TV, Movies, & Anime Thoughts

Rating: ★★✭☆☆
Genre: Holiday, m/f romance
Date Watched: December 1, 2024
Length: 1 hour 32 minutes

Thoughts: lmao well... this one was A Time. Pitch Meetings actually did one for this, and it's what got me to give it a try because it seemed so ridiculous. It was very silly and I could see a lot of people having a good time with this. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but it was still entertaining. It was nice to see Boyle and Doug Judy together lol. Anyway! As for the story.... meh. The romance? meh. The main thing that made me emotional was Kathy grieving over her husband, and also this moment where Jack was telling her that he didn't want to hurt her because he didn't know how much time he had left and didn't want her to deal with losing someone else again. Ugh that was a big gut punch lol. The rest of the movie was very silly. Tbh Doug Judy stressed me out a little bit which also knocked some points off, but I know that's a me problem. I don't do well with annoying but also extremely obvlivious characters (reminds me too much of my childhood tbh T_T). He did redeem himself by the end though, so at least he wasn't all bad. It was also cool seeing Boyle play a different type of character. I've only seen him in Brooklyn 99 so it was fun to see him be similar, yet a little different lol. Anyway! Probably won't watch again, but tbh I think it's worth at least one watchthrough just to see how ridiculous it is lol.

Rating: ★★★★☆
Genre: Holiday
Date Watched: December 1, 2024
Length: 1 hour 30 minutes

Thoughts: This one was really cute. It follows around 3 different couples who all live on Cherry Lane, and their Christmas troubles. Um... so reading the synopsis, I definitely didn't "get" that each family we follow is happening during a different time period. Well, more like one family it's very obvious because they mention the president at the time, but the other two didn't feel that obvious. Either way, I definitely cried a couple times during this one. Each story just feels really heartwarming and I love how the conflicts within each family story were resolved, and I really like that we follow already established couples for two of the families, and with one of them it's more focused on parent child/sibling relationship stuff and grief. Would probably watch again next Christmas.

Rating: ★★★★☆
Genre: Holiday, m/w romance
Date Watched: November 30, 2024
Length: 1 hour 45 minutes

Thoughts: Finally, a good holiday movie! Honestly this would have been rated a little higher if I didn't feel like it was one big Pentatonix advertisement lol. That being said, the soundtrack was very good and extremely festive. But yeah! Man, I really enjoyed the premise, I liked the acting, and the main love interests actually had chemistry. They had me kicking my feet when they got together. Honestly I don't really have many thoughts other than those lol. I had a really great time watching this and would happily watch this again.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Genre: Holiday
Date Watched: November 30, 2024
Length: 1 hour 22 minutes

Thoughts: Another mediocre Christmas film, woo! This one was a bit hard to watch because the main character, Charlotte, is so unbearable for most of it. She spends more than half the movie being jealous and extremely shitty to her family and to Jackie and her husband. There are parts that resonate - being so obsessed with this perfect version of the people that you know and feeling insanely jealous of them and feeling like your own life is sad or shitty because of it. I was literally doing that to myself this morning lmao. The movie loses me when she starts snooping and it's sort of played off as her thinking there's something going on between her husband and Jackie instead of her looking for "proof" that Jackie isn't perfect. Instead of you know, just talking to her huskband and/or to Jackie >__>

I think also I'm maybe not a fan of this actress, Heather Graham? At least not in this movie - I haven't really seen much of the stuff she's been in. Lmao apparently she was in Austin Powers and I definitely remember her character, so that's great lol. I guess she's in The Hangover also, but I honestly don't remember that movie at all. ANYWAY lol, the main reason I didn't like her is because she looks like she's smiling ever so slightly all the time? So there were a couple times when she was being genuine and I found it incredibly hard to tell because she just... didn't look or sound sincere? Mainly I'm thinking of this moment where she apologized to Jackie.

Lmao that all being said, I did cry when Jackie talked about losing her son. Tbh I think the movie would have been more enjoyable if it was from Jackie's perspective. They could still keep the light-hearted aspect by making Jackie and her husband fuck with Charlotte since they know Charlotte has been snooping through their house the entire time.

Anyway, as far as movies go, it's definitely better than Haul out the Holly, but I won't be watching this again most likely.

Rating: ★★★☆☆
Genre: Scifi, dystopian
Date watched: November 28, 2024
Length: 1 hour 22 minutes

Thoughts: Tbh I'm glad that I saw a bunch of videos of people's thoughts and stuff on tiktok about this film when it first came out. I feel like it gave me a pretty realistic way of looking at it, and stuff to think about as I was watching it. One caveat too is that I've never read the books so I have no idea how it compares to those. Though it did confirm something for me - that I'm not totally imagining this feeling I get when I watch a lot of adapted materials. Which is feeling like the pacing is completely off and that everything feels weirdly simplified. Complex topics are dumbed down to a couple lines of dialogue. It feels like the characters and the world don't have room to breathe and everything just keeps happening one after the other because the director and writers (I assume) feel like they need to hit XYZ plot points so they speed through everything to make sure they're getting everything.... Anyway, that's how I felt here lol. I always thought I felt this way because I knew what was supposed to happen and that any adaptation would feel shitty in comparison. But yeah... I think it's just adaptatations that really suck nowadays (minus Dune. I'm obsessed with those movies. And Twilight, and LOTR (minus Faramir's character assassination!!)).

Okay that all being said lol, I didn't mind it overall! I had a major crush on Shay throughout (well before she got her Pretty surgery anyway lol), and tbh I thought she and Tally had more chemistry than Tally had with anyone else >__> But that's not the main point lol... Overall, the topic felt very fitting and like most dystopian novels I think it reflects a lot of the uglier (hehe) aspects of our society. I know a lot of people critiqued it saying "why did they choose attractive actors to play the uglies?" but I feel like that's the entire point. We have so many celebrities and people in general who are perfectly gorgeous the way they are, but there's so much messaging out there telling us that we're ugly, hideous creatures who need to be perfect at all times. So people get plastic surgery and botox and filler and starve themselves, go on dagnerous diets, or take ozempic and all of that just to feel attractive. And then the cycle repeats itself because there will always be a new flaw, a new thing to "fix," especially as we age. Everything felt a little on the nose and I kind of wish that they were a bit more subtle with some of the messaging, but oh well.

All in all though I thought that the concept was interesting and the execution was a bit meh. I'd definitely watch the sequel though if they come out with more.

Rating: ★✭☆☆☆
Genre: Holiday, m/w romance
Date watched: November 27, 2024
Length: 1 hour 24 minutes

Thoughts: It's the time of year for shitty Christmas movies! I've been watching a few for the last couple weeks but this is the first one I'm going to talk about on here. Man, this was basically an hour and a half but it felt like it lasted forever. The entire movie felt really weird and I kept wondering if maybe there was some magical element to it with how bizarre everyone was acting (there wasn't). The romance also just felt off as well. I felt more chemistry between the main characters when they were kids versus how they acted as adults. I was surprised when the main character (I literally cannot remember any names now) at the end was like "kiss me!" because up until that point I didn't see any romantic tension at all. Like yeah there were a couple moments when the male lead was hinting at liking her, but I didn't get the sense that she cared or liked him as more than a friend. So... yeah. I also felt like her "transition" from someone who felt indifferent/a little bitter about Christmas to somehow finding the Christmas spirit wasn't done well either. More like I think I just wanted to see a more drastic change in how she felt about Christmas. She went from being somewhat annoyed by it, but still doing Christmasy things out of an obligation to her parents, to having fun. Anyway... it's a Hallmark movie so I don't expect high quality lol. I just kinda wish it was more enjoyable. Definitely won't watch again next Christmas.

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