planktonrules

I have really enjoyed Will Ferrell's films. So, it would seem natural I'd try watching "Daddy's Home" as it's him biggest hit to date. However, after seeing it, I felt like I was out of sync with everyone else. I liked parts of it, but after a while it just stopped being funny and just became painful.

Brad (Will Ferrell) is a second husband to Sara (Linda Cardinelli) and she has two kids from her previous marriage. The kids don't particularly like Brad and he's sort of like a second class parent...even though he tried VERY hard...picking up the kids every day from school, volunteering and not taking it personally when the kids push him away. Eventually, the kids start to warm up to him and he thinks he's going to become the dad they never had, as their biological father, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) abandoned them long ago.

One day, Dusty shows up and Brad almost immediately feels second-class by comparison. Part of it is because Dusty is an amazing person...but most is because Dusty is a passive-aggressive jerk and does everything he can to undermine Brad and make him feel insignificant. In response, the very mild mannered Brad starts to try to compete and even one-up Dusty. After a while, this competitiveness becomes insane...and stops being fun.

While many people liked the competition between Brad and Dusty, I just found it painful and sad. I also don't enjoy comedies where a problem is minor and can easily be settled...but isn't. The film has many good moments but after while it just stopped being fun. You might like it...MANY people did. I just felt the story needed more humor and less hostility between Brad and Dusty. This did happen after a while...but for me, it was too late. Worth seeing...possibly. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. It started well...but lost momentum.

I think, for me, the problem is with films like "Talladega Nights" and "Anchorman 2", you KNEW the characters were ridiculous and completely unbelievable...so if terrible things happened to them, you didn't mind. But here...well it was painful seeing more realistic people being this mean...plus divided families and step-parenting isn't actually that funny.

Based on Christie story a haunted house? Got house as an inheritance but no money left to live on.

Lots of offers to buy house--gold tooth and ears

This episode of "Partners in Crime" is one which was very predictable but you really cannot blame Agatha Christie for this. What I mean is that back when the story was written, it was new and fresh...but over the years many movies and TV shows have copied many story elements from this particular story. My wife said it well when it reminded her of an episode of "Scooby Doo"!

A poor heiress comes to Tommy and Tuppence with a problem. She inherited a house which seems to be haunted! Additionally, while she expected to have some sort of monetary inheritance with the manor, she couldn't find any and she cannot afford to keep the place going. The couple agree to look into the haunting but soon do what I would have done...wondered WHO would have benefitted from scaring folks off and WHY. This is the key to the mystery and it's well worth seeing. And, as I said above, you can't blame Christie if you, too, can easily solve this one!

By the way, I only scored this one a 6...not because the Christie story was bad so much as the heiress was so dim-witted....she SHOULD have been able to figure much of this out on her own!

Up until he was 40, the Jewish David Suchet was an areligious person. However, he underwent a conversion to Christianity and he went all in. What I mean by that is following the completion of his masterful "Poirot" series, he put his money where his mouth is, so to speak...narrating quite a few shows about Christianity, Protestantism, and, in this case, British Cathedrals.

The show consists of brief visits to various cathedrals which used to be big sites for pilgrimages...starting with southern England and working his way northward. The show features lovely cinematography and really makes you want to visit these grand Anglican churches. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the show features too little time with each cathedral. For example, there are wonderful things about many of these places which he never gets to...mostly because they cram too many into the show. I would have preferred either fewer cathedrals or a longer show. Still, well worth your time.