The Review: Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn 3/10

It is going to be a little bit difficult to do this review based on what happens in this film. L. mentioned something that occurs in this film that in a lot of other versions is edited out but we watched this on Amazon I believe and they kept it in. So let me just start describing what this movie is actually about before I go on a tirade. There are these three performers Jim, Ted, and Lila. They do a whole song and dance routine up in New York. Jim is performing for the last time because he's going to marry Lila. His whole plan is to go live on a farm and rest and relax because he's tired of being on stage all of the time. Well he finds out that not only is Lila not coming with him but that his partner Ted is cheating with Lila and they're both going to just continue to show in New York.

The Review: The Shop Around The Corner

The Shop Around The Corner 8/10

Now this was a cute ass movie. The Shop Around The Corner is about this guy named Alfred who's a salesman at a shop. There's a lot of different coworkers and I like all of them and everybody's cool except this one dude who is a cheating ass cheat. One day this lady comes in pretending to look for help and it turns out she's actually looking for a job. Her name is Klara. It turns out that she's good at selling things to people so she ends up getting hired and the entire time her and Alfred are at each other's throats. Alfred has been writing to someone as pen pals and it's turned into a full blown relationship. They've never met each other but he is in love with this woman. Meanwhile at the shop the boss has been acting meaner and meaner to Alfred and it turns out it's because he thinks that Alfred has been sleeping with his wife. We find out who was sleeping with his wife but not before his boss tries to blow his own brains out because of his wife stepping out. Thankfully the delivery boy manages to stop him before he killed himself. One night when he supposed to go finally meet her (after being fired from his job) his coworker looks into the restaurant and it turns out that it's Klara. Alfred heads inside and starts talking to her and of course she treats him the same as she usually does and they go their separate ways and it appears that she's been stood up.

The Review: Almost Christmas

Almost Christmas 6/10

We watch this movie called Almost Christmas. I had never heard of this movie. It has a large cast of black actors and actresses from multiple films over the years. This is about this man named Walter Myers whose wife recently passed away and he has all of his kids over for the holidays. You can already tell how this is going to go. They either cannot get along or don't seem much like siblings at all really. You have one daughter who has a child of her own is a single and full-on I don't need a man mode you have another one who's a dentist and has a husband who's a man whore. You have a son who is running in the hopes of being in Congress. And you also have a son that's in college and just about to get off of injury reserve who has a pill addiction. There's some funny parts of this movie but for the most part it's very cookie cutter. The father wants to sell the house and the kids don't want him to sell it. They want to save a shelter and the son is conflicted because he knows it will help him and his political career. And throughout the movie the father's trying to recreate a pie recipe that his wife used to make. I could not really suggest watching this movie though it's something that if it was on in the background whenever you heard fighting or shouting you would know to look at the screen to see something interesting happening.

Danny Glover as Walter Meyers

Sebrena Farmer as Grace Meyers

Kimberly Elise as Dr. Cheryl Meyers, DDS

Romany Malco as Christian Meyers

Gabrielle Union as Rachel Meyers

Jessie T. Usher as Evan Meyers

Mo'Nique as Aunt May Deveraux Johnson-Davis

J.B. Smoove as Lonnie Maclay

Nicole Ari Parker as Sonya Meyers

Omar Epps as Malachi

John Michael Higgins as Andy Brooks

Click here for previous The Review.

The Review: Candy Cane Lane

 

Candy Cane Lane 6/10

Another holiday movie that we watched was Candy Cane Lane. This was an okay movie but it just felt a little bit too long and as if there were way too many stories going on at the same time. It's about this guy named Chris Carver who likes to make his own decorations for the holidays. His neighborhood goes crazy when it's time for Christmas and the entire street is decked out. He ends up going into work and laid off right before the holidays like a lot of these movies do because everybody has a horrible boss. He also finds out that this year that there will be a prize of $100,000 for whoever wins the best decorations on the street. He also has three kids with his wife. His youngest daughter is named Holly and she's the light skin child of this movie. I bet you I thought I was joking, but every one of these movies no matter what the couple looks like there's going to be a little curly hair light skinned child as the daughter. He also has two other kids with holiday themed names. His son Nick plays a tuba and wants to make music but they want him to do something else. And their daughter Joy is a track runner and they want her to go to USC but she does not want to.

The Review: Holiday Affair

Holiday Affair 8/10

Been watching so many holiday movies during this time I have made a new tag for them. Click on Holiday Reviews to see movies I have done over the years around Christmas to check them out. The next movie that we watch was one from 1949 called Holiday Affair. This lady named Connie heads into this department store that is overrun with children. This guy named Steve is working there and she rushes up to him and wants to buy a train set and doesn't ask anything about it. It turns out that she is something that was called a comparative shopper which I don't think exist anymore and if it does it probably has a different title. She gets a train and heads home while her son Timmy is there. Timmy is one of the messiest characters you will find in cinema. He ends up sneaking into the room and seeing the train set and getting super excited thinking it's for him. It's not. She buys the stuff and then has to return it. She's just getting prices for items and comparing them to her bosses shops. She heads back to the store to get a refund and the guy working there Steve is like I know who you are and what you're doing but he decides to not report her which would make her lose her job. In turn Steve loses his job.

The Review: Christmas Of Yes

Christmas Of Yes 6/10

I have a lot of Christmas movie reviews to do so I'm going to be trying to knock out the easier ones first. The first movie that L and I watched was called Christmas Of Yes. This is about a woman named Amy who does nothing but work. She's not interesting. That seems to be a premise of a lot of holiday movies that involve women who are very busy. They have no life and all there is is work and they don't have time for relationships or friends or anything. They just work. They have no personality. So she goes into work where she is high up and very well respected and loved by everybody because not only does she work hard, but she also makes incredibly good coffee. So at work they tell her after a merger that she is no longer needed. She ends up getting fired right before the holidays. To cheer her up her brother and his boyfriend decide to make a bet with her that until Christmas she cannot refuse anything and must say yes to whatever they ask or anyone else ask her to do. This sounds incredibly dangerous but I'll go with it.

The Review: Leave The World Behind

Leave The World Behind -3/10

The amount of hatred I have for this movie is incredible. I am a semi-rational person and I understand that art is supposed to be subjective. But the movie Leave the World Behind is legitimately one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. L. suggested that we watch this and I was not super opposed to it because I didn't know anything about it but was aware that two big actors were in it. I was very surprised and I discovered there was a big actress in it as well. So we started this movie and right now I am trying my best not to jump to the ending that pushed me over the edge and just stick with the fact that this movie had no redeeming qualities. I have watched some really terrible movies where I can say at least it was shot well or at least it had good music. This is not one of those movies.

Curtain Call: Freight The Five Incarnations of Abel Green

Freight The Five Incarnations of Abel Green 10/10

This past weekend L. took me to see one of the best live performances I have ever seen. It is called Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green. It stars J. Alphonse Nicholson who I know from seeing in the background of a few TV series and also on the show P Valley. This is a solo show and I don't think I've ever actually seen a solo show live before. He plays a man named Abel Green and it goes through five different monologues and each one is a different version of Abel throughout time. The first one takes place in the early 1900s where he is part of a minstrel show. The second one he's a faith healer who gets really popular and very wealthy only to discover the truth about his healing abilities and his faith. The third one he's an FBI informant that's pretty much snitching on the Black Panthers in the 1960s. The fourth he's an actor who has all of the guilt for turning his back on a friend after discovering he is HIV positive. The final one he's a homeless man around 2010 and he tells a story of how he became that way.

Documentality: Love Has Won The Cult Of Mother God

Love Has Won 8/10

Last week L. and I watched this crazy ass documentary called Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God. This is about this lady named Amy Carlson who started a cult called Love Has Won. What is the point of this cult? What was their main goal? What is their mission statement? I have no idea. I have looked online I have watched other videos about this group of people and I have absolutely no idea what the point of it was. From these three episodes it seems like she had a pretty normal life. She also has an abusive husband and different relationships and then one day she quit her job at McDonald's and left her kids behind. Next thing you know she's with this old man and they're doing a bunch of seemingly hippie stuff together. She ends up leaving him and some other men that she ends up calling Father God until she settles on this one guy who is so crazy seeming it is scary.

Curtain Call: Inherit The Wind

Inherit The Wind 10/10

Last night Cam took me to go see an incredible performance of Inherit the Wind. I had not heard of this story and did not know anything about it going in but I am so glad I went because this was one of the best plays I have ever seen. It also shows that you do not need a lot of flash to make a show good and entertaining. The people on stage had on regular street clothes the set consisted of about three or four tables and some chairs. Audience members who won a lottery were allowed to sit in the jury box and they were also people from the audience sitting on stage. I had never been to the Pasadena Playhouse before and it was a pretty good size. Parking was a breeze and right near the theater which was nice. I am too used to praying for parking downtown or taking out a mortgage to pay for parking at the Pantages.

The Review: Violent Night

Violent Night 8/10

The other film that we watched was a complete opposite of the last one. This one was called Violent Night. It came out last year and I had heard of it but thought it was a horror film. This is about Santa Claus being over kids wishing for just video games and not believing him in him anymore. Meanwhile there's this little girl named Gertrude who everyone calls Trudy who just like the last film wants her family to get back together again. The family goes to Greenwich Connecticut and meets up with her dad's family who is stinking rich. Well, Santa is at the house delivering gifts a whole ass group of mercenaries show up to steal 300 million bucks that granny is hiding. Santa impales one of these guys on the icicle after a very violent fight. In this movie Santa gets shot at, he gets cut, all kind of crazy violent things are happening and he's able to communicate with the little girl through a walkie-talkie that her father had given her. She very much still believes in Santa Claus and these mercenaries led by one calling himself Scrooge is very upset that he is being taken out by someone dressed as Santa. He also had a traumatic experience as a child dealing with Christmas time.

The Review: Dashing Through The Snow

Dashing Through The Snow 9/10

A couple of weeks ago continuing the Christmas movie tradition L. and I watched Dashing Through The Snow on Disney+. This movie turned out to be way better than I was expecting. It's about this social worker who works with the police name Eddie and when he was little he wanted Santa at the mall to get him a fishing pole for his father and hopefully that would bring his mother and father together again and they would stop fighting. It turns out that the mall Santa after getting this kid's address broke into the house and from then on he hates Christmas. He now has a child and he and the mother are not together anymore. One night he is tasked with watching his daughter and this guy dressed as Santa Claus and believes that he is Santa Claus bump into one another. He ends up seeing this Santa Claus because he is house sitting for his neighbors and this guy is just up in there doing Santa shit. Santa is being hunted by three people because he has an iPad that has a list of people that are going to be blackmailed for more money by the evil mayor.