We recently watched 3 movies we really enjoyed, and they had one thing in common: None of them were what I expected.
I thought Aubrey Plaza was the lead of My Old Ass, I thought the primary focus of Woman of the Hour was on a dating show, and I thought Fly Me to the Moon was mostly a romantic comedy. I was wrong about all 3 movies, yet I thought they were great.
My Old Ass
This movie asks the question: What if you could talk to your future self? For reasons the film wisely doesn’t try to overexplain, the main character–a recent high-school graduate in a small Canadian town–meets her future self and then is able to text/call for a few weeks. There’s an unexpected love interest, warnings about the consquences of certain decisions, and lots of slice-of-life moments. It’s charming, funny, and poignant in ways I didn’t expect, and for an indie movie that appears to have been filmed on location, it looks fantastic.
Woman of the Hour
The hook of this movie is that it’s inspired by a real-life encounter between a woman on a dating show and a serial killer (one of the three men on the show). I thought the entire movie would be about the dating show, but it’s really only about a third of the film. Instead, director and actress Anna Kendrick made the interesting choice to follow two other woman who had encounters with the killer. While there are comedic moments, the movie is chilling and full of tension, both in regards to the killer and how people don’t take the survivors seriously.
Fly Me to the Moon
I thought this was going to be a romantic comedy with the backdrop of the Apollo 11 mission, but it’s actually a movie about the Apollo 11 mission (specifically, an effort to get support from the US government for the mission) with the backdrop of a romantic comedy. Fortunately, it still works, as it’s a peek at the space race that I haven’t seen before (though the fictional For All Mankind dabbles in the topic), including a major act of deception. Oh, and the dean from Community is absolutely amazing every moment he’s on screen.
Have you watched anything great recently that defied your expectations?
Now there’s 3 films on the to watch list! . That will save us browsing Netflix for half an hour! 🙂
I hope you enjoy them! 🙂
I just saw “My Old Ass” and really liked it. It’s a sweet movie. Fly Me To The Moon felt like it couldn’t decide it if wanted to be a rom-com, a goofy comedy, or a historical drama.
If you like action movies and don’t mind a bit of violence, I recommend “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”. It’s some great action scenes. It’s by Guy Richie, who made “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch” back in the 1990’s. It reminded me a bit of “Inglorious Bastards”.
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