We’re all streaming now: What’s the best movie you’ve watched?
Since I’ve been marooned with my 20 something kids and we have just one decent TV right, we’ve been doing a bunch of family TV watching. And, which will surprise no one, it is often a struggle to find something that five adults all wish to watch.
We’re all enjoying The Last Dance but, hey, we’re North Carolinians and Michael Jordan is essentially a god in this state. The Last Dance inspired us to rewatch Space Jam and, man, does that movie hold up. We rewatched Mean Girls, Midnight Run, and Princess Mononoke. Despite Daniel Craig’s iffy accent, we all liked Knives Out. Just Mercy broke our hearts and, really, everyone should watch it.
But we’re all stuck here–and likely to be here for at least another month–and we need MOAR.
So, hit me. What’s the movie you’ve seen lately?
My husband and I just watched and enjoyed Plus One. A deeply realistic modern rom-com with heart.
I would strongly recommend ‘The Half of It’ for anyone looking for a visually stunning, coming-of-age story. It is an unusual twist on the Cyrano de Bergerac classic, with a wonderful lead. The main character (Ellie Chu) is a bookish queer, Asian teenager in a primarily white town, who is very much a loner and a misfit. Her growing friendship with the sweet but dim jock who pays her to write love letters to their classmate Aster, is tender and humorous in equal measure. The letters she exchanges with Aster touched a chord in my heart – they could have been part of an epistolary novel. It’s streaming now on Netflix!
This might be too low key for your kids, but I liked Tom Hardy in Locke. He is the only actor you see as pretty much the entire film takes place while he is in his car driving to London to deal with a personal crisis. You do hear his phone calls from family and work, so there is actually a lot going on. The movie is hard to describe but I found it compelling and Tom Hardy is pretty amazing.
That sounds great. We will definitely check that out. Thanks.
We watch a lot of movies because we are following along with the Unspooled podcast (they watch the AFI Top 100 of 2007 and discuss the movies and whether they should be in a list of Top 100 films).
Recent movies from the list that I enjoyed:
Taxi Driver (reminded me of The Deuce, a tv show that recently ended after 3 seasons)
Jaws
Sullivan’s Travels
Rear Window (a rewatch, but I still loved it)
(Movies I did not enjoy were Cabaret and Goodfellas – I had seen Goodfellas before and it didn’t age well)
Watching Goodfellas made me pull up the S1 Community episode “Contemporary American Poultry.” and before I knew it, we had watched 7 episodes, including a Community fan-favorite, “Modern Warfare” (aka the paintball episode).
Non-AFI movies we watched included The Host (dir. by Bong Joon-Ho, which I liked as much as Parasite) and A Fish Called Wanda, a movie I’ve seen so many times I know the dialogue by heart. Also funny is that John Cleese’s wife is named Wendy, and there’s another character who shares my husband’s name.
I adore A Fish Called Wanda. It’s definitely one of my top five comedies of all time. EVERYONE in it is just so good.
I haven’t watched many movies, mainly documentaries and old PBS/BBC shows. 5 episodes of “Treasure Houses of Britain” and “Brideshead Revisted” (1980 version). One very old guilty pleasure from my right-out-of-high school days- “Corvette Summer” with super young Mark Hamill and Annie Potts (didn’t know she was nominated for a Golden Globe!). One that I am looking forward to on May 29 is “The High Note” with Tracee Ellis Ross, Dakota Johnson and Ice Cube- hope it lives up to the preview.
Just recently re-watched Far from the Madding Crowd w/ Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts and Michael Sheen….the cinematography and music in that one are to die for!
then had to re-watch A Little Chaos w/ Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts and Alan Rickman. great period piece about the landscaping of Versailles with lovely romantic tension.
Also re-watched Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight w/ George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, great chemistry, a terrific plot and stellar supporting cast!!
And, oh! also Evil Under the Sun my favorite Hercule Poirot murder-mystery with an amazing Mediterranean island location, Cole Porter songs and killer cast including a deliciously younger Maggie Smith, as well as Jane Birkin, Diana Rigg and Roddy McDowell.
Loved everyone’s suggestions!!
Out of Sight is the bomb. So good. Far From the Madding Crowd is just too depressing for me.
Out of Sight is the only movie where I get the George Clooney thing. He and JLo are amazing in that together.
Far From the Madding Crowd is the movie that made me develop a huge crush on Matthias Schoenaerts. He’s also excellent in a very (very) different movie: Mustang, where he plays a convict let out of solitary confinement after 10 years and given a wild horse to tame. He has just the right amount of physicality and menace to play the role.
That was a very strong film.
Nan, so many people, especially if they are young, just KNOW that they won’t like old movies, and they’re probably right, but I do. I’ve seen most your recommendations and love them, although sometimes for just what they reveal about values in the time they were made. (Thanks for the new recommendation: “The Devil and Miss JOnes.” I thought that was a porno movie, which may be, but clearly not this one.) I roared as a kid at the book of “Cheaper by the Dozen,” but when I started to reread it, somehow (who can figure out why–it’s a mystery!), it wasn’t funny, but I love Clifton Webb, so I love the movie. Very, very dated, tho.
Okay, movies that are definitely older than 10 years (sorry, Dabney, but maybe you’ll be able to sneak them in–they are in color). I adore “Master and Commander” which taught me a lot about Napoleonic history. If you’ve never seen “Spartacus,” it packs a real wallop and starts fast. A comedy that is overlooked, but I found delightful is “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.” Look at the previews, if you’re turned off by it, yous should skip the movie. I loved its gentle humor and the foreseeable ending.
If you insist on something more updated, I liked “Yesterday.” I especially liked that I was surprised where the movie went.
If you ARE willing to watch B&W, if you consider yourself a movie person and you’ve never seen “Some Like It Hot,” (voted for decades the best American comedy ever made with a stellar cast) or “On the Waterfront” with Marlon Brando (first released movie role that started his career), boy, oh boy, have you got a treat in store.
Thanks, Lynda X, for the shoutout. There are very few *new* movies that impress me. The newest of my likes are The Intern and Poms, neither of which are actually that new.
Yes, I promise The Devil and Miss Jones is clean, wholesome fun. The porno you are referring to was a play on the title. It was called The Devil IN Miss Jones. Heh heh.
I like The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming. “Delightful” is a good word for it. Fun fact! The book it was based on, entitled The Off Islanders, was written by Nathaniel Benchley, the father of Peter Benchley, who wroteJaws.
As for Some Like it Hot, I liked Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three with James Cagney even better. It’s a fast paced Cold War farce. Another recommendation for political humor is The Mouse that Roared with Peter Sellers.
Speaking of mice, Mousehunt with Nathan Lane and Lee Evans is a lot of fun.
One drama I can’t believe I forgot to mention is the neo noir film The Public Eye. This extremely underrated piece stars Joe Pesci (bear with me here…) as a freelance crime photographer in 1943 Brooklyn who will go to almost any length to take a photograph but never becomes involved in the stories behind them. Of course, a sultry woman asks him for a favor which leads him to uncovering a black market gasoline scandal involving warring gangsters. I agree with Roger Ebert who said the Academy is either dense or crooked for not at least nominating Joe Pesci for best actor in this. For the first few minutes, I didn’t even recognize him- not like any of his other characters AT ALL. Nightcrawler, which I haven’t seen, was very loosely based on this film IIRC.
I love all movies. There are tons of more recent films that I’ve loved: Yesterday, Wild Rose, Blinded by the Light, Little Women… I could go on and on.
We were late to the party but we all enjoyed, To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before . The sequel, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, was not nearly as good, but still enjoyable.
I liked that. I LOVED Set It Up. So. Good.
Set It Up is GOOD!
Jumping on the Set It Up bandwagon. Absolutely adorable. Everyone one in it was great and I was living for Pete Davison’s bits as the best friend/roommate. “He’s not your boss anymore right?”
Just like with books, I don’t tend to watch movies when they’re brand new. A lot of this comes down to the fact I am a cheapskate that waits for the DVD to come out at the library (not exactly possible now though…) But I do have some suggestions: Comedies 1. Life with Father from 1947 with William Powell and Irene Dunne. This is based on a true story of a New York stockbroker and his family in 1883. It’s one of those movies where there isn’t much of a plot so much as little slice of life vignettes that include Mr. Day’s annoyance with relatives showing up to visit unexpectedly for part of the summer, his wife finding out he never got baptized and trying to rush him to salvation to his chagrin, going through maid after maid because Mr. Day’s blustery ways keep scaring everybody off, and so on. It’s a really fun, sweet, funny, and unappreciated movie. I never, ever get tired of it and probably know all the lines by heart. 2. Cheaper by the Dozen with Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, which is also based on a true story. In 1921, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth- an efficiency expert and engineer respectively- have twelve children. Again, that’s really all there is in terms of plot. It’s just a nice slice of life story with funny incidents over the course of a year including having their tonsils removed in the house, a hysterical encounter with a woman from Planned Parenthood- they’ve already got 12 kids, remember? :) , etc.. The sequel, Belles on their Toes is a musical, not as good as the original movie, but still fun. 3. The Devil and Miss Jones This is the original Undercover Boss story. A miser with lots of investments, including a department store, goes undercover as an employee to figure out why there is discontent among the staff. Along the way, he makes some friends including an older woman who has never married but makes the most delicious tuna popovers for lunch- I think you can see where this is going :) 4. Tootsie You probably know this one already. Struggling actor Michael Dorsy disguises himself as character actress Dorothy Michaels, lands a spot on a cheesy hospital soap opera, and complications ensue. 5. My Cousin Vinny Two teenage boys on their way to college get mistakenly arrested for murder. Thank goodness the one boy’s cousin is a lawyer. The bad news is, the titular Cousin Vinny is played by Joe Pesci who has no sense of protocol and keeps getting thrown in jail for contempt during the proceedings. Incidentally, many lawyers have said this film is the most accurate representation of the legal system in cinema. Clips of this movie are actually used in law school and referenced in textbooks, especially for effective cross examination technique. Marisa Tomei is a fantastic spitfire as Joe Pesci’s mechanically inclined fiancée. 6. Green Book This is the most recent film I saw in a theater and felt privileged to see it on the big screen. It is fantastic! I pull no punches when I say it 100% deserved the Oscar for Best Picture that year. The story? Temporarily unemployed club bouncer Tony “Lip” Vallelonga takes a job as a chauffer to Don Shirley, an extremely talented black pianist who is about to embark on a goodwill tour of the segregated south. This movie has gotten a lot of flack for reasons totally beyond my understanding. Yes, it is a feel good movie based on a true story, and I will never apologize for loving it. Comedy/Drama 1. One Foot in Heaven Really fun and sweet story about a minister and his wife in the late 1800s- early 1900s. More slice of life than plot. An elderly friend of mine, who is a minister’s wife, said it was so surreal how accurate the film was. Her poor husband cried throughout it because he was worried the simple, often financially shaky life, they led like in the movie was a letdown to his wife! Of course, my friend assured him that was totally not the case and she has always been quite fulfilled being a minister’s wife. :) And like in the film, there was always room for love, hope, and laughter. 2.Pollyanna with Hayley Mills. Don’t be fooled by the title that’s synonymous with disgustingly annoying optimism. This is a well done adaptation of the book with a lot of huge stars… Read more »
The kids are limiting us to movies less than ten years old. We’ve seen Green Book. My Cousin Vinny is Dr. Feelgood’s favorite movie. We must have seen it at least ten times. He loves comedy.
“The kids are limiting us to movies less than ten years old.” Boo hiss! :) But in that case, may I recommend Argo and Dallas Buyer’s Club if you haven’t seen them already?
“My Cousin Vinny…We must have seen it about ten times.” Oh, you guys are amateurs. Try pretty much every time it appears on TV. :)
Watched both. Good especially DBC.
Silver Linings Playbook is on Netflix now, that’s always good for a rewatch if you are in the mood for drama and comedy.
That movie just did not do it for me. Not sure why.
I liked it much better on the second viewing than the first. I personally wouldn’t have given Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar for it though, I thought Bradley Cooper’s acting in it was better.
There was just something about their pairing that fell flat for me. It might be worth a rewatch.
I love that you have Pollyanna down next to Dog Day Afternoon! Both great movies! In the same vein as Cheaper By The Dozen I love Yours Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. Same with Meet Me in St Louis, State Fair and the original Parent Trap. Since you like Cheaper, have you ever watched Margie with Jeannie Crain?
“I love that you have Pollyanna down next to Dog Day Afternoon!” Yeah, I’m pretty weirdly eclectic like that. :) And yes, they are both great movies.
Love the original Disney Parent Trap. Ever since the remake, they hardly ever show its predecessor on TV. :(
Haven’t heard of Margie. I’ll have to look into it. For some reason, I haven’t seen Meet me in St. Louis all the way through, just clips. Same with Yours Mine and Ours.
Recently saw Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell for the first time. So much fun!
Love Auntie Mame! I will only watch the Rosalind Russell version. Live live live!
I am a Hayley Mills fan as well, The Moonspinners with her and Peter McEnery is a favorite too.
The Danish Girl is the best movie I saw recently. The performance by Eddie Redmayne is just outstanding, and it’s a riveting if very sad story.
I just watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was weird (Tarantino, go figure), but the performances were very goid. They did a great job of capturing the look and sound of the era, and there are many interesting cameos throughout. It’s the best I’ve seen from Brad Pitt in years, and while I don’t much like Leonardo DiCaprio, even I thought he was good in this.
I liked Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a lot too. Great performances and very aesthetically interesting. I felt riveted through the entire 2+ hours of it.
I don’t watch on TV these days, streaming or otherwise, but I did catch Hidden Figures last week, which is based on a book about a group of black female mathematicians that helped NASA win the Space Race. It was fascinating – and just appalling to watch what they had to go through, from not being taken seriously to running half a mile to the nearest coloured loo in the rain. I suppose the first I would have expected because they were women. The second – I still have to remind myself that things like that actually happened 50 years ago and not in the Dark Ages.
LOVE Hidden Figures!
We did just watch The Jagged Edge which, years later, was AWFUL. Glenn Close’s character put the working women back decades with her bad personal and wardrobe choices and Jeff Bridges is as wooden as a Yule log. The plot made no sense. It was vastly disappointing.
Now I’m afraid to rewatch Against All Odds which I remember loving.
Of my most recent films, I enjoyed The Favourite and loved Olivia Coleman in it. Also, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, Knives Out, Parasite, and Little Women were all enjoyable. Probably Parasite has been my favorite of them all, as I’m a fan of black comedies.
Did you see “Shoplifters”? It’s a Japanese film that was nominated for best foreign film in 2018 but lost to “Roma”. I loved “Shoplifters”. It’s similar to “Parasite” in that it’s about a family of grifters, but it is far more warm-hearted. It made me smile and broke my heart in equal measure.
I haven’t but thanks for the recommendation. Now is a perfect time to catch up on all the films I’ve missed. I will definitely check it out! I loved Roma too.
If you are in a Jane Austen mood and don’t mind some liberties and exaggerations taken with the storyline and characters you might all enjoy the newest version of Emma. It definitely has some cute and funny moments. It’s very much of this age and generation I would say. Mr. Knightley is far more emotional and vulnerable than I have ever seen him portrayed. The humor and characters more exaggerated than the 90’s version (and there’s an odd addition of a nose bleed).The costumes are gorgeous Bill Nighy is wonderful as ever and it’s definitely a feel good movie. I totally bought into the romance. You will be smiling by the end. And I find it fun to mentally compare Austen adaptations.
My daughter has been lobbying for a rewatch of Little Women and finding that a hard sell with her brothers. I’ll see if they’re anymore up for the new Emma. I love the Gwenyth Emma.
I love the Gwyneth Emma as well so I had to get over that to appreciate the new one for what it was. Jeremy Northam was a perfect Knightley for me and they handled the humor in a lighter, more realistic fashion. This version is much more exaggerated in going for the laugh. If I had to guess the brothers might be more entertained by this than Little Women if they aren’t in the mood for melodrama. If you want something lighter and mood lifting in these times this fits the bill.
I also loved Once Upon A Time in Hollywood as Blackjack also mentions below. It was amazing on the big screen (I saw it twice in the theatre). But it’s not a relaxing choice by any means. It will make you laugh at times but also elicit every other emotion from you as well. Many of them not comforting. But the sons would likely enjoy that one as well and not put up a fuss.
I’ve had a hard time talking the husbo into that one. Don’t know why.
Tell those boys to just sit themselves down and watch Little Women with you. It was absolutely one of the best films of the year last year, and it deserves to be seen. In fact, of all the nominees, I’ll bet it is the film people will still be watching regularly 10 or 20 years from now. Your boys may need to be prepped a bit in advance to know they are watching both a book and a biopic layered into one another. But they can give a little in exchange for all the superhero/action/thriller movies and/or sports I’m sure you and your daughter have endured for their sake over the years.
I didn’t love the ending but I did enjoy the film.
My sons love rom coms but there’s something about Little Women that they’re wishy washy about.
Oh, that’s a good reminder to see the new Emma adaptation. The actors in advertisements seemed young to me, or I’m getting old! I meant to see it in the theaters but then chaos broke out in Feb. & March and theaters shut down. I’ll have to check and see if I can stream or rent it now.