"The Holiday Junkie"
It’s getting to be that time of year when Hallmark
and Lifetime holiday movies are really popular.
These two networks are fighting for the same
audience, but they do it in different ways. Here are
some of those differences.
Lifetime characters have better jobs, Hallmark
characters are mostly Advertising and Marketing
people from the big city.
Lifetime movies have a little more snark and are a
little funnier. Hallmark is more earnest, to the point
of corny, and proud of it. Nothing is ever
impossible, too sweet, or too magical. No
apologies. With Hallmark, objects can have
magical powers, a Nutcracker or a snowman can
come to life, no problem. When I think of Lifetime I
immediately think of drama and women in danger
first, and romance second.
Lifetime characters get together quicker, while
Hallmark takes them through turmoil until the
grand romantic gesture at the end.
Lifetime has more out of the box storylines, while
Hallmark follows the same few basic storylines,
just in different ways.
Lifetime has a larger range of actors. Hallmark has
its favorite actors that you recognize in multiple
movies.
The Holiday Junkie is a Lifetime movie starring
Jennifer Love Hewitt. I’m a big fan. She plays
Andie, a young woman who runs a Christmas
decorating company with her mother. This is the
first Christmas she’s doing it alone since her
mother died. She has the opportunity to make the
company bigger if she can impress a rich venture
capitalist when she decorates his house.
At the house she runs into Mason, played by
Hewitt’s real life husband Brian Hallisay. Mason
hates Christmas for some secret reason. Imagine
that.
Travel problems delay the family’s return, forcing
Mason and Andie to spend time together.
If you have ever watched any of these types of
movies, I don’t need to tell you anything else.
The movie is 1 hour and 28 minutes, Rated-
TVPG-13.
If you can’t find this movie on Lifetime, you can
still watch it on YouTube. That’s where my wife
Carla and I watched it.
We made different predictions about what was
going to happen, what disaster was going to bond
them, what secret is making him hate Christmas,
and we joined in when the coffee shop lady,
talking about the big shindig in town, challenged
Andie to say Holly Hill Holiday Hop, five times fast.
Yes, it was predictable, yes it was corny, but it was
also fun, especially with your significant other.
These movies are easy, relaxing, and maybe even
therapeutic.
Jennifer Love Hewitt wrote and directed this movie
as a tribute to her mother Pat. And because her
husband was her love interest, the chemistry,
especially the kissing scenes, was very
comfortable.
My Score on the Holiday Movie scale is 4 Buds
Lamar Reviews - "Bugonia" (Airdate 11/7/2025)
This is a really hard movie to review, one of the hardest I’ve ever reviewed. Not because it is a bad movie, which would be really easy. It is not because it is wonderful, I would just tell you not to miss it.
It is because it is very strange, and very hard to explain, at least without ruining the experience.
If you have watched the trailer, seeing that Emma Stone is in it makes it intriguing, and trying to figure out what heck is going on makes it interesting.
I will tell you that when you walk into the movie you don’t know what is going on, after 30 minutes you think you know what is going on, and 15 minutes later, you realize you just thought you knew and you really don’t. This continues every 15 minutes until the movie is over. Then as you walk out, you will be trying to decide exactly what have you have just seen.
The movie is 1 hour and 58 minutes, Rated-R for bloody violent content, grisly images, suicide and language.
Now I know that does not sound like ringing endorsement, but I’m not saying don’t go see it.
The problem is, my hands are tied, this movie goes in many directions, and it would be really easy to spoil it.
Emma Stone is fantastic as Michelle, the Gucci, Chanel, and Prada wearing CEO of a major pharmaceutical company. She wants everyone to think she cares for all employees and wants them to feel free to leave work early to be with their families, unless of course they have work they could be doing, it is of course still a job.
Then we have Teddy, played by Jesse Plemons, who is perfect as a bee keeping conspiracy theorist who blames Michelle for many things including putting his mother in a coma after her company’s drug trial went wrong.
Don, played by Aidan Delbis is Teddy’s sweet and simple cousin he drags into his scheme to kidnap Michelle and force her to admit she is an alien and save the bees.
The movie is aiming at dark comedy, but it brings more cringes than laughs. We get the idea that Michelle is not what Teddys says she is but it is plain her company is not the hero in this story, but at the same time she is the victim that Teddy has kidnapped and is torturing for what end we are not sure, so he is not the hero either.
Don, Teddy’s cousin is the only innocent in the movie, and the only one that actually makes any sense.
Emma Stone actually had her head shaved on camera in the scene, and just minutes before that scene was shot, she shaved the head of the director Yorgos Lanthimos.
Every actor did a great job, this is one of those movies that will have you guessing over and over, then being totally surprised at the end.
It was a rollercoaster ride of violence and craziness, but I am truly glad I saw it. You may or may not have the same experience.
My Score: 4 Budweisers
Lamar Reviews - "5 Classic Horror Movies" (Airdate 10/30/2025)
Carrrie 1976
Carrie, played by Sissy Spacek is an Outcast
teenager tormented by her peers at school. They
refuse to leave her alone, constantly bullying her.
The problem for everyone else in the school is,
Carrie has some badass supernatural powers
these fools don’t know about and are not ready
for!!!
Spacek self-isolated herself the first day of
filming and went to the cast and said, ‘I love you
guys, I’m very excited to be working on this. But I
just want to let you guys know, I’m going to
alienate myself from you. I want to feel that
alienation. But don’t take it personally. I just want
to let you know I’m doing it on purpose because I
want to get into the part.’ The rest of the crew
respected her for that and said it made it easier to
be as mean as possible because they knew it
would help her.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre; (1974)
A group of teenagers on a road trip pick up a
random hitchhiker, who goes nuts and kicks them
out of their van. While trying to find help they wind
up at a house of psychopathic killers…including
Leatherface with a chainsaw.
You might think this is one of the bloodiest horror
movies ever, but you would be wrong. Director
Tobe Hooper wanted a PG Rating to get more
people in the theater. The censors told him less
blood would probably help. There is less than a
cup of blood in the entire movie and it still got an R
rating.
Alien (1979)
In Ridley Scott’s horror-sci-fi movie, the crew of a
commercial space ship are in cryogenic-sleep,
heading back to Earth when they are woken up by
a distress call from an alien vessel. They
accidentally encounter a malevolent alien beast
that infects a member of the crew. But the worst is
yet to come,… and when the crewmember falls
into a coma, something is waiting within him to
escape and hunt everyone down.
None of the actors knew what was going to
happen in the “Chest exploding” scene, or the
blood and gore that came with it…..Their reactions
are absolutely real!!
Halloween (1978)
Halloween is a simple but very effective horror
movie……John Carpenter knew exactly what he
was doing……teenager Laurie Strode, played by
(Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself the target of an
escaped mental patient. After being locked up in
captivity for 15 years after the murder of his sister,
Michael Myers escapes on Halloween and
descends upon his hometown, in search of his
next victims.
John Carpenter wrote it in 10 days, and it was
shot in 20 days. And John Carpenter actually
wrote the entire musical score himself in 3 days.
And it went too spawn many sequels.
The Exorcist (1973)
The movie about a demon possessed 12 year old
girl, played by Linda Blair, and the exorcism to get
the demon out.
There will never be a scarier movie than the
original Exorcist..there is no villain scarier than the
Devil..none…he tops them all…..
Mercedes McCambridge was the voice of the
demon coming out of Linda Blair. To get that
satanic voice, she chain-smoked cigarettes, gave
up her sobriety, drank heavily, and ate raw eggs.
To achieve a more realistic sound she was
physically tied to a chair with torn sheets by arms,
legs, ankles and wrists. And after all of that she
had to sue Warner Bros because they did not
credit her for the voice of the demon.
These are all great horror movies that set the
tones and tropes for future horror movies. And
they all deserve to be watched again….except the
Exorcist….once is more than enough for me….I
watched it over 50 years ago and never again.
My Score for all 5: A full 6pack of Budweisers
Lamar Reviews - "Good Fortune" (Airdate 10/24/2025)
The last few weeks I’ve watched the trailer for
Good Fortune multiple times. The movie is written
and directed by Aziz Ansari, who also stars in it
along with Keanu Reeves, and Seth Rogen. Aziz
Ansari was really believable as Arj, a down on his
luck guy who is giving it his best shot, but life is
beating him like a rented mule. He’s trying to do
odd jobs on an app called “Tasker” that gives him
every possible odd job you can think of. Food
delivery, place holder in long restaurant lines, and
every once in a while, working part time at a big
box store. Still, he has to live in his car.
On the opposite end of that scale is Jeff, a rich
venture capitalist tech bro, played very nicely by
Seth Rogen. I am not a big Seth Rogen fan, I
know how that sounds, and I apologize. I
recognize he very talented, and the majority of
people find him hilarious, and I get it. For me, he
comes across like he doesn’t bathe as often as he
should. And he for sure doesn’t spend any time
attempting to groom himself. He is very funny in
this movie, playing a character that probably
should be hated, but comes across as a really
good guy, who is clueless about any lifestyle other
than his.
But make no mistake, the hammer that is hitting all
the nails in this movie is Keanu Reeves, as the
angel Gabriel whose job is to stop people from
texting and driving right before they have a car
wreck. Gabriel feels he should be doing more
important work, like saving lost souls.
When Arj’s luck changes for a minute and he
lands a job as Jeff’s assistant, things look up, until
he loses the job. He then becomes hopeless and
gives up on life. Gabriel decides to show him that
Jeff’s magical life is not what he thinks it is. To
demonstrate to Arj that money won’t solve all of
his problems, so he switches their lives. Now Jeff
is a food delivery guy living in his car, and Arj is a
multimillionaire living a life he could only dream of.
Gabriel’s plan is, when Arj learns his lesson, he
will want to switch back. The only problem is that
Jeff’s money has solved all of Arj’s problems, he’s
happy, and he ain’t switching back.
The movie is a quick 1 hour and 37 minutes,
Rated-R for language and some drug use.
There are some other notable stars, Keke Palmer
as Elena, Arj’s love interest, Sandra Oh as
Martha, Gabriel’s Supervising Angel, to name a
couple.
Every person involved in this film did a great job,
and their contributions helped make the movie a
success, but Keanu Reeves toted the load. If he is
not in the scene, you miss him and can’t wait till
he gets back.
People have the tendency when thinking about
Keanu Reeves to remember the Matrix, and John
Wick, and for good reasons. But you have to also
remember he was Ted, in Bill & Ted’s Excellent
Adventure. He appears to be a loveable goof, but
if you look a little deeper his comedy comes from
his empathy. Weather Reeves is playing a Killer or
a Clown, he’s always great doing it.
My Score is, the movie is a solid 4 Buds, and
Keanu Reeves performance is 5 Frosty ones.
Lamar Reviews - "Roofman" (Airdate 10/17/2025)
If you have been listening to my reviews you know
that I have a list of actors that, if they are in it, I will
see it, period. That list is Denzel, Clint Eastwood,
Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Gene
Hackman when he was alive, to name just a few.
Channing Tatum has never been on that list but
I’m thinking about adding him. I haven’t seen
every movie he’s been in. I’ve seen a lot of his
movies and have really enjoyed him, except for
Magic Mike’s Last Dance. The terrible chemistry
between him and Salma Hayek was very hard to
watch. Channing Tatum has this unbelievable
charm that makes him so likeable that you love to
watch him on the screen. That charm is present in
every scene in this movie. So much so that you
have to keep reminding yourself that the person
he portraying is a criminal.
This movie is based on a true story that happened
in Charlotte N.C. I checked the facts against what
was shown in the movie, and what actually
happened in real life. Just like all “based on a true
story” movies, they add and subtract things. This
movie stayed closer to the facts than most of
these types of movies I’ve ever watched.
Jeffrey Manchester went to prison for breaking
through the roof of a McDonalds, waiting for
employees to open up, locking them in the cooler,
and taking a bank bag full of cash. He escaped,
lived in Toy-R-Us for months, met a woman at
church, and fell in love with her and her two
daughters. You can’t make this stuff up. It is an
unbelievable story that if it wasn’t absolutely true it
would be a stupid terrible movie.
Channing Tatum plays Jeffrey Manchester, Kirsten
Dunst plays Leigh Wainscott, his love interest.
Peter Dinklage plays Mitch, the Toys-R-Us
manager.
The movie is 2 hours and 6 minutes, Rated R for
language, nudity, (yes, it’s him), and brief
sexuality, (no ladies, don’t get your hopes up.)
This movie is way better than it should be. If you
look at the movie poster or even the trailer you are
thinking laugh out loud comedy. You would be
correct on the laugh out loud part, but it is not a
comedy. It is way more than that.
We feel for Manchester who served his country in
the military, but when he got out, he couldn’t find a
way to use his skills to provide for his family, until
he did, and it was illegal, now he is in prison.
His Wife divorced him. When he escaped, he met
a divorced woman with 2 girls, and he fell in love
with the whole family. He is still a criminal. The
chemistry between Tatum and Dunst really sold
what the relationship meant to Manchester, and
what he was willing to risk to have it. As he is
politely robbing and stealing, Channing Tatum is
so charming and likeable that we are on his side
and want him to get away. And yet, he is still a
criminal. Just like Tony on the Sopranos we have
to keep reminding ourselves he is a criminal.
When you leave this movie, you are not sure
exactly how you feel about the outcome. To me,
that is the mark of a well-made movie.
My Score: 5 Cold Buds
Lamar Reviews - "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale" (Airdate 10/10/2025)
To say I never got into Downton Abbey is an
understatement. It had been out for a couple
seasons before I even realized it was Downton
and not Downtown. That is how uninterested I was
in the show. It first appeared in the UK in 2010,
then the U.S. in 2011. The show ran for fifty-two
episodes over six seasons, including five
Christmas specials. There are three Downton
Abbey movies, Down Abbey in 2019, Downton
Abbey: A New Era in 2022, and this one, Downton
Abbey: The Grand Finale.
I actually reviewed A New Era in 2022 to make fun
of it, and wound up really enjoying it, even though
I had no clue who these people were and what in
the heck was going on! Luckily, or tragically,
depending on how you look at it, I have spent my
entire life endlessly watching TV, so I can figure
out the plot and the characters of a show pretty
quick. If I had spent half as much time on
something actually important like world peace, a
cure for a disease, or answering the question, “Is
a hotdog a sandwich?”, I’d have a Nobel Prize.
By the end of the movie, for reasons I’ll never
understand, I was in love with the show and all of
the characters. I wanted to go back and start at
the beginning and watch the entire thing, but I
never found the time. Now that I am living my
dream of co-hosting The Bob & Sheri Show I
spend every waking moment looking for content,
just like Sheri warned me and still don’t have the
time.
So, I jumped at the chance to review Downton
Abbey: The Grand Finale. If you are interested in
this review, you are a fan of the show and have
watched it all. You know way more about it than I
ever will from watching two movies.
Grand Finale is set in the summer of 1930 with
Lord Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville,
coming to the realization that it is time to turn over
sole leadership of the family estate to his daughter
Lady Mary Talbot, played by Michelle Dockery.
Everything is done in a very “English” way, “Stiff
upper lip, carry on old fluff, pip pip, toodly-oo and
all that.
The big problem is Mary’s divorce and the reaction
of horror it brings to everyone outside of the family
as she becomes a pariah.
There are quite a few subplots in the kitchen and
the fact that there are still money problems that
have to be solved. Dealing with the changing
times doesn’t make it any easier.
The movie is 2 hours and 3 minutes, Rated-PG.
This is a wonderful ending for all of the fans of the
show, I’m sure. I say it that way because I do not
have the shared experience of seeing Downton
Abbey from start to finish. I’m just a spectator
catching a glimpse and enjoying the experience.
The biggest thing missing is Dowager Countess
Violet Crawley, played by the late Maggie Smith. I
loved her in “A New Era”, she stole every scene
she was in. This movie is dedicated to her.
To watch all the seasons is definitely on my bucket
list. If you are a Downton Abbey Fan, this movie is
a “must see”.
My Score: 5 Cold Budweisers
Lamar Reviews - One Battle After Another (Airdate 10/3/2025)
For five weeks of going to the movies I’ve watched
this trailer. For five weeks I’ve been confused
about what this movie is about. People are all the
time complaining about trailers giving up too much
about a movie. That certainly cannot be said about
One Battle After Another. I knew who was in it,
Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro,
Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor. All reasons
enough to watch the movie.
DiCaprio plays Bob who is a dope smoking bomb
maker for a domestic terrorist group called
“French 75”. He is in love with Perfidia, an over-
the-top leader of the group who is totally
committed to the cause. Sean Penn plays Col.
Steven Lockjaw, who leads the military group
trying to stop the French 75. Col. Lockjaw is also
an extreme racist that is sexually obsessed with
Perfidia. When Perfidia and Bob welcome the birth
of Willa, played by Chase Infiniti, Bob’s priorities
change. He wants them to be a family, but Perfidia
is still married to the cause and motherhood is not
in her plan.
The movie is fast-forwarded to the present with
Bob as a single dad doing his best to raise Willa,
while hiding from his past, and trying to protect
her. Bob does this while staying in a haze of pot
smoking paranoia.
But is it really paranoia if they are actually out to
get you? Col. Lockjaw has not given up the hunt
for Bob or Willa, and that is where the drama and
action really kick in.
The only people Bob can trust are Deandra,
played by Regina Hall, and Willa’s sensei, Sergo
St. Carlos, played by Benicio Del Toro.
The movie is a lengthy 2 hours 41 minutes, but I
can’t think of a thing that could have been left out
without hurting the movie. It’s Rated R for
pervasive language, violence sexual content, and
drug use.
After seeing the movie, I understood why the
trailer was so confusing. There is too much to
going on to put in a trailer and have it make much
sense.
There are funny moments, but this is not a
comedy. It is a thriller with a few very funny
moments. It is somewhat of a satire in as much as
it makes fun of extremism of both sides of the
political landscape.
For all of the baggage that hangs on DiCaprio’s
personal life, the man can act. He gives it all he’s
got as Bob, a loser that refuses to lose.
Benicio del Toro does not know how to not be
great in whatever role he is playing.
But the standout in this movie is Sean Penn as
Col. Steven Lockjaw. This is Sean Penn as I’ve
never seen him. He lives up to the ridiculous name
of Col. Lockjaw in every possible way, and then
some!
The movie is long, and if you get the $12 soda you
are going to have to go to the restroom. Make
sure you do it before the final 40 minutes, because
you don’t want to miss the climax of this movie.
Just the cinematography is breathtaking, and the
tension, you need a chainsaw to cut it.
One of the best movies of the year for sure.
My Score: 5 Ice Cold Budweisers for sure!
Lamar Reviews - "Ice Road: Vengeance" (Airdate 9/26/2025)
There is an Ice Road movie that starred Liam
Niessan as Mike also on Netflix . This as you
know is Ice Road: Vengeance, so you might think
this is a sequel to the first Ice Road. You would be
wrong. It seems one has absolutely nothing to do
with the other. You certainly don’t have to see The
Ice Road to watch this, and after watching this I
definitely wouldn’t recommend it.
Liam Neeson over his career has been a
tremendous dramatic actor and continues to do
so. But after Taken made so much money in 2008,
studios couldn’t wait to put someone in distress
and send Neeson after them in the most violent
way possible. They squeezed 2 more Taken
sequels out, each one worse than the other, until it
died as a TV series.
That didn’t stop studios from finding ways, they
gave him amnesia, they put him in a plane crash
to fight wolves in the snow, they put him another
plane with terrorists, made him a hitman twice, a
snowplow driver hunting the drug dealers that
killed his son, put him on train, then an icy road in
a semitruck, and now an icy road in a bus with no
ice in sight.
Mike McCann, played by Neeson, is in therapy.
His brother Gurty died in the previous Ice Road.
His brother’s ashes sit on the mantle in an urn.
Sadly, my first thought was, “will he kill a man by
beating him to death with that urn, or will he pour
the ashes down his throat and choke him to
death?” I’ve seen what Liam can do with
inanimate objects, just saying.
Gurty wanted his ashes spread on Mt. Everest
and Mike is going to make it happen. We switch to
a small village in Katmandu where an evil
businessman with a ponytail is trying to build a
huge dam that will take away the native land. If the
ponytail doesn’t make you sure the businessman
is bad, he also has a scar. A village grandfather, a
father, and a son stand in the way. They must die,
and Mike must stop them. Mike hires a sherpa
named Dhani, she is played by Bingbing Fan, who
is of course “ex-military”. Which would be helpful if
trouble starts.
They are picked up by a rackety 50-year-old tour
bus driven by smart talking, likeable Australian
named Spike, who of course is a dead man
driving. The other passenger is an American
human rights advocate, and his spoiled Gen Z
daughter who is glued to her phone. The other
passengers are the village son that can save the
land, and his soon to be kidnappers.
The movie is 1 hour 52 minutes, Unrated.
The action sequences are so corny they are
ridiculous. In fact, it would not have been very
hard to make this into a comedy, it is so laughable.
When the pouty teenage daughter asks Dhani to
teach her how to fight, Dhani, going full “Mr. Miagi”
shows her one move and the teenager repeats it
in slow motion three times. In the climactic scene,
facing certain death, she is able to overcome a
trained mercenary, boom! Wipe on wipe off, works
every time! Liam, I hope that lake house is
beautiful.
My Score: 1 Bud
Lamar Reviews - Unknown Number: The High School Catfish (Airdate 9/19/2025)
Spoiler Alert! If you have not seen this
documentary and don’t want to know who
perpetrated this crime, stop listening right now.
This documentary has been out for a while, and it
is widely known who was responsible and is every
newsfeed. In this review I am talking about the
unimaginable answer to that question.
This Netflix documentary is set in Beal Michigan, it
is a small town with one stoplight and 2 bars. The
entire school K-12 consists of a little over 600
students, so everyone knows everybody.
In October of 2020 Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend
Owen McKenny, both students at the school
started getting text from a number they didn’t
recognize. The text started off with things like
“Owen is breaking up with you, he wants me.”
Then they got meaner, calling Lauryn out for her
appearance.
It was clear by the text that the person sending
them not only knew Lauryn and Owen but had to
be close to them because of all the details they
knew. They referred to Lauryn as Lo, they knew
both Lauryn and Owen’s schedules, and talked
about things that were said and talked about
between them.
The texts escalated in their content and quickly
became crude and vulgar until they were
pornographic and suggesting that Lauryn kill
herself. Keep in mind, at this point the kids were
only 13, and their parents, Kendra and Shawn
Licari and Owen’s mom Jill McKenny, were losing
their minds.
The school tried to handle it, they couldn’t. They
bring in Sheriff Mike Main, who was way out of his
depth. Kids that had nothing to do with this were
accused, and lives were turned upside down.
Finally, the local FBI liaison came in and did a
deep dive into the phone records revealing who
was responsible for saying all of these horrible
things to a couple of kids.
Now, I have warned you, this is your last chance
to avoid knowing who did it…….
This Documentary is on Netflix, it is 1 hour and 34
minutes, Rated TV-MA for very uncomfortable
language describing sexual acts.
Turns out it was Lauryn’s mom Kendra. How could
a mother text these things to her daughter?
Calling her ugly and stupid, and calling her out for
the lack of her sexual experience when she not
even old enough to drive a car. Not to mention
begging her to kill herself. This is her mother.
And not only is she in the documentary, she is in it
trying to solve the mystery while knowing it was
her doing it. Then she has the audacity to be
interviewed on why she did it, which was all BS.
There are many theories to why. One that is
floated, which Sheri and I discussed, is her being
jealous of her daughter. Cute popular girl who is a
good athlete and is dating a nice, well liked boy
who is also an athlete. Plus, at school they are
referred to as “the Golden Couple”. Watch it for
yourself and you decide. I watched, knowing who
did it and still enjoyed the show. You can too.
My Score: 5 Cold, but uncomfortable Buds
Lamar Reviews - "The Roses" (Airdate 9/5/2025)
There was a 1989 movie called The War of the
Roses starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner
and Danny Devito. I thought this was a remake of
that movie, but technically it is a reimagining of the
same novel because a lot of the plot points are
different.
Both are about a happily married couple that have
problems, decide to divorce, and eventually wind
up fighting over the house.
The Roses stars the amazing Olivia Colman who
played the Queen in the TV series The Crown and
Queen Anne in the Favorite, which earned her an
Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA (British
Academy of Film and Television Arts). And
Benedict Cumberbatch, who has played
everything from Doctor Strange to Sherlock
Holmes, and has been great in everything I’ve
ever seen him do.
The movie opens with Theo, played by
Cumberbatch and Ivy, played by Colman, in the
middle of a couples-counseling session where
they make a list of things they like about each
other. Their lists are both savage and hilarious. It
sets the expectation of how the banter is going to
go. The movie then takes a quick time-travel back
to a meet-cute where Theo runs into Ivy in a UK
restaurant kitchen where she is a cook. 30
seconds after they meet, they are hooking up in a
meat locker. They wind up moving to America
where Theo is a very successful architect and Ivy
is a stay-at-home mom. Theo wants to see Ivy’s
dreams come true so he buys a closed down
restaurant she can re-open.
A crazy event happens that causes Theo to
become unemployed, and Ivy to become a famous
chef so they have a complete role reversal. She is
now the breadwinner, and he is Mr. Mom. A role
he is not really suited for. Theo is busy with his
stay-at-home-dad duty turning his son and
daughter into super athletes while Ivy has a
growing restaurant chain and drinking champagne
on private jets. He resents her success; she
resents him for that while hating herself for not
being there for her children. That is when the
fireworks really begin.
The movie is 1 hour 45 minutes, Rated-R for
language, sexual content, language, drug content,
and language. When I say language, I mean not
one letter of the alphabet is missed and a few are
repeated multiple times. Just so you know.
The banter between Theo and Ivy is lightning fast
and cuts like a Ginsu knife. There were times
when I could not catch my breath. Adding to all of
this is Andy Samberg, and Kate McKinnon as
Theo’s attorney and his wife. Allison Janey has a
cameo as Ivy’s attorney and for the few minutes
she is on the screen she owns the movie.
If you haven’t seen the 1989 War of the Roses you
really should, it’s great. That being said, The
Roses absolutely stands on its own. The dialog
was some of the best I’ve ever heard in a movie.
Everybody in the theater, including me, was
laughing out loud.
My Score: 5 cold frosty Buds