A Fish in the Bathtub
It’s a fish. I bought it. A gift from me to me.
Sam and Molly are a classic bickering old couple, and their marriage has been forty years of sparring. Yet, when Sam refuses to move the carp he's keeping in their spare bathroom, Molly becomes fed up and unexpectedly leaves.
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Happy Death Day 2U
The horror sequel - a genre defined by cold hard cash, masked slashers, and not a lot else. Oh sure, sometimes the second trip is twice as nice (think the perfection of the formula in Bride of Frankenstein or continually redefining your genre like Dawn of the Dead), and since the 90s we’ve gotten some more self-aware fare that enjoys playing with conventions. But for the most part, you sit down for a sequel, you can expect a pretty solid retread of the first movie, right? Take that concept to its logical extreme, and you get Happy Death Day 2U, the sequel to 2017′s Happy Death Day. You know, the movie about the girl named Tree (Jessica Rothe) who has a masked killer after her, and keeps waking up Groundhog Day-style every time she dies? She [SPOILER] finally breaks her time loop by becoming a better person and figuring out who her killer is and then time moves forward and everything is groovy, right? But in the sequel, through a series of sciency mishaps, she gets slapped right back into that same time loop and keeps waking up on the exact same day as in the original. That’s BALLSY AS HELL for a sequel, and a real gamble to take. Does it pay off? Well...
Honestly, YES. My expectations were high, because I really loved the first one. I thought it was interesting, inventive, and I genuinely cared about Tree and the rest of the characters. This sequel takes all of that good stuff and instead of Groundhog Day gives us Back to the Future - there’s a science Maguffin that’s the root of the problem and Tree and friends have to spend the whole movie figuring out how to fix the time loop with a twist - instead of being in the exact same day she was in before, Tree is stuck in a version of that day in a parallel dimension in the multiverse. And in this version, she’s no longer with Carter (Israel Broussard), but her mom (Missy Yager) is alive. Not only does she have to choose which dimension she wants to live in, but she still has to deal with the same bullshit she figured out in the original (like a rogue serial killer, a different masked killer, and lots and lots of deaths to reset the day that are slowly wrecking her body). It’s a clever twist on the original that keeps you in the same general world of the first one’s story but with enough changes so that you don’t quite know what to expect. I think it’s pretty great storytelling.
Some thoughts:
I know college is weird but honestly, who practices tuba in the hallway at 9 am? And why is the masked killer not after THAT guy?
Love the touches that really make this science lab feel authentic, like repeated notes on the whiteboard to “stop stealing my food,” a broke down couch from the Nixon administration, and a half-finished game of Settlers of Catan on the shitty coffee table. I can almost smell the burnt coffee through the screen.
Love the “OK - recap” montage that takes place so Tree can catch Ryan (Phi Vu) and the audience about the events of the first movie. It’s quick and efficient and actually works within the umbrella of the story.
I did have to laugh at Ryan’s quote, “That’s not possible. That’s not what [sciency Maguffin] was designed to do.” Like, you claim to be doing your thesis on quantum mechanics and you just said that sentence like it doesn’t describe 90% of all scientific discoveries????
Crazy Unhinged Tree when she realizes she’s stuck in another time loop is one of my favorite performances of the year.
Speaking of, Jessica Rothe does most of the heavy lifting here as in the first one, and she’s just such a great comedic and dramatic actress. You can see her development as a character from the first film, but now she’s stuck in this horrendous Sophie’s Choice situation and she plays the hell out of it. There aren’t that many horror movies that are this rooted in one character and really digs into their interior emotions. One of the things I love about Blumhouse is that it allows this type of storytelling to take place in these sort of unique genre mashups under the horror umbrella.
I appreciate that the dilemma Tree faces isn’t as simple as Mom vs. Boyfriend. She has to confront whether she wants to center her life around the past or the future, and the love story is only one small part of that. It’s enough of a distinction to allow Tree to be more than just a lovesick girl - instead she has to grapple with who she wants to be as a result of who she’s been.
Even though the montage of Tree’s attempts to figure out the science necessary to fix the Maguffin is super entertaining, I still really hate that Paramore song.
They lean hard into the Back to the Future vibes this time around and it’s delightful. There are music cues that borrow from the BttF soundtrack, there are visual cues featuring a clock tower, and obviously there’s the requisite race against time.
I have to applaud the ingenuity of that last kill. Magnets, man. Truly inspired.
Not sure why the ending was so abrupt and rushed, but at least it didn’t force some horrible waste of a scene after the main resolution, so I guess that’s better?
Also, make sure to stick around for a solid post-credits scene that seems to be setting up a threequel? Even if it doesn’t yield another movie, the scene is a fun way to end, for sure.
I can’t recommend this movie enough as a fun time and a great follow-up to the original. If you haven’t seen the first one, definitely check it out and then make this one a double-feature!
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Lucas Bryant as (Step)Dad (2004-2023) [for Finnish Father's Day 2023]
1. Nathan Wuornos (Haven 3x13 Thanks for the Memories/ 5x26 Forever, 2013/2015)
2. Young Chuck Taggart (Odyssey 5 1x14 Begotten, 2004)
3. Calvin Puddie (Playing House, 2006)
4. Harry (Faux Baby webseries 1x5 Super Dad, 2008)
5. Peter Claus (Merry In-Laws, 2012)
6. Jesse Powell (Cracked 1x12 Old Soldiers, 2012)
7. Daniel Kenman (Secret Summer, 2016)
8. Colin Fitzgerald (Summer Love, 2016)
9. Phillip Anderson (Frankie Drake Mysteries 1x8 Pilot, 2018)
10. Jack Sutherland (Time for You to Come Home for Christmas, 2019)
11. Matthew Anderson (The Angel Tree, 2020)
12. Matthew Jamison (Five More Minutes: Moments Like These, 2022)
13. Eric Parsons (A World Record Christmas, 2023)
1. Biological father of James Cogan (Steve Lund), 20 years before he was born. Gets to raise him after the finale from a baby.
2. Young version of Chuck Taggart, father to Neil and Keith.
3. Expectant father, briefly co-parent, ends up with the mother (Joanne Kelly).
4. His wife (Missy Yager) gets a practice doll when they are thinking of getting kids.
5. Son of Santa, a teacher, wants to marry an astrologist (Kassia Warshawski) with a son who is in his class. Jacob Thurmeier as Max Spencer.
6. Homeless army vet suffering from PTSD makes some attempts to be a better father to his son raised by his brother.
7. Father and husband with two kids works a lot, so he has his brother take care of the kids during a summer. Max Page as Noah and Chiara Aurelia as Hailey. Emily Rose as wife.
8. Maya (Rachel Leigh Cook) works an internship at his tech company over the summer, they fall in love. Maya's daughter approves as they go sail around. Hannah Cheramy as Addison Sulliway
9. 1920s Canadian pilot and eugenics enthusiast. Has a deaf son he tries to get kidnapped and killed. He dies instead.
10. Meets a widow (Alison Sweeney) and her son on the way to figure out who saved his life years prior. Turns out it was the widow's late husband. He falls in love and gets along well with the son. In Time for Them to Come Home for Christmas (2021), Alison Sweeney's character reveals they got married. Kiefer O'Reilly as Will Moss.
11. Reunites with childhood best friend (Jill Wagner) who has a daughter and a dead husband. Also raising his nephew while his sister Zoe (Clare Filipow) is stationed over seas. Cassidy Nugent as Cassie McBride and Oscar Farrell as Owen Anderson.
12. Played football with the widow's (Ashley Williams) husband in high school, now works as a real estate person wanting to buy the house they lived in. Helps renovate the house and they fall in love while he also develops a relationship with the son. A funcle to 8 nephews. Brady Droulis as Adam Morrison.
13. Stepfather to an autistic kid. Bio dad left. Becomes Dad to Charlie and has another baby with his wife (Nikki DeLoach) in the end. Aias Dalman as Charlie Parsons.
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Horror Movie Review: Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
If you ever wanted to feel as if you yourself were stuck in Groundhog Day then watch this movie franchise back to back, truly Happy Death 2U is the same thing again.
Happy Death Day 2U is a 2019 American science fiction comedy slasher film written and directed by Christopher Landon. It stars Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Suraj Sharma, and Steve Zissis. The film is a sequel to 2017’s Happy Death Day.
College student Ryan wakes up in his car on Tuesday, September 19. Returning to his dorm room, he walks in on his roommate Carter and Carter’s girlfriend,…
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