TV: Yellowstone Season 2 (2019)***

John Dutton: If you find anything call the sheriff. We want everything by the book.
Kayce: I don’t know the book.
John Dutton: That’s why you call the sheriffs. It’s their book.

Despite this hilarious exchange, Yellowstone season 2 is not a comedy. At some points this show is as cheesy as I imagine a Hallmark-style drama would be, but especially, in this season, Yellowstone showed its good bones with good storytelling.
In season 2, the enemies that formed in season 1 have to come together to defeat a common foe. Plotting, assault, murder, militias, an armed posse, masked mercenaries and kidnapping abound.
Kevin Costner plays, John Dutton, the patriarch of the Dutton family, who at times struggles with being a good parent and ruthlessly keeping control of the ranch and land his family has owned in Montana for many years.
Cole Hauser plays Rip, the Dutton's ranch manager, and his scenes are the best. I've seen him on TV and in movies here and there, but in my mind his most memorable role is in Dazed and Confused, that is until Yellowstone. Hauser is impressive in this role as he has to go from cutthroat right-hand man in ranch-related matters to an orphan-born-of-a-violent-past longing for a father, then to a man standing by the woman he loves despite not being able to love her openly. Hauser carries this season.
Jaime Dutton, the sniveling and brooding son of John Dutton, is played by Wes Bentley. His scenes are the cheesiest and his storyline is almost detracting from the rest of the story. He is trying to be serious, but in TV reality, he's just a hot mess with several big secrets that are haunting him.
I finished watching Yellowstone season 2 and I was pleased. Season 1 was okay, but I'm invested and excited to see what happens next. I give it three stars*** because I want to continue watching and I wouldn't mind rewatching episodes of season 2. Read my review of season 1 here.
I checked DVDs of Yellowstone season 2 out from the library.

TV: Unforgotten Series 1 - 3****

Not another crime show with a brooding detective or wreckless-lucky one, Unforgotten is a three season series (I just heard another season is in production) about a special unit that works on unsolved over-10-year-old murder cases and features the unit’s two two lead detectives, Cassie Stuart and Sunny Khan. Each season we get to see the beginning to end of one investigation. Writing is tight on short-season British shows, but especially on this one that intricately manages to peel away the onion layers to a whodunnit within the short series while managing to be jam packed with plot twists and very complicated persons-of-interest eliminations. Lots of twists and turns in the crime solving game are padded with the interesting and not distracting personal lives of Detectives Stuart and Khan, which overlap at times. The acting is superb, Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaksarv give the roles such depth and bring an emotional range that I’m not sure has been matched on any American show, in my humble opinion. This show was strong for three seasons and ended on a good note, so I'm apprehensive, but hopeful about the future.

If you can't tell, I really like Unforgotten, the stories, acting and overall atmosphere is thoroughly engaging. The music is notably good, too. I'm giving Unforgotten Series 1 - 3 four stars****. I will have no problem watching this again or recommending it to others. It could eventually find itself on my favorites list. 

I first watched Unforgotten on live PBS, but eventually caught up on Amazon. 

Theme song

Soundtrack from Series 2 (Beautiful and haunting!)

Movie: Knives Out (2019)***

Knives Out is a classic whodunit story (A mansion house, a gaggle of devious characters/suspects, an unsolved murder, plot twists and a detective who puts it all together). What makes this this film stand out is:

a) It is set in modern day. Go ahead and throw out your period costumes. We have on-screen texting, cell phones and laptops. 

b) There is a main character in this ensemble cast and it is not the detective.

Overall, I love a whodunit. It brought back all those Mystery! episodes (Before it became Masterpiece Mystery) with Poirot and Ms. Marple that I used to watch on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. The soundtrack really hit the mark with mystery and twisting plots and sounds great on its own as well. 

The overacting that is specific to whodunit mysteries is well done with an excellent cast, except for one bit: Benoit LeBlanc was miscast. I don’t think Daniel Craig properly carried the character of the detective. As written, LeBlanc seemed to be a cross between the Southern-charming, but perceptive Matlock and the confidence and tenacity of  Poirot. Unfortunately, Craig couldn’t smooth out the icing that brought the layers of the LeBlanc cake together. In certain scenes, I feel like he pulls you out of the moment, but thank goodness the rest of the production is so good, you get pulled right back in. Even if the writers hadn’t even consciously thought of it, LeBlanc was written for Kevin Spacey.

I give this movie three stars***. I hope to watch it again, it was fun and a great movie to look at, but I am disappointed with the detective. 

Movie: Ford v Ferrari (2019)***

This was a movie movie. I don't have a term for it right now, but its the kind of movie that reminds me the movies in the 80s and 90s. They were all-around good, with good acting, production and writing. You're drawn into the movie and lose the actors in their characters. Ford vs Ferrari was one of those.

Apparently in the 60s Ford cars were doing terrible, so they decided to try to include race cars in their image. They employed Damon's character to help usher in the vroom vroom. He hires Bale's character as a race driver to compete in the Le Mans 24-hour race. Ford's new second-in-charge throws money wrenches in along the way.

Damon and Bale were fantastic. The action sequences were enthralling. The story left me with a good feeling.

This gets three stars***. Its a good and quality film, but its not a favorite and I'm not sure how often I'll have the urge to watch it, again.

I watched this movie in theater.

Movie: Ad Astra (2019)***

Totally illogical story: If this is the future and humans have been in space for a while, why were so many things fraught with human technical error?

• Why would you try to pass through a war zone in an unarmored vehicle?
• Why was the captain of the Mars ship so panicky? Was that his first official flight?
• Why did they continue to go deeper into the distress-call ship if no one was responding?
• Can anyone explain the baboons?
• Why did they send Brad Pitt's character all the way to Mars to essentially send out voicemails to his father?
• Why did they send a son to contact the father he hadn't seen for over 30 years and expect the son not to have an emotional reaction?
• Why did the nuclear warhead crew freak out and try to fight Brad Pitt's character and essentially kill themselves?
• Why did Brad Pitt's character not predict his dad was going to try to get away?
• Why were the tablets and personal devices made of clear glass? So easy to lose!

Once you get past the illogical errors in story and set-up, you can see a beautifully shot movie that was well acted. Brad Pitt carried the story so much that those illogicalities were bits of dust on an otherwise clean floor. His character is known for being able to control his reactions so that he remains calm, and able to make clear decisions even in the many high-stress situations that come up during the film. Tommy Lee Jones plays the mentally-fraught-and-obsessive-to the-point-of-murder father, and is impressive even in the few on-screen minutes we get to see him. I would argue that the soundtrack was also amazing in getting across the emotions and emotional control of Brad Pitt's character as well as setting up those high-stress and anxiety situations. Well done.

I give this movie three stars*** on the masterpiece end of the scale. Its good in many ways, but I was lost and all-too focused on the illogicalities. It was fun, but I don't have to watch it again.

I streamed this movie from Amazon.

Movie: A Royal Winter (2017)***

A Recent law school graduate goes on vacation to the fictional country of Calpurnia.  After an accidental meeting she starts getting to know a native Calpurnian guy, whom she later finds out is the soon-to-be king of Calpurnia. They both have to decide to continue going along with the life their families have planned for them or forge their own path made somewhat easier with white and class privilege. This was a cute, simple romantic tale with a small very surmountable conflict.

Romance Movie Checklist

• Cheesy or sentimental: Definitely cheesy with its predictable and simplistic story. 
• Production value: Mid-level on the Hallmark production spectrum. Costumes and personal styling was good. the sound on the disc was subpar; editing was amateur, and the indoor and outdoor locations were lovely.
• Suspension of belief: High. Royalty running around in this day and age without security?! Yeah right. 
• Trope: Secret-Royal turns Invisible Barrier of prescribed obligations 
• Diversity: A bit. The best friend who invites her along to Calpurnia is black. 
• Paranormal/ sci-fi: none
• Clownish character: none

Rating Scale: Fun; Three stars***
I checked this DVD out from the library.

Movie: Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019)

Brittany Runs a Marathon was basically an after school special about a late-twenty-something who is too fat and behind on her adulting game. She decides to get her stuff together, and ultimately run a marathon. Along the way she exposes herself and her lifestyle to the garish light of day. Her one friend is terribly unsupportive and Brittany herself did not take things seriously making for some painful to watch scenes. Then she starts to meet some better people, when those good people start to get close she effectively pushes them away. Things really turn around only after she has a turn-your-life-around-on-a-dime pep talk by a wise and insightful black person.

I'll give costuming and styling a round of applause. They made her skin looked terrible and I can’t tell if actress, Jillian Bell was padded or not so she looked genuine and I mean that in a non-insulty way. After about 15 minutes, I wanted to stop it and watch something else. I didn't like it, but something about miserable people is engaging so I trudged on. Certain aspects of Brittany's life hit home with me and I was so entertained by the scenes that included Utkarsh Ambudkar. Damn movie got me in the end. I got caught up in the motivational build-up and shed a tear or two when she falters during the marathon.

Mini rant: I'm upset and should start a hunger strike at the lack of notoriety allowed for Utkarsh Ambudkar. I remember how awesome and cute he was in Pitch Perfect and that his brief, but spectacular appearance in Blindspotting made for a great flashback sequence. I was sad when after watching Brittany Runs a Marathon on Amazon, I looked at the information page to learn more about the cast, and neither his name nor picture showed up. Same thing on the Pitch Perfect Amazon information page. How disappointing. Enjoy this Brief But Spectacular video of him being him. 

I'll give Brittany Runs a Marathon three stars*** on the fun end of the scale. It was okay. I don't necessarily need or want to watch it again, but it wasn't all bad. 

Holiday Cheese 2018 Marathon Part I: Good Cheese

Cheesy movies have a low production value, usually subpar acting and the storylines have a ton of holes and therefore require viewers to suspend some of their realistic expectations. I like cheesy, b-level romance and this is my 2nd cheesy holiday romance movie marathon. The bar is set low, but the cheese level is high. On my scale, Good Cheese falls onto the So Good It’s Bad side of the scale and is obviously fun for me. Bad Cheese is not fun. To read about 2018 bad cheese, click here. 

Good Cheese

Dashing Through the Snow- This Hallmark movie was about a professional crafter who misses her flight and decides to share a rental car with a handsome stranger heading in the same direction. There’s a Homeland Security twist to this story. Good production and acting, but the writing could have used some help. (DVD checked out from the library)

Desperately Seeking Santa- Starring Laura Vandervoort (Character actor and cheesy romance star) as an executive seeking to increase holiday sales at the mall she manages and earn herself a promotion. She contrives to hire a sexy Santa as a marketing campaign, but then she falls for him and finds a cause to stand up for. Good production and writing, but on-screen chemistry was at a minimal. I watched this with Amazon Prime.

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding- This Netflix production was spared no expense. It was really well done, top of the line cheese, complete with blooper-lined credits. We return to the story of Amber and King Richard of Aldovia who are getting ready to get married. Royal protocol keeps getting in the way of wedding bliss and to boot, there’s something fishy going on with Aldovia’s economy. Can Amber and Richard make thing s right? Of course! This is s cheesy romance. A happy ending is guaranteed! (Netflix)

Holiday Calendar- This movie was holiday Afrobubblegum: A movie about people of color that is fun and made little to no mention of race or class issues. A photographer stuck in a nowhere job is inspired to go for her dreams by the return of her best friend and the gift of a magical Advent calendar.  A Netflix production that was well done with a charming story that required little suspended belief. The diverse cast did a great job as well. (Netflix)

Dear Santa- This might have been the best cheesy holiday movie I’ve ever seen. A spoiled rich girl finds a dear Santa letter written by a little girl asking for love for her father. The rich girl takes it upon herself to provide. Along the way she finds herself genuinely giving of herself instead of by false pretense. It just seemed like there was relatively little need to suspend reality while watching this. As far as acting goes, everyone did a good job, even the little girl. The production was as good as a network TV movie. This might be my favorite. (Netflix)

Christmas at Holly Lodge- This was a really great holiday cheesy romance from the innovators of cheesy romance at the Hallmark Channel. And it stars Jordan Bridges, son of Beau. A winter lodge owner is in arrears when a real estate developer comes to investigate the property. He falls in love with the property and the owner she finds out his original intentions and plays silly games instead of just confronting him. a classical American romance movie. (DVD checked out from the library)

Switched for Christmas- Another Hallmark hit starring Candace Cameron-Bure as middle-aged adult twin sisters (she plays two roles... remember Full House?) who have fallen out of touch with each other, so they decide to switch lives to see how the other is living. Of course their relationship is rekindled and so is romance for the both of them. This was deliciously easy to swallow cheese! A sweet movie and with Hallmark on the production there are no complaints. (DVD checked out from the library)

A Holiday Engagement- This one also stars Jordan Bridges. A recently fired and dumped reporter hires an actor to play her fiancée to attend her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. The farce continues when she announces the wedding will be a week before Christmas! This was one of those storylines that made me had to suspend my logic, but it was cute and the writing, acting and production weren’t bad. (Netflix)

Princess Switch- So much royalty! So many switch-ups! This was a cute sweet colorful-people having, prince-charming, cake baking cheesy holiday romance. A Chicago-based baker is invited to participate in the Belgravia (fictional country) baking competition. When in Belgravia, she finds that her identical doppelgänger is a duchess betrothed to the prince of Belgravia. The decide to switch lives for a couple of days of course they fall in love with the men in the switched lives. (Netflix)

A Princess for Christmas- Starring Sam Heughan from the awesome Outlander series, this movie wins the prize for cheesiest-but-goodest. An out of work antique expert and aunt to two orphans, gets the opportunity to take her niece and nephew back to their father’s home country where they are royalty. She falls in love with their uncle, the prince, melts the icy heart of their grandfather, the duke, and befriends the staff. It started and I almost gave up because of the bad cheese, but I’m glad I stuck it out because those lumps smoothed out in about 30 mins. My only complaint is that the music sounded too synthesized. (Amazon... and I paid for it! Darn you, Heughan!)

I also watched and enjoyed Southern Christmas aka Heartland Christmas  and Christmas Town.

Movie: The Sisters Brothers (2018)****

Charlie and Eli (Joaquin Phoenix andJohn C. Reily, respectively) are two brothers and hired goons whostart this story on thin ice after a botched job they did for TheCommodore, a powerful man in the Oregon territory. Their next assignment is to work withscout, John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), to find Hermann Kermit Warm(Riz Ahmed). A story of the search and and whathappens after they all find each other unfolds and reveals adifferent kind of western flick. 

The audience gets to experience men exploring their relationships and desires. I think all four of the starring actors bring their a-game to their characters, and we get a sense of depth, vulnerability and commonality. The introduction or first 15 minutes of this film is a fast-paced and intensifying set-up, but then it slows down to allow this man-empowerment story to unfold.

I'm going to discuss a couple of scenes. If you are squeamish about spiders or spoilers, stop reading here.

Discussing exploring emotions often happens right before bed, so there are several bedroll scenes showing Sisters brothers sleeping out in the open. In one of them a spider crawls into poor Eli's mouth. He does not wake up. He does not pass go. He collects a fever, swelling and eventually barfs up blood and baby spiders. John C. Reilly brings about a sense of brooding vulnerability as Eli Sisters, who only desires to see the schoolteacher he left behind somewhere, go home and be treated fairly. I'm assuming the spider was a vehicle to establish Eli's vulnerability, but also Charlie's loyalty to him despite their constant bickering. That's great and all, but the spider bit was gross.

Although there was interesting relationship development between the two pairs of men, the most touching of scene was between Eli and Warm who, considering the circumstances of them coming together and the brevity of their relationship, were able to sit and have a profound and enlightening exchange.

There was a random point where I was jarred out of the story: All of a sudden, Joaquin Phoenix' character is telling a story and he appears to be in a darkened room with a natural-light spotlight. It is quite weird.

Also, production values were notably good. The soundtrack, which I spent more time noticing the second time I watched this movie, was dynamic and made each scene.

This movie ended in bittersweet contentment. It was good and I'd be happy to watch this again and again. I give it four stars**** for the great acting, the compelling story and well done art production. It definitely falls on the Masterpiece end of the scale.

Eighth Grade (2018)***

Eighth Grade ended I felt different. I was and still am unsure how I feel about this movie, but the very fact that I'm still digesting it confirms that it did get its hooks in and well, I guess I like it. I even want to watch it again just to see if I get anything else out of it a few days later.

Eighth Grade follows Kayla's last few days of middle school and the viewer gets a gander into what felt like a realistic suburban-adolescent-not-popular girl's life. There's sooooooo much awkwardness! But I was able to ride along with her for the stomach clenching, the butterflies and irrational angry outbursts. Elsie Fisher was amazing and so authentic and intense as Kayla. I was very drawn into her character. The movie had an intensifying pace, building gradually, but without rushing to a feel-good ending.

This isn't a movie I can watch over and over, but I do think it is well-made and Elsie gave an award-worthy performance. Eighth Grade falls on the Cinematic Masterpiece end of the rating scale and gets three*** stars.

Ali's Wedding (2017)***

Ali's Wedding is a based-on-a-true-story dramedy about an Iranian-born guy living with his family in Australia who is trying so hard to please his family that he pushes his own desires to margins, leading him to tell a lie that snowballs into a crazy funny, but potentially life-long miserable situation. I'm not a huge fan of comedies, but this one was very charming. I loved the characters and the relatable look into Muslim-religious life, especially dating. If you want to simplify this movie, you could call it the My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding for Muslims!

This movie was definitely Fun, I wouldn't call it a Cinematic Masterpiece, but it wasn't cheesy either. It gets three stars*** because I would definitely watch it again.

I watched this on Netflix. If you decide to watch it, turn on the captions because some scenes include other languages that aren't translated on screen.

Coffee Shop (2014)***

Coffee Shop, starring kind-of known Laura Vandervoot and featuring a more-than-cameo appearance by Kevin Sorbo, is a Christian-lite cheesy romance that I found to be well-produced except for the terrible voice dubbing. A coffee shop owner in a small town is faced with possibly losing her place of business when three different men walk into the shop (not all at the same time), each of which present different pathways for her to choose from. Two of the options include romance. Choose your own business adventure... Coffee Shop!

This falls into the Fun category, so bad its good, and gets three stars*** because I could watch it again.

I watched this on Netflix.

Big Love (2006 - 2011)***

I'm re-watching Big Love, a show that was one of HBO's early golden era offerings and that I watched religiously (Ha!) when it originally aired.

Big Love starts out great. I binged season 1 and 2 easily. It is a fast-paced, intricately plotted, character-driven show about faith and relationships in a world full of secrets covered by shiny, righteous smiles. Each show is high-drama and hopeful at the same time with a large cast of likeable, flawed and sympathetic characters. But along with DoctorBlake Mysteries, The Mentalist, and so many other shows and films, the central character of Big Love, Bill, is what I have come to call the Lucky Reckless Man.

As with all shows that have this Lucky Reckless Man trope, Bill is surrounded by amazing people with dynamic stories and that's what keeps me coming back for more. By season 3 and definitely in season 4 it becomes more obvious how horrible and selfish Bill is. He puts everyone close to him in physical, spiritual and emotional danger with his schemes stacked upon shaky schemes. Like a stupid superhero, he reveals his plans to his adversaries then believes that his faith will make things happen. And it does. He either has dumb luck or an eyes-half-shut Heavenly Father.

My favorite episode is season 3, episode 6, Come, Ye Saints, where the Henrickson family goes on a Mormon pilgrimage, visiting sacred landmarks along the way. Bill is shocked because he finally stops his scheming long enough to take a good look at his family only to see how unhappy they are. All the while other issues rise up like the angel Moroni.

I hate that I wrote a paragraph about how horrible Bill is, but the show and the other awesome characters wouldn't be if it weren't for him and his scheming, so I'll continue to re-watch until the end of the season, which if I can remember correctly, is very fulfilling. Bye, Bill.

This fall into Fun because I will probably watch it again, and it gets three stars ***. Geez.
I rewatched this on Amazon.