Work It

Rewatched Work It from a few years ago. Nothing wrong with a little dance pick me up.

3 stars (out of 5)

The Royal We

An actual Hallmark movie - and all the stereotypes held true. Two fictional European countries are feuding over a parcel of land on their border. The feud seems to have originated with some royal spat a couple generations ago. The current royals are giving a go at reconciliation in the most out-of-date royal way possible -- have the heirs wed. Heir #1 refuses and elopes for love, leaving heir #2 to pick up the slack. Turns out she is living a life of privacy in Boston running her own foundation. Cue the meetcute, hijinks, accidental fall in love -- problem solved. Not sure it is cool to say this, but don't we all just need a Hallmark romcom from time to time?

3 stars (out of 5)

Blanca (series)

This Italian series (one season - 10 episodes) features Blanca, a 20-something blind woman staring an internship at the Genoa police department. She has to deal with all the dismissiveness and stereotyping you would expect, but she makes herself useful on cases, to the point that her detective supervisor begins to trust her. In parallel, Blanca is drawn into an investigation of her own history and who killed her older sister (an event that caused Blanca's blindness). Is there such a thing as a Rom-Thrill? This is it. 

4 stars (out of 5)

Last Christmas

A 20-something is wandering aimlessly through life, unsure of her purpose in her post-heart transplant world. With a crazy family, no passion for her former passion and a truly deadend job, Kate is lost. Until she meets Tom, who is relentless in his pursuit of her and fundamentally changes her world view. A real romantic comedy that is more about coming of age and realizing what is important in life. 

3 stars (out of 5)

The Life List

When her mom passes, Alex finds at the reading of the will that she is left only a year long, life purpose scavenger hunt based on a bucket list written by her 13-year-old self. Over the course of the year, anger, grief and listlessness turns into adventure and love of life. Formulaic, but when the formula works, use it. 

3 stars (out of 5)

La Dolce Villa

Father (Eric) is a restaurant consultant so wrapped up in his work he doesn't have time for his daughter (Olivia), who is off in Europe finding herself. Both are still grieving the loss of mom. When Olivia plans to buy a 1Euro house in Italy, Eric makes the trip to stop the craziness. Of course, they find the perfect place in the perfect town with a nice, single, cute mayor and buy the house. Completely predictable romantic comedy with completely contrived plot tension... and yet enjoyable. Very "hallmark hall of fame - saturday afternoon TV" vibe. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Girl Haunts Boy

Cole moves to a new house only to find his room is haunted. This is added to the reality of his existing experience of being haunted by the memory of his recently passed dad. Fortunately, the newest haunting is a good looking girl from 1920s New York who he is able to befriend and work out some of his angst. Oh, and he gets to try to figure out how to release her from ghost-dom. Lightweight, feel good rom-com that at least doesn't fall for the 'Girl gets boy in the end' trope.

3 stars (out of 5)

Shotgun Wedding

JLo and Josh Duhamel are getting married. Madly in love, but an unlikely pairing based on family history, they choose to initiate a destination wedding in the Philippines (it is cheaper than Bali). Pirates invade the wedding and demand ransom from JLo's rich father. I guess what follows could be considered slapstick action. No real action skills or choreography is exhibited, but the wedding party is successfully taking out armed pirates. A couple of twists (well foreshadowed, so maybe just slight bends in the plot line) help things out a bit. Late night fun

3 stars (out of 5)

The Union

Berry and Wahlberg join forces as a professional spy and regular guy out to save the world. The story device uses "the union" as the novel take on an independent, extra-governmental spy agency that saves the world from bad guys. Union because the recruits are regular people with blue collar jobs. Genres of buddy cop, rom com, spy action thriller all fused into one. Somehow it mostly works. Not a work of art, but entertaining and engaging in all of its trope-y-ness. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Out of Sight

Late 1990's release: George Clooney is a serial bank robber who does all his work with charm and charisma. Of course, having robbed over 200 banks, it is inevitable that that you spend some time in prison. But that is not the life for George so he breaks out and heads straight to his next score. Unfortunately (or fortunately), during the escape he encounters US Marshal Jennifer Lopez and the chemistry is immediate. The rest of the movie is her chasing him and him chasing her. A nice little dance. Can't believe I haven't seen this before.

4 stars (out of 5)

The Family Plan

Mark Wahlberg is Dan, used car salesman and dad extrordinairre in Buffalo NY. He is the ultimate homebody and social-media avoider. Only to find out that he is a former government black-ops secret assassin. Well, we find out, the family still doesn't know. And when the bad guys come to find him, he and the family have to go on the run. So road trip to Vegas. Nothing novel, but fun. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Ghosted

Romantic Action Comedy, leaning more to action than comedy. Think Romancing the Stone, Knight and Day, etc. Chris Evans is a classic 30-something, ever-single guy living at home and helping out dad on the farm, putting his own life on hold. He meets Art Ana de Armas for a 24 hours first date/one night stand and the chemistry is sparking. And then she ghosts him. So he follows her on a whim (the encouragement of mom Amy Sedaris) to London...where he gets mistaken for a secret agent and finds that de Armas is actually the secret agent. So they spend the movie keeping the chemistry boiling and saving the world. Fun.

4 stars (out of 5)

Genie

Melissa McCarthy is a Genie (Flora) who is let out of her box by Paapa Essiedu (Bernard). Bernard is loosing his family and his job and so Flora comes at just the right time. Of course, as with all Genies, good intentions don't quite work out right so Bernard ends up in some hot water. But in the end, it all works out and we get a happily ever after, as we should in a holiday rom-com. 

4 stars (out of 5)

Plus One at an Amish Wedding

Stereotypes and predicability to spare. A New York doctor meets a New York veterinarian and after some dating, she (doctor) gets invited to accompany him (vet) to his brothers wedding. Just so happens he is (was) Amish and has some family issues to deal with. We see the struggle, the mistrust, the requisite doctor saves someone, everyone makes up. But the flat characterization of all the Amish -- oh my.

2 stars (out of 5)

Passengers

This has been on my list for a long time and never came available on any of my services. A colony ship is in transit to a remote planet. This planet is far away (100 years travel, ship already traveling at 50% speed of light {don't get me started}). All the passengers and crew are in bio-hibernation for the duration of the trip, with the ship itself auto-piloting, auto-repairing, etc. Traveling through an asteroid field at some point overloads the shields, causes a failure and wakes up one passenger, Chris Pratt. After over a year of living alone and nearly ending his life, he wakes up another passenger Jennifer Lawrence, having fell in love with her bio. They live happily ever after... actually, the psychological impact of effectively being sentences to a living death by the only other person in your universe is sort of address. But then bigger problems come around and the entire ship needs to be saved. I don't think this film knew what it wanted to be. A dark psychological trauma/relationship film, or a space action film. It tries to do both, so does neither excellently. But to be fair, does both adequately.

3 stars (out of 5)

While You Were Sleeping

Still good 

5 stars (out of 5)

The Lost City

Modern version of Romancing the Stone. If you have any idea what that movie is, you will likely appreciate this as much as you did that. Sandra Bullock is a romance novelist nee intellectual who is really an archaeologist and writing actual archaeology into her novels. When she finally has had enough, she is kidnapped by Harry Potter, and eventually rescued by Magic Mike (who was the cover model for her romance books). Mid-level romcom.

3 stars (out of 5)

Bridgerton (serial)

Season 2

Last season followed the high society Bridgerton's as eldest daughter Daphne was pursing marriage. This season it is eldest son Anthony, who is duty bound to marry and carry on the family name. And that duty bound nature becomes the theme of the season. Follow duty - or seek true love? The women of the family seem to think you have have both. Anthony is so repressed that he refuses to consider true love. The other boys are released from duty as "not the eldest" and so seek their passion as men of leisure. The love interests are a pair of sisters that represent these choices of love v duty, and at the same time mesh with the subplot involving Eloise and Penelope, starting an exploration of class (which I think is foreshadowing a main theme in a future season). 

3 stars (out of 5)

The Princess Bride

It still stands alone among giants. 

5 stars (out of 5)

A Map of Tiny Perfect Things

Teen rom-com version of Groundhog Day. Mark has been living the same day for quite awhile and enjoys helping different people out every day. Then one day he encounters Margaret, who is also living the same day repeatedly. So they strike up a friendship and go about showing each other the perfect moments they have discovered (stand in a certain place at a certain time and see confluence of events that is perfect). They start to map these (and presumably make the map new every day), a tesseract is involved and a kiss of course as they work out if they want to move on and if so,  how to do it. Cute, charming rom-com.

3 stars (out of 5)