6. All the Money in the World (2017) Movie Review: Worth the Controversy and Mark Wahlberg

What do you get the man who has everything? Not a grandson, that's for sure. 

Michelle Williams stars as a lady who existed and married into the Getty family. Christopher Plummer plays JP Getty, the world's first billionaire and total asshole (not Kevin Spacey). Mark Wahlberg is there, too, kids. They all come together when Williams's son, Plummer's grandson, and Wahlberg's... person of interest gets kidnapped in this biopic about events that proved rich people suck hard and that's why they're rich.

Look, this is Michelle Williams's movie. She's amazing and at no point did I think "man, I wonder what Dawson's up to on the creek?" Not so with the other actors. Every time I see Wahlberg I hear "feel it, feel it" and can't take him seriously. Plummer at this point is simply the embodiment of Scrooge and while he's damn good at it there's nothing new here.

Overall, the story is fascinating. I mean, what kind of asshole is so tight fisted with his money he won't pay his grandson's ransom? It's not even a crazy amount for him. $17 million when you're worth billions is like not dropping change into the tip jar on a $50 coffee order.

Despite the crazy reshoots with Plummer after Kevin Spacey became an asshole and Wahlberg being the only person on the shoot paid for those reshoots (yeah, Michelle Williams was paid around $1,000 to his $1.5 million).

A definite rental that will make you want to read a biography of this monster.

The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017) Movie Review that will charm the Dickens off you. The Dick-ens.

Charles Dickens, master storyteller, has a little money trouble due to his dad being a jerk and his books not selling. Then he has an idea, one that will change the world and make people the world over complain about the phrase "Happy Holidays." That idea is to set a story during the Christmas season and base it around family and the morality of an old bastard. Thus we have A Christmas Carol.

    I was on board from jump. What is basically a sequel to Shakespeare in Love (1998, the movie that didn't deserve Best Picture but was a solid story), The Man Who Invented Christmas is a masturbatory act of a screenwriter showing how much trouble it is for a writer to write and the inspiration that the world can bring to genius blah blah blah. I like to write things and I like to see the creative process in the act, even if it is twenty feet tall with its Dickens in its hand.

    Yeah, I'm a child and love that Dickens joke.

    The movie is charming with just enough real life to make the drama "matter." We know the dude wrote the story and that he was a little crazy with his family. What matters is the people and the characters, something the story draws out with pure empathetic emotions.

   Plus, Christopher Plummer as Scrooge is a must see. Just damn good.