Luckylyn

Searching - Reformatting the Thriller

I’m not hating it but some of the exposition has been clunky. I’m intrigued enough to keep going. The actors have been really great so far. I was ridiculously happy to see Patty the Daytime Hooker from My Name is Earl appear in this episode.

Help For the Holidays is my vote for worst movie. It’s shockingly sexist and judges the Mom so harshly. There’s a scene where she’s rushing through traffic and trying hard to get to her son’s basketball game but misses it. They are so nasty to her for that meanwhile the Dad who made no effort at all to show up gets no anger from anyone . Both parents work long hours in their store but the movie treats the mom like the bad guy. I like the cast but despise the movie.

I appreciated that the documentary highlights the locals who were abandoned without being paid. Then there are the Fyre employees who had nothing to do with the festival and only the app that got ruined. So many people focus on mocking the wealthy attendees that got screwed over that they forget that people who couldn’t afford the loss were harmed. The Fyre employees that saw the clusterfuck coming weren’t in a good position because the boss didn’t want to hear the truth. The engineer got fired for refusing to tell Billy what he wanted to hear. That one employee talked about hanging on just to get the final part of his salary that the company was withholding until after the festival. I feel like he should have figured out that his ever getting the full amount was unlikely considering how much of a mess and money drain the planning was. Plus even if he was certain he would get paid he knew others were going to be screwed over. I do appreciate he wrote an email pointing out the logical reasons to cancel and how he was ignored. At least one employee was an informant providing pictures and info about the mess in advance but not enough people listened. So much attention is focused on Billy who is basically a con artist who created a situation that for the first time in his life he couldn’t B.S. his way out of it. I’m curious about his business partner Ja Rule and how much he was involved. Was Ja Rule unaware of the bad situation? Was he only involved in promotion leaving everthing else to Billy?

It’s amazing to see the absolute refusal of the people in charge to see that it couldn’t work. Doing stuff like firing the engineer who is pointing out logistical problems rather than take his advice. That one employee who told them to cancel the event because going through with it and trapping people in a place that doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle it is worse than the bad publicity from cancelling getting a reply that completely ignored his valid points (talking about showing off his yoga skills). It was this trainwreck so many people saw coming, and it just couldn’t be stopped. Somehow they thought they would pull it off at the last minute if they just kept going. I know nothing about planning something like this and even I know that the first thing you plan for before publicity and bookings is infrastructure. People need food, plumbing, and a comfortable place to sleep. Like the enginner said plan for bathrooms first before booking the models. They booked people without first assessing realistically how many people would be able stay on the site. They targeted the luxury audience charging huge fees and had no clue how to deliver what was promised. People booked villas and got soaking wet tents instead. I’d be pissed about that kind of bait and switch. Even the timeline of weeks to plan when they had no experience with this kind of event was shockingly naive. Like one guy said experienced event organizers take at least a year to plan a festival.

I hate the woman is infertile after having an abortion trope.

A Christmas For The Books was okay and reminded me so much of Pixl’s Romantically Speaking where a radio show host who spoke on air about her perfect boyfriend has to find a fake boyfriend when the supposedly perfect one dumps her. Except her best friend was the fake boyfriend in that one. There was also Hallmark’s The Convient Groom where a blogger who specializes in romantic advice needs a fake fiance when her guy breaks up with her minutes before the very public engagment announcement. The Convient Groom is the one I like best of that bunch. I didn’t like Romantically Speaking.

On youtube someone posted the police bodycam footage from when Chris Watts family was missing and analyses the body language. It’s clear the police were suspicious early on because of Chris’ total lack of urgency to find out where his family was, but they don’t telegraph it to him just letting him get enough rope to hang himself. This case really shows the value of bodycam footage. Because a police offer can state his interpretation of a suspects demeanor, words, and actions and the defense can claim they are wrong or exaggerating but the bodycam footage makes the actual events of that day really clear in a way that’s difficult to argue with. We can see exactly what’s said, in what tone, and the body language.

Mr. Roberts “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!”

I don’t think Jon and Ashley had an affair. I think we’ll find out that Ashley misinterpreted Jon’s intentions when he lead her into that apartment. We’ll probably get an extended version of the ending scene where Jon pulls away from Ashley’s kiss and confides some other secret. I just think the writers are playing with us.

Pose - Home

I really loved it. The audience had a strong reaction, clapping when it was over.

I love the running joke of Yukio and Wade greeting each other so pleasantly regardless of circumstances and hope it continues in the next movie.

That’s one of my all time favorites. I also love the dancing scene.

All of Doug’s actions are ultimately selfish because he’s focused on getting points to get into The Good Place. Nothing he does is really altruistic. Still the point system seems too rigid. There’s no room for improvement or forgiveness of mistakes.

I wasn’t into Christmas with a View. The Holiday Calendar movie was more engaging.

I always thought Sixteen Going on Seventeen was designed to make the audience roll their eyes at him because he’s acting like a “know it all” and is still a kid himself. I thought it was mocking paternalism.

I used the software that came with my PC (Windows Movie Maker)

I remember one youtube commenter saying that Kylo had a hero’s background and Rey had a villian’s background. That it made it more interesting that he’s a villian because he’s had every good opportunity and still turned out evil while Rey had nothing but still chose good. Kylo came from a heroic family and had so much love. He saw the love of his family as a flaw he needed to get rid of because power is ultimately what matters to him. So, I agree he comes off as a petculant brat whose power allows him to do serious damage as he seeks his selfish goals. He doesn’t care about any ideology and just wants to be the most powerful person in control of everything. The trilogy started to push the idea that Kylo’s choices were becasue of Snoke’s influence, but The Last Jedi eliminated that excuse when Kylo killed Snoke and made it clear he just wants to be the most powerful. There is no tragic sob story in his past to somehow make his choices understandable which I think makes him a more interesting villian. In real life people who came from good families grow up to do inexplicably evil things which confuses people because I think society wants to believe that something horrible had to happen to make a person do something horrible. Sometimes, there is no pat explanation, and a person just did something horrific because they simply wanted to.

Bad Times at the El Royale - The movie was great and the hotel itself was such a great setting. There were some unaswered questions that left room for more stories. I think a tv show prequel set during the hotels busy period would be really interesting. I’d love to learn more about exactly who “management” is. The show could combine long term stories involving the staff and management and also one episode stories about the guests who stay at the hotel.

@aradia22 My theory for why she

I really enjoyed this. Regarding Ally’s mother, I thought it was implied she was an alcoholic during that scene when she talks to her dad after Jack’s driver shows up to take her to his concert and she initially refused. She said something like Jack’s a drunk and her father should know how that would work out. I thought that meant her mother had a drinking problem but I could be reading too much into that. I was wondering what Ally’s dad meant when he siad maybe it’s his fault after Jack’s Grammy meltdown. His fault because he encouraged the romance or his fault because maybe he enabled Ally’s mother’s drinking setting a poor example for Ally to follow. Comparing A Star is Born

@aradia22 I just saw The Wedding Plan last weekend on Amazon Video and really enjoyed it. I liked that although she was determined to get married she wasn’t so desperate to change who she was to try to fit some mold to find a guy. On her dates, she asked pointed questions and her answers to her suitors’ questions were surprisingly straightforward and honest. It was clear that although marriage was vitally important to her she wasn’t going to marry just anyone who proposed. The culture she grew up in makes marriage a huge deal and there’s a lot a pressure to find someone before you are percieved to be passed by. There’s this vibe that a woman’s life is not complete unless she finds a partner, and I appreciated her struggle because it was clear how sick she was of the search for someone. Her tying her search for a groom to her religious belief was an interesting element to the story. It added an extra level of pressure, and I kept think of when the Rabi asked her about what would happen to her faith if there was no groom. The movie managed to be really suspensful, and I was really unsure how it would all turn out for her. The director of The Wedding Plan made another film I love titled Fill the Void where a woman is pressured by her family to marry her brother in law after her sister dies inorder to make sure the grandson stays close to the family. The ending is interestingly ambiguous in that you aren’t sure if she’s okay with her choice or not. I will say the chemistry between the lead and her brother in law is amazing. I was really torn about what she should do because her mother was pressuring her so much on the one hand and on the other there really did seem to be a genuine spark between her and the brother in law. This movie really showcases how much pressure the women have on them to get married in their culture but still the women aren’t powerless. It’s clear that despite the pressure on her she can refuse.

Anatomy of a scene