The Idea Of You

2024 Amazon Prime Video

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 55min

Comedy ~ Drama ~ Romance

Starring: Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine.

“I was just making sure it was you…….and not the idea of you.”

Here is the synopsis from Amazon MGM Studios Website:

Based on the acclaimed, contemporary love story of the same name, The Idea Of You centers on Solène (Anne Hathaway), a 40 year old single Mom who begins an unexpected romance with 24 year old Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the lead singer of August Moon, the hottest boy band on the planet. When Solène must step in to chaperone her daughter’s trip to the Coachella Music Festival after her ex bails at the last minute, she has a chance encounter with Hayes and there is an instant undeniable spark. As they begin a whirlwind romance, it isn’t long before Hayes’ superstar status poses unavoidable challenges to their relationship, and Solène soon discovers that life in the glare of his spotlight might be more than she bargained for.

Here are some things I didn’t know about the movie before I watched:

The Movie is based on the the First Novel written by Robinne Lee The Idea Of You. According to Michelle Ruiz in Vogue Magazine, the book has achieved an almost cult like following by readers who refer to themselves as HAYSOLNUTS.

Michelle writes:

“The Idea of You isn’t just a book, but a novelistic manifesto for middle-aged female readers. Though released in 2017, it became “the sleeper hit of the pandemic,” as I wrote for Vogue in 2020, powered by a passionate, dominantly female word-of-mouth campaign. People who love The Idea of You do so with borderline unhealthy obsessiveness. We lose sleep reading it on weeknights. We join Facebook groups about it. We re-read it and binge the audiobook narrated by Lee, a veteran actress who nails all the accents in her velvety voice. There’s even a name for us: Haysolnuts.”

Here’s what I thought about the movie:

I passed on watching this a couple of times in favor of something I thought would be better, thinking, “Oh, I’ll watch it eventually, I’m probably not really gonna like it being it looks like a Love Story.” But I am an Anne Hathaway fan, probably the biggest reason I chose to watch it. She did not disappoint. The movie did not disappoint. I got caught up in the story immediately. I felt the characters and the story right away. I became fully invested emotionally, feeling everything they were feeling. It made me want what they found, that indescribable thing, that instant connection.

If you’ve ever felt it, you know it’s rare and overwhelming. I loved every minute of this movie. I loved Anne Hathaway, I loved Solène, I loved Hayes Campbell and I loved how they met. I could feel the drama of the consequences of their relationship and the struggle to stay with what felt right to the heart. I loved Solène’s Subaru Outback, Her Craftsman Style “Starter Home” and August Moon, the whole story. I realize now that the book ends differently than the movie, even though I have yet to read the book, but I loved how it ended. I just loved this movie and everything about it. Yes I would watch it again.

I just can’t say enough about it, yes you should watch it…

In fact I highly recommend it, wholeheartedly…..

What are you waiting for?

The Idea Of You Book by Robinne Lee

Kinda Pregnant

2025 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 40min

Comedy

Directed by: Tyler Spindel

Starring: Amy Schumer, Urzila Carlson, Jillian Bell, Brianne Howey, and Will Forte.

“Lying Like A Mother!”

This is Netflix’s description of the movie:

A fake baby bump spawns chaos in this rollicking comedy about a Brooklyn teacher trapped in a pregnancy lie after finding love.

Romantic Comedy Movie, Comedy Movie, Romantic Comedy

Amy Schumer plays a 40 something teacher named Lainey with a boyfriend. When her lifelong married BFF gets pregnant, she is a little jealous because Amy thought she would be the first to get married and have kids. When she accompanies her BFF to a maternity store she sees a fake baby bump and goes into the dressing room to try it out. Deciding she is going to play the part of being pregnant for awhile, she buys the baby bump. Which obviously leads to getting caught in a pregnant lie as she can’t keep the truth from eventually spilling out.

Kinda like dropping a deep fried turkey out between your legs when people are staring at you thinking you are pregnant. Literally, that is how we find out in the movie. Kid you not. The first half of the movie is the same dumb pregnant humor, then it gets serious. Amy Schumer looks into Will Forte’s eyes and recites a poem, The Kiss by Anne Sexton:

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like musical instruments. Where there was silence the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this. Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped into fire.

Then Will kisses Amy. It felt like it was supposed to be a serious dramatic romantic moment, but it was a little confusing as up to that point, everything had been dumb comedy. Almost like slapstick from the very beginning and then…..BAM it’s a romance….Not. From then on it seems to center on Will and Amy becoming romantically involved very quickly, never mind that she’s pregnant. While she is doing her best to hide the truth about not being pregnant. It seemed like after the truth, I mean Turkey is dropped, it became very serious. Like now it’s not a comedy, it’s a romantic drama.

It was just ok. Not the rollicking comedy I was expecting, especially given Amy Schumer and Will Forte of SNL fame. I personally think that the star of the movie was Urzila Carlson. She is a comic from New Zealand who has become very popular in New Zealand and Australia. I thought she was the best part of the whole movie. Hilarious! She should have got top billing for that performance, way funnier than Amy. I can’t wait to see more of Urzila Carlson.

Should you watch it? I can’t really recommend it. It just wasn’t that good.

You’re Cordially Invited

2025 Amazon MGM Studios

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 49min

Comedy

Directed by: Nicholas Stoller

Starring: Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Geraldine Viswanathan, Stony Blyden and Meredith Hagner.

“And we can rely on each other, ah ha. From one lover to another, ah ha.”

When I saw the trailer I knew it was a comedy, even though it centers around two weddings. I saw where some have referred to it as a Rom-Com……that it is not. I like will Ferrell and you have to love Reese Witherspoon, so I was excited to see a brand new streaming movie that featured the two of them together. Will Ferrell is playing Jim, a widowed father raising his young adult daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) by himself. Jenni comes home from college and tells him that she is getting married to her boyfriend Oliver (Stony Blyden), who just happened to come home with her.

Jim is less than thrilled and after coming to terms with the fact his daughter wants to get married, calls the resort where he and his wife had gotten married. The elderly lady that owns the resort still remembers Jim and she assures him that she will hold his reservation without a card (as he is considered family), and unbeknownst to Jim, as he hangs up, she drops dead of a heart attack. The pen she was using ran out of ink and she collapsed before she could get another one. But Jim, Jenni, Oliver and Jenni’s girlfriends make plans for the wedding at the resort the following year not knowing there is no reservation written down for them.

Margo (Reese Witherspoon) has just been informed by her baby sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) that she is pregnant and she is getting married to her boyfriend Dixon (Jimmy Tatro). Margo insists that she wants to pay for the wedding and calls the resort on the island where her Grandma used to live. Margo uses her credit card and makes a reservation for the same weekend as Jim, whose name is not on the books. Margo and Neve make plans for the whole family to join them at the resort for the wedding.

And that’s where the real comedy starts as Margo and Jim both show up on the island at the same time with their entourages, wondering who the other people are that are there. There is only room enough on the resort for one wedding at a time and two wedding parties have shown up! It was pretty funny. I mean it is exactly what you think it’s going to be. Funny, goofy, a little dumb, with lots of fighting and escapades between Jim and Margo as they try to assert their wedding over the other. The chemistry between Will and Reese was ok in a comedic way. But there was no romance between the two, they just don’t go together in that way.

There was a ton of music in the film, with a surprise karaoke version of Islands In The Stream. Stay tuned in at the end as the credits roll because there is more to be seen! Peyton Manning, Nick Jonas and Bobby Moynihan from Saturday Night Live all have a cameo in the movie. SO what did I think?

It was good. It was worth a watch. Definitely some laughs in there and I LOVE the alligator! Yes….I Loved the alligator. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I’ll just say this….It’s good goofy fun and worth watching, at least watch it for the alligator! I liked Will and Reese too, they seemed like they had a lot of fun with this one. Give it a go!

Saturday Night

2024 Sony Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 49min

Comedy ~ Drama ~ True Story

Directed by: Jason Reitman

Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Lorne Michaels. Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons.

“The writers are stoned, the set is on fire, the sound system is fried, the actors are physically assaulting each other, the crew is in open revolt and they have 90 minutes to figure it all out or the network is pulling the plug.”

Saturday Night is based on the true story of the 90 minutes behind the scenes leading up to the first episode of the show now called Saturday Night Live (SNL) which aired October 11,1975 at 11:30 PM. The cast was an unknown group of comedians referred to as The Not Ready For Prime Time Players. They included Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, John Belushi, George Coe, Michael O’Donoghue and Laraine Newman. The name was a direct reference to their main competition, Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. ABC’s program, which ran for only 18 episodes, was sports announcer Cosell’s stab at the comedy format.

Howard Cosell’s own rotating group of performers were called The Prime Time Players. That cast included Bill Murray, who’d go on to join NBC’s Saturday Night Live cast in 1977, and This Is Spinal Tap actor-director Christopher Guest, who eventually became an SNL season 10 cast member. The NBC show was renamed Saturday Night Live two years later after Howard Cosell’s show was canceled. SNL has had just under 1000 episodes and is currently in it’s 50th season. It has also featured over 170 cast members, a large number of whom went on to careers in film and tv.

I have been a life long SNL fan for as long as I can remember. I don’t always watch a season, sometimes it’s just not as good as I remember the show being so I pass. There are certain periods/seasons/cast in the show’s history that are just classic and very memorable. I love Weekend Update, that’s probably my favorite sketch. Well, that and the opening sketch is always the best. So when I saw this on Netflix I had to watch it. Wow, what chaos, it must have been quite the experience to have been involved in that first night.

The Cast of the First SNL Show posing at the foot of the stairs in a brick building. www.streamingmovienight.com — The First SNL Cast, The Not Ready For Prime Time Players: Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd.

The Cast of Saturday Night recreating the photo of the original SNL cast at the foot of the stairs in a brick building. www.streamingmovienight.com — The Cast of the Movie Saturday Night recreating the photo of the Not Ready For Primetime Players: Cory Michael Smith, Matt Wood, Ella Hunt, Emily Fairn, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula and Dylan O’Brien.

I don’t remember if I did watch that first show but I’m guessing that I probably did. I would have been a young teenager and loved staying up late. And I loved comedians, I was a huge fan of Flip Wilson, George Carlin and Bill Cosby to name a few. So I probably did see it but I have to say if you are going to watch the movie, I would check out the first show first. It is available on Peacock for free although you have to jump through a couple of hoops first. I enjoyed it, I thought it was a very interesting look at the drama, politics and resolve it took to make the show happen that first night.

I think they did a great job casting because the resemblances to the original cast are pretty good. And the actors did a great job mimicking the original comedians. The scenes in the original show look just like the scenes in the movie, so they did their homework.

If you are an SNL fan I highly recommend it. If you are not a fan but have an interest in the show and have seen some of the classics, it is worth watching. If you are not a fan of SNL or any of the comedians that have been on the cast or the show, I would say skip it. It’s just not going to make sense to you without the background of the show. So there you go, that’s Saturday Night!

NBC will be broadcasting the original episode Saturday February 15 at 10 PM. The next night Sunday February 16 NBC will air a three hour Prime Time Special commemorating SNL’s 50th Anniversary starting at 8 PM.

Back In Action

2025 Netflix

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 54min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Comedy ~ Family ~ Spy

Directed by: Seth Gordon

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, Kyle Chandler, and Glenn Close.

“What if Mr. and Mrs. Smith had kids?”

Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz star as Matt and Emily, Secret Agents for the CIA. Matt and Emily have done what spies aren’t supposed to do, fall in love with each other. Right before their assignment, Emily realizes she is pregnant. Their mission doesn’t go as planned and they end up on a plane fighting off the crew who turn out to be covert spies themselves. Right before the plane goes down, they share a parachute and escape, landing safely. They both agree that, since Emily is pregnant, this is the perfect time to fake their deaths. Disappear off the grid, start from scratch and build a family.

Fast forward fifteen years and they are the typical suburban family. Matt and Emily are raising their fourteen year old daughter Alice and their twelve year old son Leo. Constantly battling too much screen time on their children’s devices, juggling work and after school activities. They even drive a mini-van to soccer practices and games that Matt coaches. As they try to control Alice’s covert underage nightlife activities, their cover is blown and they are forced to take the kids into hiding with them. They head to England where Emily’s Mom Ginny (Glenn Close), a former Secret Agent for the MI6, lives on a sprawling countryside estate outside of London.

There are plenty of story twists and turns as they try to vanish again, and protect their kids. It is a familiar storyline but then aren’t all the spy movies. The agents go on an assignment to retrieve the thing the bad guy has that will disrupt the working order of our world. That’s always the mission, but this time it involves kids, and Matt and Emily love their kids. The kids are awesome on their own, they have been raised well and being a spy runs in their blood. They just don’t know it yet. I really liked McKenna Roberts as Alice, and Rylan Jackson as Leo. There is plenty of action and a few laughs as Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz hold their own on the fight floor and the acting stage.

It has been over a decade since Cameron Diaz made a movie. She had decided that she needed to focus on her personal life, raise a family, and get off the Hollywood grid. Jamie Foxx approached her with this film and she said, “If I’m going to do a movie, I’m going to do it with Jamie. No questions asked.” It was really good to see her “Back In Action”, I think she did an awesome job, kicking butt and taking names, the Cameron Diaz we all know and love. You could feel the chemistry and the love between Jamie and the kids. She can still hold her own acting and fighting. Job well done and welcome back Cameron Diaz.

I had watched Jamie Foxx’s Netflix special on Netflix What had happened was….where he talks about his medical ordeal for the first time. Very touching story, if you get the chance you should watch it. In a nutshell Jamie came down with a mysterious illness, basically his brain started hemorrhaging for no apparent reason. He almost died, was in a coma, came to but couldn’t move his body. He then spent agonizing months in rehab and physical therapy learning how to walk again. Seeing him “Back in Action”…..you want to jump up and scream YEAH! GO JAMIE!!!! Job Well Done on all accounts, and welcome back Jamie Foxx. Ya still got it!

I love the soundtrack to the fight scenes, perfect! I loved the story, I loved the action, I loved seeing Jamie and Cameron together raising kids, I could feel the love! They did everything to protect their kids and it shone through in the movie. I didn’t pay much attention to what the bad guy was up to or the device he wanted, a mere subplot behind the parents fighting for their family and their kids.

Yes, yes and yes. I can’t wait to watch it again, and I just know there’s a sequel coming…BRING IT ON!

Highly Recommended!

Two Thumbs up!