Movie Review: **** Curly Sue (1991)

 This is a cute romantic comedy about a man, Bill (Jim Belushi) and his daughter, Curly Sue (Alisan Porter).  He is a grifter, conman and his daughter helps with his cons.  As part of that he will let himself be hit by a car and then extort money.  He pulls this game, and then the lawyer woman, Grey Ellison (Kelly Lynch) hits him for real a second time.  She feels guilty and takes them home.  They even continue this con as he feels better and could leave, but he feigns still being hurt.  Kelly begins to actually like Bill and Curly.  And this like grows into something more, and as a result Kelly becomes a more empathetic lawyer.  Grey's's boyfriend turns Curly and Bill into protective services, and Curly ends in a foster home and Bill in jail.  Kelly has to pull a few strings to set things right.  In the end Bill is the new boyfriend, and they are now a family of three and Curly Sue goes to school.  

This is a tear jerker romantic comedy.  

Early Alfred Hitchcock Movie: *** The Farmer's Wife (1928)

This is a very early Alfred Hitchcock, before he caught onto the suspense genre.  It is a romantic comedy of sorts with the Farmer, widowed, seeking a new wife after his daughter marries, leaving him at home alone.  Howevrer our farmer has terrible luck.  He is helped in his endeavors by his house maid and his handyman, who in the end are as funny as the farmer in his pursuits.  It takes him a while to com to his senses, but the maid and he have been in love for some time.  He is just shy around her.  

As noted Alfred Hitchcock direts.  This is a silent film, except for a serenade song.  

Billy Crystal Movie Review: ****Forget Paris (1995)

 Entertaining love story about Mickey (Billy Crystal) and Ellen (Debra Winger) as told by their friends as they wait for them to show up for the engagement party of Andy (Joe Mantenga) and Liz (Cynthia Stevenson).  They had an intense opening relationship; but interrupted by his having to go back to work as an NBA official.  But then they come together, and the officiating schedule keeps getting in the way.  Many NBA players do cameos which is fun.  Kareem Abdul Jabar, Charles Barkley, Isaiah Thomas, David Robinson, Bill Laimbeer, and Reggie Miller.  She works as an airline liaison in Paris.  She quit her job to move in with him, but for sometime neither are happy, they separate.  The relationship seems to effect the coming engagement plans of the other couple as the story is told, until they work pass that.  Now why are Mickey and Ellen late to the party?  Are they together or not?

Christmas Movie Review: **** Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

 Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) writes a cooking column for a magazine.  In her column she talks of her farm in the country, and her cooking skills, her husband and baby.  Problem is these are things only in her column and not in real life.  Her boss, Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet) wants to host a returning seaman, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan), for Christmas.  He was shipwrecked for sometime with little or no food and needs Christmas with a family with good food.  After inviting the seaman, the boss also invites himself.  

In coming up with a solution she decides to marry a friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner) who has been asking her about marriage, and spending Christmas at his farm in Connecticut.  She also invites her uncle, who is a chef, Felix Bassenak (S.Z. Sakall) to come and cook.  The baby will be handled by an actual baby who is tended by Sloan's maid.  The preacher will marry them before anyone arrives; but the others arrive too soon and they are not married.  

As she gets to know the sailor, Lane is more and more stricken.  However she lays her part as a married woman with a baby.  Comedy comes in as Lane doesn't know cooking, or caring for babies.  As she gets to know Jones better, she also has to postpone the wedding,  Felix helps her in this regard.  

Except for her budding love for the sailor, things are going well.  However she and the sailor get in a sleigh, and the horse takes off with them.  They are arrestrd for horse stealing.  Felix is left to ten the baby.  When the mother picks up, she is observed by Yardley, who proclaims kidnapping and calls the police.  Everything now has to come out.  She is fired, but then rehired with a raise as Felix tells hr boss she is going to a different magazine.  

I found this movie to be fun.  The humor is nice and there are some slapstick situations.  Felix tells Jones what has been happening and he funs fun chasing her around while she pretends to be married,  but really wants him too.

Tom Hanks Movie: **^The Money Pit (1986)

 This movie is a bit over the top.  The house falls apart, and after two or three episodes, it is no longer funny.  First the door falls off, then the stairs collapse, then the water doesn't work, then the electricity goe caput, then the tube falls through the floor, and so much more.  After a bit it is just old.  At the same time the relationship starts collapsing as well.  Walter Fielding (Tom Hanks) and Anna Crowley (Shelly Duvall) portray a couple living through the money pit.  They need a new place quickly when Crowley's ex (Alexander Godunov) returns and needs his house where they have been staying.  He is the fly in the ointment as he would like his old love back.  However the couple finally come out the other side in terms of their house, as does their relationship.  

Movie Review: ****Leap Year (2010)

Amy Adams is always good.  In this movie she plays Anna, who is not engaged.  She decides to follow her boyfriend to Ireland to fix that.  She is following the tradition that the woman can propose on leap year day.  Her boyfriend is heart surgeon and they have been dating for four years.  However Anna has the most difficult time getting to Dublin where the doctor conference is being held.  The weather keeps causing delay and diversion, but she finally ends up on a beach in Ireland. There she meets Declan (Matthew Goode) who hopes to make money by driving Anna to Dublin.  

This is a very fun romantic comedy.  Anna can be a klutz, which results in her accidentally pushing the car down a hill into a creek, after she steps in a cow dung.  Her shoe flips off while she is dancing at a wedding, and catches the pride in the head. 

They finally make it to Dublin, and her boyfriend proposes marriage and they become engaged; but the motivations have changed.

This movie is now available on Netflix.

Movie Review: ***^Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Here is a movie where two worlds, both Asian, collide.  Both families are of Chinese descent.  Nick Young (Henry Golding) invites his American Chinese girlfriend home to meet his parents as he is traveling to Bangladesh for a wedding.  Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) accepts the invitation.  However she doesn't know what they are getting into.  When they travel first class, with their own bed, she gets n inkling of what she is in for. 
She spends time with an old friend from college, and when her old roommate hears who she is with she goes bonkers.  This is the family that owns most of the city, as well as several other properties around the world.  They are crazy rich.  The biggest challenge for Chu is Nick's mother (Michelle Yeoh) and grandmother.  Constance just is not good enough. 
This movie is funny at the first.  The friend (Awkwafina) provides the comic relief.  However the humor leaves about half way through the movie.  After it is just a tear jerker. 
This movie presents a window into Chinese culture, wealthy, and American.  Upon this it adds a nice romantic story. 

Movie Review: ****^Dog Days (2018) In Theaters

Dog Days (2018)  I love, love, love this movie!  I laughed and I cried and I was thoroughly entertained.  This movie features everything from babies, to dogs, to nerds (Jon Bass), to beautiful women (Eva Longoria, Vanessa Hudgens, Nina Dobrev), and very handsome guys (Ryan Hansen, Tone Bell).  It has the bungling uncle (Adam Pally) who agrees to take the dog, and the husband (Thomas Lennon) who doesn’t have a clue and the mother who gives birth to twins.  It has the young guy (Finn Wolfhard) who befriends a retired man (Ron Cephas Jones) who has lost his wife, and later his dog.  It has a rock band, and a fund raiser for a veterinary clinic.  It has a news show wit funny antics.  It has a story of adoption (people) which is very heart warming, and a story of a dog adoption which is also very touching.  It also has a dog psychiatrist which is funny in it way “That will be $300.”  This movie leaves you feeling good and I highly recommend it.

Movie Review: Table 19 (2017)

Movie Review: ****Table 19

This movie really got me thinking.  This movie is mostly about two relationships.  One is a relationship struggling in getting off the ground, and the other one that is struggling after many years of falling out of love.  I liked watching both relationships develop.  Eloise (Anna Kendrick) was intended to be the maid of honor at her friend’s wedding.  However she is now out of favor after the bride’s brother, Teddy (Wyatt Russell) has dumped her for a new girl who is the maid of honor.  As such she goes from table 2 to table 19.  At table 19 is a couple who run a restaurant the Kepps (Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson) where the bride’s father frequents, a man who stole from the father and ended up in jail, Walter (Stephen Merchant), the bride’s nannie, Jo (June Squibb) and a young man, Renzo (Tony Revolori) who is rather awkward.  They are at the outcast table, in a way.  However they form a relationship, and even step out for a time, when Eloise crashes into the cake and it ends up all over all of them.  The share a joint, and start opening up about their lives.  This includes discovering that Eloise is pregnant, and the Jo is dying of cancer.  Lots of twists and turns, and great conversation.

I dislike that this movie has too many people falling down.  This is not slap stick.  It also shows the butt of Walter’s roommate twice.  (Once was too much.)  This rather odd group muddles through, and they even seem to grow as a result of the night.  I enjoyed this.  I find that I really enjoy Anna Kendrick as an actress.  

Movie Review: ****50 First Dates (2004)

In truth the number 50 is short, because every day is new to Lucy (Drew Barrymore) following a car accident that destroyed her short term memory.  Her long term memory is in tact, but she cannot remember more than a day at a time.  When she sleeps her memory is reset.  Her father (Blake Clark) and brother (Sean Astin) try to rig things so every day will be the day that she can last remember.  They have a stack of papers from that day.  It is always the father's birthday because that is the day, and they always watch "Sixth Sense."  Enter Henry (Adam Sandler) a worker at the aquarium, who meets this young woman and likes her.  Next time he runs into her she doesn't remember him.  He is puzzled, until her condition is explained to him.  However he is determined to have breakfast with her.  Using manipulation and lies, he finally does.  However she is onto him, and nothing comes of it.  He is determined, and starts to have some success over time.  Then she has a bad day.  A day in which she realizes time has past.  Father and brother come to her rescue, and Henry develops a plan to have a relationship with her.  The question is whether or not the plan will work.  He introduces her to the accident, and her history, the very first thing she wakes up in the morning. 
This is an enjoyable movie.  Barrymore is always good.  Sean Astin is in this movie, but this is not my favorite role for him. 

Movie Review: ****How to Steal a Million (1966)

Not that I like stealing shows, but in this case the motivation is different; they are stealing to cover father's habit of forging artwork.  Bonnet (Hugh Griffith) is the forger, Nicole (Audrey Hepburn) is his daughter who wants him to quit the forging business.  However Bonnet is obsessed with fooling people, and creating replicas of the masters.  The art expert, Simon, set to expose everything, is he who falls in love with Nicole (Peter O'Toole).  Finally there is lover of art, Davis Leland (Eli Wallach) who will even become engaged to Nicole, in an effort to convince her father to let him purchase the statue created by his grandfather.
This is really a delightful romantic comedy.  The characters work together and it is a fun show.  I especially like the hiding in a small closet thing.

Movie Review: ***^The Teacher's Pet (1958)

This is a romantic comedy featuring Doris Day and Clark gable.  Gable plays James Gannon ,the newspaper man, who has come up through the business and is now editor of a large newspaper.  Day plays Erica Stone, a professor of journalism, who has asked Gannon to be a guest lecture for her class.  At at first declined, in a nasty letter.  However his boss insists he go, and after Stone reads the letter, he is too embarrassed to admit he wrote it, but is intrigued by Stone, and stays for the class, and even enrolls.  He becomes her best student.
As far as the romance goes, Gannon feels he has a competitor in Dr.  Pine (Gig Young) but in fact they are collaborating on a book.  There is some fancy competition between the two in terms of who can hold their liquor.
The romance goes well, until, as it always does, Stone discovers the deception.  Now these two people who like each other, must figure out how to get past this indiscretion.
This play is a bit short on comedy, but I enjoyed it, having been a journalism student for a time.
Another tid-bit, Day had first intended to be a dancer.  She does do some dancing in this movie with Dr. Pine.  

Movie Review: **The Accidental Husband (2008)

This is a romantic comedy.  Sometimes I think the producers of these shows miss the mark, and consequently I can't give this show high marks.  First the main character commits a crime by hacking some one's data, with the help of a juvenile family member because only juveniles know anything about computers, and makes himself the husband of a radio commentator who he blames for ruining his own chances at love.  And at one time he forces himself on her, despite her repeated requests to stop.  Of course this is one of the scenes if you push hard enough eventually they will like it.  How many rapes are justified with that attitude.  So even though this movie is cute and all, I cannot recommend it.  I was hoping the fiance would win in the end, but I was disappointed.
fireman and hacker (Jeffrey Dean Morgan)
The radio host (Uma Thurman)
the fiance (Colin Firth)

Movie Review: ****While You Were Sleeping (1995)

This is another three-way love story.  Lucy (Sandra Bullock) lives a lonely life as a ticket taker at the train station.  She sees a handsome man everyday, and develops a crush on him.  When that man, Peter (Peter Gallagher) is mugged and pushed upon the tracks, she rescues him at peril to her own life.  He is still in a coma from bonking his head in the fall.  She goes the the hospital, and at what point she murmurs of her intent to marry him.  From there she is taken as his fiance, even though they have never met.  His family takes her in.  She is captivated by there love, and is hesitant to tell the truth.  Peter's brother Jack (Bill Pullman) is suspicious.  However at the same time he discovers a flame for her, and she discovers the same.  When Peter wakes, despite not knowing her, he re-proposes to Lucy.  the wedding is on.  Sandra really loves the brother, but doesn't see a way out.  Not until wedding day, does she finally reveal she was never the Peter's fiance.  The real fiance also shows up at the wedding.  Lucy sneaks away, only to be confronted by Jack the next day at work, coming with a wedding ring.

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 "While You Were Sleeping" has Sandra Bullock in it.  It is a 1995 movie.  She works at a ticket window of a train.   She has a crush on a man she sees everyday.He falls on the track, and she saves his life.  However to see him at the hospital, she has to be a relative, and so becomes his fiance.  In truth she has never met him.  He is in a coma, and in the mean time she is taken in by his family.  This puts her in line with his brother, with whom she falls in love.  I really like Sandra Bullock, and this movie really displays her charm.  She is an incredible actress, when given the right venue, and this story is a true romantic comedy and the right venue forher..