Kinda Pregnant

2025 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 40min

Comedy

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.

The Watchers

2024 Warner Brothers Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 41min

Horror ~ Fantasy ~ Thriller

Directed by: Ishana Night Shyamalan

Starring: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré and Oliver Finnegan.

“You can’t see them, but they see everything.”

Dakota Fanning stars as Mina, an American Artist working in an exotic pet shop in Galway, Ireland. A customer has bought the Golden Conure Parrot and the owner asks Mina to deliver the parrot to the zoo that bought it in Belfast. The GPS takes her through an uncharted forest in western Ireland and on a narrow one lane dirt path, her car and the GPS suddenly quit working. Thinking she saw someone, she grabs the birdcage and heads into the woods to find help. She comes across a woman who suddenly takes off running and Mina follows her. Mina catches up just in time to see the woman in the door of a large concrete bunker say “You better hurry, it’s almost dark and they will be coming.”

Mina makes it inside safely as the woman closes the huge metal door and locks the numerous bolts that secure the door. Mina looks around at the concrete bunker and notices that one wall is completely glass, floor to ceiling. There is also a young man and a girl with the woman Mina had followed. The Older woman introduces herself as Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), and the young woman and man as Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). She tells Mina that they must hurry and line up in front of the window, they will be here soon. “Who? Who will be here soon? What is going on?”, Mina wants to know, but then she hears them. The Watchers have come….

Who are The Watchers you ask? I dare not tell you for it would ruin it for you. I can’t say anymore without giving anything away except maybe….It is an uncharted spooky forest in Ireland and there is a bit of Irish Folklore at hand. I am fond of Ireland, I have American and Irish ancestry. Although given the current state in America it might be time to leave and go to Ireland, but that is political talk not meant for a movie review. I liked the scenery and the way the forest was portrayed as a very spooky forbidden place. Lots of fog creeping in amongst the trees as the night comes. There are a lot of twists and turns you don’t see coming, and you don’t put it all together until the end. I think Dakota Fanning and the rest of the cast did a good job. I think the parrot could have had a bigger role. I can see how he might have been put to more use to add some suspense after finding out he could talk.

I liked the story, it is based on the book The Watchers by A.M. Shine. A bit of Irish Folklore with a Horror twist. It was directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan who also produced the movie. It is Ishana’s Directorial debut, after reading the book she thought that it would translate well to the screen and decided to direct it with the help of her father. I think that it is a good first attempt, it kept me going right up until the end. The end was kind of anti-climatic for me. I haven’t read the book so I don’t know if the book is that way as well. It felt like a bit of a let-down after the build-up to the end.

So to sum everything up, I liked it. I thought it was a great first attempt for Ishana. Could it have been better, I think so. There were some obvious things that could have given it more depth and to tie things together a little better. The ending was a bit of a let-down, I think that could have been handled differently to really make the ending zing.(You know….ZING!) I will say I liked it more then her father’s movie Knock At The Cabin. I think it is worth a watch, give it a go and tell me what you think.

Gladiator II

2024 Paramount Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 2 hr 28min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Drama ~ Epic ~ History

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen, and Denzel Washington.

“The gates of hell are open night and day, smooth the descent and easy is the way.”

Gladiator II starts out with animated painted scenes of Gladiator, like a mini recap of the first movie. The story begins:

16 YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF MARCUS AURELIUS,

HIS “DREAM OF ROME” HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN.

UNDER THE TYRANNY OF TWIN EMPORERS

GETA AND CARACALLA, CORRUPTION FLOURISHES.

THEIR RUTHLESS AGGRESSION SPREADS LIKE A PLAGUE

THROUGHOUT THE EMPIRE.

THE FALL OF THE CITY IS IMMINENT.

ONLY THE HOPES OF THOSE WHO STILL DARE TO DREAM REMAIN…

NUMIDIA 200 AD: The Roman forces are approaching from the sea, led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal). The Kingdom prepares for battle, Hanno (Paul Mescal) and his wife Arishat suit up and take their places along the fortress walls. The roman ships approach the fortress walls and breach the hold, eventually conquering the Numidia Kingdom. Arishat, Hanno’s wife is killed and Hanno and the other male survivors are taken as slaves. They are taken to the Port of Rome where they are forced into the arena to fight large Baboons with long fangs. Hanno survives by savagely killing the baboons and is closely watched by…….

Macrinus (Denzel Washington) who has a stable of Gladiators and is always looking for the “One”. Macrinus has an ambition to de-throne the twins and become Emperor himself. Macrinus recruits Hanno to fight for him and tells him that if he wins enough fights for him, he will get Hanno close enough to General Acacius to exact his revenge for his wife’s death. Just like Maximus in the first movie, Acacius returns to Rome a hero and the twin Emperors call for games in the Coliseum to honor the General’s victory. The General re-unites with his wife Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and hatches a plan with Lucilla and the Senators to overthrow the twin Emperors.

And the journey to dethrone the Emperors is on, Macrinus on one side and General Acacius, Lucilla and the Senators on the other. Hanno, we find out later, has another name and ties to Lucilla and Maximus. He fights in the Coliseum for his freedom and a chance to kill General Acacius under the guidance of Macrinus. There are a lot of plots at play here and you have to pay close attention to who is doing what for which aim. It is truly an Epic film, from the very first battle scene to the games in the coliseum, it is grandiose in spectacle.

Is it better than the original? I don’t think you can touch the original with Russell Crowe, it is a classic. 25 years later this movie follows the storyline 16 years after Gladiator ends, without Russell Crowe, obviously. But I think it stands on it’s own. The plot is very similar to the first, just with different characters it seems. It is supposedly based on true Roman history but I’ll just take their word for that. I liked it but I don’t think the storyline was as good as the first. But I did enjoy the ride, it is a spectacle to watch, grandiose even. The Coliseum fight scenes were way more intense and graphic, but then CGI and technology has evolved a lot in the last twenty five years.

I would recommend going back and watching Gladiator first before you watch Gladiator II. The storyline will make more sense.

Two Thumbs Up!