but it didn't and it didn't utilize the found footage format very well, either. It felt rushed and poorly edited. There's a scene where everything goes white and the characters are walking through a white room and it's so hard to watch. I started feeling a bit sick. While cool, theoretically, it still was not how I was hoping to feel watching a movie this morning.

Then it was time for some Chinese. Yeah... my husband left me get the worst meal in the world for me. I was so excited! Sadly, I regretted it later, but whatever! It was delicious and what I was craving. At least I'm getting in all those stupid steps that better start to matter. A life of dieting and fitness and healthy lifestyle crap with so few results can really take a toll on a person, ya' know?

When we got back, I decided to learn a little bit more about another British woman of power, since I had rewatched The Queen and had been watching Victoria.

The Iron Lady

I don't know if I was in a ranty mood or what, but this movie was so disappointing for all the hype it received. It was a horrible retrospective on the life of Margaret Thatcher. It demanded I know too much about her as a viewer going in. It was essentially Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher old with alzheimers remembering snippets from her past about how she got to where she was. All in an effort to say goodbye to her husband. I don't know. For a short movie, I lost interest pretty quick. It felt like a vehicle to provide Streep with what would seem like a challenging performance. Honestly, the makeup on Streep is what was amazing. The performance itself wasn't anything special. If Robin Williams wasn't nominated and didn't win an Academy Award for Mrs. Doubtfire, then I don't know why Streep got the award (Streep looked like Robin Williams dressed up at Mrs. Doubtfire and her voice change was similar... at least that's what kept coming to mind while I watched it). And the film didn't even educate you on Thatcher's controversial history. Only showed you that she was a penny-pinching-conservative-woman, born out of the middle class with zero sympathy or empathy for anyone who might face a struggle in their life. Give me The Queen any day, because at least that felt real, measured, and the film had purpose.

And since I couldn't find a free version of The Darkest Hour to watch, I opted for something a little more light, that I could leave on in the background while I did other things. Strangely enough, it brought the whole family into the living room and we were having another family movie night with laughs and silliness.

Clue
Love Clue. Can watch it all day long or leave it on in the background all day long. The cast is amazing. The humor is spot-on and the slapstick "too late" storytelling is classic. I know this movie so well, I can actually recite lines while watching the movie! I don't have many movies where I can do that. It's also a movie that both myself and my husband look back on our childhood fondly over and can enjoy with the same enthusiasm. My daughter, for whatever reasons, didn't remember us explaining to her how it's based off of a board game and then she went on to say that one of her Roblox games uses all those people's names, etc. etc. Oh dear sweet child. This will not be the last time she is exposed (not like that) to this film. My husband and I also joked about how all the inappropriate jokes went over our heads as kids, but that kids loved it, even though critics didn't. I said it was because of the connection to the game, the solving the mystery, and the slapstick ending! I mean... Tim Curry... is amazing! Granted, I don't know if I would have been AS enamoured had it not had the three endings running together, but I think I might have. (You know that they released one of three endings with the film in theaters, so you never knew what ending you'd get?).

Then under Clue on Amazon Prime was this little gem. I thought it was this dark horrible movie I remember, but it so wasn't and as we watched it, I remembered it!

Stay Tuned
Oh my goodness this movie was so cheesy cute. Sure if would be click if they did it by today's standards (and I feel like someone has somewhere... Click? No... that was time control. Eh... I'll think about it), but this was so much fun to watch! Dated, but still good for a laugh.

And then it was time for bed. I don't know what's made me want to watch movies so badly again, but it's been fun. I guess it's pulling me away from my brain-taxing things.