Author: Scoochslam

Godmothered (2020)

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A young and unskilled fairy godmother ventures out on her own to prove her worth by tracking down a young girl whose request for help was ignored.

Jillian Bell stars as Eleanor, a godmother in training who decides to take an assignment to help young Mackenzie find her happily ever after. When she makes it to Mackenzie (Isla Fisher) she finds out that she is no longer young, she has two daughters and that her happily ever after has been ruined because her one true love ran off with a pilates instructor. At least that is what we are led to believe before finding out her husband and the father of her children has died in an automobile accident. Her daughter Jane is especially having a hard time dealing with the loss of her father. Mackenzie is also having a hard time believing in happiness since her husband’s passing. Although a cute fairy tale Christmas story, I can’t help to wonder if they could have achieved the same affect with sticking with Mackenzie being an actual divorcee instead of widow.

Love Wedding Repeat (2020)

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While trying to make his sister’s wedding day go smoothly, Jack (Sam Claflin) finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend (Freida Pinto), an uninvited guest with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative, and the girl that got away (Olivia Munn) in alternate versions of the same day.

This is a wedding comedy about chance and how things have thousands of ways to go wrong.  It iss mostly funny but it does have some heavier moments. It is revealed that Jack and Hayley’s parents couldn’t be at the wedding. I assume due to their somber tones that they have both passed. Dina has also lost her mother to terminal cancer in the years since Jack and her have last met. These deaths are played as story beats but they do come out of nowhere so be prepared to hear about deaths.

Arsenal (2017)

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A powerful action thriller, ARSENAL tells the intertwining stories of the Lindel brothers, Mikey (Johnathon Schaech) and JP (Adrian Grenier), who had only each other to rely on growing up. As adults, JP found success as the owner of a construction company, while Mikey became a small-time mobster, mired in a life of petty crime. When Mikey is kidnapped and held for a ransom by ruthless crime boss Eddie King (Nicolas Cage), JP turns to the brothers’ old pal Sal (John Cusack), a plain clothes detective for help. In order to rescue his brother, JP must risk everything and unleash his vengeance against King’s relentless army of gangsters.

It is not revealed what happened to Mikey and JP’s parents but they do live with their uncle. Mikey usually is left to fend for JP and himself. This movie is a crime thriller and centers around Mikey and JP having to take care of each other even as adults. Their uncle kills himself by self-inflicted gunshot wound when they are children. You do not see him shoot himself but you do see the gruesome aftermath. I’d advise anyone who has issues with suicides of family members to use caution when/if viewing. This happens within the first 10 minutes of the movie.

Ghost Rider (2007)

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When motorcycle rider Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the Devil to save his father’s life, he is transformed into the Ghost Rider, the Devil’s own bounty hunter, and is sent to hunt down sinners.
Johnny Blaze is a stunt cyclist whose father is suffering from cancer. One night while working on his motorcycle he is visited by the devil, Mephistopheles, who offers to save his father from his illness if Johnny sells his soul to him. The next day, his father is miraculously better but during a stunt they have performed many times before his father has an accident and passes away. A majority of the movie is not focused on the death of Johnny’s father but his death is the catalyst for the rest of the film.

Tron Legacy (2010)

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Sam learns of a cryptic signal originating from the arcade of legendary game creator Kevin Flynn, who’s been missing for over a decade. Sam embarks on a personal journey with the help of the fearless female warrior Quorra, father and son venture through an incredible cyber universe and wage the ultimate battle of good versus evil.

Sam Flynn’s father Kevin Flynn disappears without a trace in 1989. In 2009, Kevin’s friend Alan Bradley receives a page from Kevin’s old office inside the arcade. Sam investigates and is sucked into the digital grid where Sam encounters his father. Father and son battle again Kevin’s digital counterpart CLU. Eventually Kevin re-integrates himself with CLU and sacrifices himself to save his son, the grid, and an organically occuring ISO who may hold the answers to life’s hardest questions.

The plot involves grief of many kinds, a son grieves his father’s disappearance, a creator grieves over the corruption of his creation, and Sam also loses his father for a second time permanently at the conclusion of the film. The movie may hit harder than you expect it to in a few different parts of the film so go in knowing that grief plays an essential part of the beginning of the film and that it has an ending that is both happy and sad.

The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

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The story of sister and brother, Kate and Teddy Pierce, whose Christmas Eve plan to catch Santa Claus on camera turns into an unexpected journey that most kids could only dream about.

A brother and sister attempt to capture proof of Santa Claus. They sneak into his sleigh on Christmas Eve after witnessing him traveling house to house.  The beginning of the movie is a sequences of flashbacks with Kate and Teddy having Christmas with their mom and dad before hitting you with the fact the dad is no longer living. Teddy is a troubled young man, acting out after losing his firefighting father. The whole plot revolves around Kate and Teddy who are dealing with their grief and how it is affecting their Christmas spirit, especially Teddy’s. Teddy writes to Santa with his Christmas wish of seeing his father one more time so he can tell him something. It is a fun and charming movie with laughs and excitement but it does have some moments that may prove difficult for those grieving the loss of a loved one, especially a father, or husband. 

Playing with Fire (2019) *SPOILERS*

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A crew of rugged firefighters meet their match when attempting to rescue three rambunctious kids.

Superintendent Jake Carson (John Cena) lost his mother before he knew her and his father died while fighting a fire when he was very young. His father’s death plays a large part in his desire to be in charge of all the smoke jumping depots. The kids that are rescued from a cabin fire are revealed to be orphans who lost their parents 2 years prior. It has lots of fun, wacky, silly moments and is a nice blend of drama and comedy. There are some melancholic moments but it has an uplifting and positive ending. 

POKÉMON Detective Pikachu (2019) *SPOILERS*

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The story begins when ace detective Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, prompting his 21-year-old son Tim to find out what happened. Aiding in the investigation is Harry’s former Pokémon partner, Detective Pikachu: a hilariously wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth who is a puzzlement even to himself. Finding that they are uniquely equipped to communicate with one another, Tim and Pikachu join forces on a thrilling adventure to unravel the tangled mystery. Chasing clues together through the neon-lit streets of Ryme City–a sprawling, modern metropolis where humans and Pokémon live side by side in a hyper-realistic live-action world–they encounter a diverse cast of Pokémon characters and uncover a shocking plot that could destroy this peaceful co-existence and threaten the whole Pokémon universe.

Tim Goodman’s dad goes missing and is believed to be dead, murdered in an explosion. We find out Tim lost his mother to an illness when he was younger. Tim chose to not live with his father after the death of his mother. Tim has to deal with losing another parent but is determined to find out how it occurred with the help of Pikachu. It later turns out his father was not murdered but his being was transferred into the mind of the Pikachu. Although the father is brought back to life this doesn’t happen in real life and may cause issues for some viewers.

Murder Mystery (2019)

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When an NYC cop (Adam Sandler) finally takes his wife (Jennifer Aniston) on a long promised European trip, a chance meeting on the flight gets them invited to an intimate family gathering on the Super Yacht of elderly billionaire Malcolm Quince. When Quince is murdered, they become the prime suspects in a modern day whodunit.

Revolves around the murder of super rich father, uncle, and godfather, Malcom Quince to gain the money in his will. Malcom was a complicated man who didn’t like his family at all. It’s a mystery film and death is a prominent theme throughout. It’s a well done dramedy.

Goosebumps (2015)

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After moving to a new small town, teenage Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) meets the beautiful girl next door, Hannah (Odeya Rush). But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange – he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town. It’s up to Stine, Zach, Hannah, and Zach’s friend Champ (Ryan Lee) to put all the monsters back in their books.

Shortly into the movie we learn that Zach Cooper has lost his father. There is a small part where he watches an old home video of his dad and himself playing baseball. It’s not brought up often that his father is gone.  Champ thinks something horrible has happened to his father at a point in the film but realizes the man who was frozen is not his father. This is played for laughs. There is a part late in the film where Zach talks to another character about how it feels to have lost someone.