Movies -- A Recap -- Part XIII -- The Romance/Romantic Comedy Edition

There are times that S and I are appalled by the other's failure to have partaken in a particular piece of pop culture.  As a recent example of this, I was shocked to find that S had never seen Pretty Woman.  What a classic in the careers of all the mains - Julia Roberts as Vivian, Richard Gere as Edward, and Jason Alexander as the sleazy friend.  Of course, I cannot pass this by without giving a shout-out to Hector Elizando, whom I adore equally in his roles in Tortilla Soup and The Princess Diaries. (Fun fact - Hector also starred with Julia and Richard in Runaway Bride.) 

 

I didn't know what to expect from Cloudburst, but I adored it.  Two old ladies, nearing the ends of their lives, face the difficulties of aging together.  It's sweet and thoughtful, and gets just enough edge from the old ladies' seasoned attitudes towards life and the world to keep it funny and on this side of melancholy.

 

 

 

 Hampstead is exactly what it presents itself to be.  Diane Keaton and Brandon Gleeson each play characters who seem, at this point in their careers, to be themselves.  Diane's character is left with nothing but debts, and Brandon's character is a crotchety old man living on the outside of society.  Mostly it gets huge brownie points from me because of all the London that's in it.  Can't get enough of that, especially since it's based on a true story!

 

 

 We saw a movie a while back that had a similar general plot as Weekenders, where two couples got stuck in an apartment outside of New York during a terrible storm.  Weekenders was way better.  In Weekenders, a couple, a guy, and the guy's brand new date end up at the same B&B due to a scheduling mix-up.  Though of course there are the expected troubles between the couple, the whole structure around that disaster is cute.  It's not winning any Oscars, but it's a nice mix of the expected and the unexpected, like the following quote: "I used to have the route patterns of all my favorite trails memorized. I could run four miles with my eyes closed.  But now, if you asked me the color of the apartment building across the street from mine, I don't think I could tell you."  Haven't we all felt that way sometimes?

I could include Yesterday in a post about musicals, if I were writing one.  Since I'm not, I'll include it here.  But first and foremost I have to say that the Beatles music throughout really makes this movie.  Reportedly, Himesh Patel did all his own signing and playing in the film; huge props to him for that.  Second to the rockin' soundtrack is the fact that it's a pretty sweet movie starting two young actors I like - Himesh I had not seen in anything before; Lily James I saw in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Downton Abbey, both of which I probably liked more than is reasonable.  So this one gets points from me.  Oh, maybe I could tell you about the story -- after an accident, Jack (Himesh) wakes up and realizes that no one but him remembers the Beatles, and his struggling music career takes off.  Can we come back to the music one more time?