Barbie, Wonka, and Holdovers

What do they all have in common? Barbie, Wonka, and Holdovers are all one name movies. They were also really bad movies. My husband and I are always in the minority. Whenever everyone likes a movie - or it is hyped to be absolutely wonderful and in the top ten of the year - we hate it. And when we really like a movie, it gets little attention. Perhaps it’s because we just prefer British actors and British films and series. When we went to visit our family over Christmas we thought it would be nice to see Barbie because of all of the hype. I loved Barbie and had several of them - including a car that I trained my parakeet to ride on the steering wheel. But the movie was just awful. Then we went to an actual theater to see Wonka. We haven’t been to a theater since before the pandemic. The atmosphere was most annoying, the quality of the film was terrible and almost grainy compared to TV watching these days. Neither my husband nor I are in to Willy Wonka - so it meant little to us. I think our kids and twenty year old grandson connected to it for sentimental reasons. They actually met Gene Wilder and there is a photo of our grandson sitting on his lap. At least there were a couple of heartfelt moments. When we returned home we thought we should see the Holdovers last night with Paul Giamatti. We like him, and this was another movie that got so much hype. We even got a subscription to Peacock rather than pay to rent it. And for the third time we just didn’t get the noise around this film. It was just terrible and predictable - and long. So I don’t think we will be going to another theater in the near future. It’s really disappointing because we love movies and they are a big part of our lives. We have come to the conclusion that it must be us.