I have to admit, I enjoyed this a LOT more than I thought I would.
Here’s the IMDB Page. Does anyone actually use that site? Not being a filmhead, I don’t know what movie aficionados actually use. Is it a sellout site like Devilreads is for books? I don’t actually care, it’s just a question that sprang to mind when I was linking.
An old money family was cursed several generations ago that the first born daughter would have the ears and nose of a pig. So they had all boys for quite some time. Then along came Penelope, snout and all. Her mother faked her death and has had her hidden away for years. The curse can only be broken when someone like her (ie, a rich blueblood) accepts her for who she is and marries her. Throughout the years Penelope’s mother has used a discreet matching service to try to find Penelope a husband. All to no avail. Then a journalist, who saw Penelope as a baby and was laughed out of a job, finds a down and out Blueblood who he pays to spy. Max, the blueblood ends up really liking Penelope but when she reveals herself declines her request for marriage. Penelope runs away into the big bad world, meets Reese Witherspoon on a vespa, has a boat load of adventures and then finds out that Max was actually a janitor and not a blueblood at all. She accepts herself and turns into Christina Ricci and she and Max get together happily ever after.
Mrs B went through about 10 movies that the local library had that she was interested in. This was the only one I was willing to watch. Thankfully, we both enjoyed it. I was expecting a lot more YA drama angst but instead it took the Fairytale route, which while having some of the same things, is completely different in tone. The only whiner was a rich brat who hates Penelope but is trying to marry her for her money. Thankfully she leaves him at the altar! (bravo!!!)
This was light and fun and cute. I actually ended up watching it twice. Once on my own and then again with Mrs B. She tends to be a talker during movies so I have learned to watch things on my own if I want to get all the little details. The whole thing with Max being a fake the whole time was great and the producer did a great job of deliberately misrepresenting things. In some ways it reminded me of “A Beautiful Mind”, that kind of directorial misdirection. I couldn’t handle a steady diet of movies like this, but it is really nice to get a bit of a change up.
Now comes the tough part. What do I watch next? I just looked through my collection and have picked out three.These are of the “So bad they are just Bad” variety. Comic book movies before the MCU really got rolling and kicked the quality up a notch. Let me know what you want, if any. No matter which, it isn’t going to be pretty…
I’m so glad you liked the movie! It’s one of the most wholesome things in the world. And James McAvoy always steals my heart 😉
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I was very pleasantly surprised 🙂
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I vote on Ghost Rider. I haven’t watched it in yeeeeaaars but I remember being kind of like, “Da fuck?” about it.
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I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it since the sequel came out in ’11. So almost 8 years for me, at the very least. I’m just kind of laughing to myself about whichever gets chosen, as I KNOW they all suck 🙂
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I know, it was a really hard choice of which one to vote on lol.
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Glad you liked this one! I’m a big fan of IMDB and use it all the time. Not sure if I count as an aficionado, but I do see a lot of movies! My vote is for Fantastic Four.
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And a vote for FF.
I don’t watch enough movies/tv to think of imdb as my go to place but I have to say, it sure has been helpful with this once a month movie thing.
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I have not heard of Penelope. I dig wholesome. We will definitely be watching this one.
Since the movies are all equally bad, I guess I’ll go with ‘Ghostie Rider’.
Have fun.
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Thanks for the vote Ike. I’d never heard of Penelope either until Mrs B brought it to my attention. I suspect there are a LOT of movies that I don’t even know exist 🙂
As an aside, do you have an active blog?
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Yup, there is an endless trove of movies out there. I am actually more of a fan of tracking down rare old movies. My preferred era is 1929-39.
I do have an active blog!
If you consider one post every eighteen months active…
I am actually a rather private person. I actively journal, and have an active, old-fashioned envelope and stamp style pen-pal letter writing correspondence with a friend of mine that is serving time in the big house. I occasionally write guest posts on other blogs. I also communicate with some bloggers privately, rather than openly.
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Thanks for explaining. Just wanted to make sure there was reciprocity if needed.
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Happy to hear Penelope was a success! It really is a wholesome, good movie. We need more like it!
My vote is for the FF. Elektra is awful and Ghost Rider is just blah. FF is bad, but it’s a wholesome kind of bad by comparison to Elektra. It also tends to grow in a viewer after a while, I find. 😉
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Uh oh, sounds like someone likes the FF movie 😉
My biggest draw was actually seeing a Dr Doom, so when I saw what they did with him, man, I cared more about that than anything about the FF.
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They did a good job with him, that’s for sure! 😃
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I watched both FF and Ghost Rider with my kids. At the time they loved both so they’re happy memories for me. I’m easily pleased!
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It always makes life easier when one is easily pleased and/or content. Glad you have good memories of these movies. I remember enjoying them when I watched them but we just didn’t have anything else to really compare them to. Superhero movies hadn’t quite taken off yet…
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That’s true. There’s a nostalgia to watching them though that keeps them fun 😊
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Milou and I Imdb or ibmd or whatever only if we can not put our fingers on where we know certain actors from. As far as your next movie out of the 3 you picked, I never really saw electra as I only know the woman who plays it used to be in Alias, so saw it as a continuation of that series rather. Fantastic 4 i still prefer over the shitty remake that came out not so long ago, and ghost rider was a kind of oke trip for me first time around. do not watch GR2..
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Jen Garner definitely used her fame from Alias and her appearance in Daredevil to get Elektra going, sadly, it just didn’t happen. It wasn’t a good movie. It was pretty generic 🙂
So you thought the first FF movie was better than the reboot eh? That doesn’t bode well for the reboot, that’s for sure 🙂
As for GR2, too late 😀 I watched it when it came out and my goodness, I concur with your statement. I wish I HADN’T watched it!
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do not waste your time with reboot… At least the guy playing Cap America was also Jhonny in ff. I seriously do not even know why they had to reboot. goes beyond my comprehension.
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I think the reboot happened so that Fox could keep the movie rights from reverting back to Marvel/Disney. It is really messed up how some of the legal things work. Thankfully Marvel is slowly re-acquiring all their licenses, like Spiderman and X-Men, but others still aren’t under the MCU umbrella. I think the FF could be a huge boost to the mcu if they could find the right actor for Mr Fantastic. He’d make a great leader…
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If you are going to do a reboot, at least stay with the source material. unless there is a black Jhonny in a Marvel version that i do not yet know of. Not being racist, but black jhonny with daddy issues did not work for me.
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Yep, more comic movies would be better if they stuck with source material instead of trying to be all “creative”.
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Oh my goodness, you poor thing, I really don’t envy you your next movie choice… Can’t vote for any of those, sorry! 😉
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Some help you are! Come on, let the inner sadist out, even just a little 😉
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OK – you wanted it! I vote for Electra! (Lots of evil laugh)
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Thanks. See, wasn’t that fun? 😉
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I never heard of this movie, and now I’m curious: it sounds like the perfect one to lift one’s spirits on a rainy day…
And I use IMBD constantly, either to get information on movies, tv series or actors – especially when I can’t remember someone’s name, which happens quite often. Old age and all that jazz… 😀 😀
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I think it is old enough that it isn’t remembered any more, what with short attention spans nowadays. Not one I’d want to own but am glad I watched it.
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I really enjoyed this movie too! I wasn’t expecting much out of it either and I like that it went the fairy tale route 🙂 I haven’t seen Electra, but the other two were enjoyable enough (though not “good” movies- I can’t remember much about either of them to be fair…)
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All 3 movies were “good enough” at the time, due to there simply not being any other good marvel movies. Still hard to believe that things really took off with Iron Man…
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Oh, I wasn’t expecting to want to see Penelope after I’d read this, but I do! Darn it, it sounds adorable!
IMDB – very useful when you’re arguing with your incredibly stubborn father that, no, that isn’t Val Kilmer, and no he wasn’t also in Ghostbusters!!
Finally, I vote for Electra. I want to read your scathing report and laugh maniacally!! 😀
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1 vote for Elektra, gotcha.
Thankfully, my stubborn father lives hundreds of miles away so I’m all set that way 😀
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Lucky! 😀
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Pretty cool that you ended up enjoying this one. Could’ve sworn that you would’ve had rougher things to share about it hahah And boy.. what a selection! I’d vote for all of them if I could. But I’d go with Elektra first. 😀
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I was surprised as anybody that I ended up enjoying this 😀
And another for Elektra. I’m going to have to go count votes now. No clear win…
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I doubt there’s a “good” winner anyways. 😂
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Yeah, this is one of those situations where even the winner is a loser, hahahahahaa 😀
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[…] Penelope was a big surprise in that I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought based on the fairytale’ish premise. For April I have to go count the votes to see which of the bad pre-mcu superhero movies I have to fall on my sword for. […]
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[…] Penelope […]
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