Today’s theme was Netflix Original pleasant surprises. After a month of horror movies, we decided to go a more lighthearted route.
We started off with a movie starring Paul Rudd called The Fundamentals of Caring. A down on his luck writer takes a job as a home care professional for a teenage boy with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy. The acerbic British born kid is wheelchair bound and terrified of leaving his routine, but finds interest and solace in weird roadside attractions across the United States shown on his favorite travel show. His caregiver decides to take him on a road trip to help him see the world and together they (along with a runaway played by Selena Gomez) help heal each other along the way. There’s not much I can say about this movie that isn’t complimentary. It was funny, bittersweet, and well paced. It was a road trip movie with characters you want to care about. We’re giving it 4 giant stuffed cows out of 5. (
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Next up was a Stiller/Hoffman/Sandler led dramedy, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). It’s about 3 adult siblings who are vying for the affection of their aging, artist father and struggling to accept the realities of their current lives. I think this was a typical indie dramedy: funny, real, and LONG. The characters were deep, complex, and mostly likable, the drama between family members was realistic, and by the end you feel like you’ve seen the most intimate parts of someone’s life. That being said, it was extremely long and drawn out. The last part is why we’re giving it 2.5 misnamed sculptures out of 5. (
/2)
Movies With My Dad 