On the final Friday of each month, I take a look back at all the things I loved and put together this list of recommendations for you: the Friday Finale. It might include the best book I read, a particularly impressive recipe I tried, or the best thing I streamed. I hope these standout moments from my month inspire you moving forward!
Congratulations! You survived the holiday season. This year was a particularly rough one for us that involved missing half of our presents, finding out Milo had his first cold on Christmas Day, and driving six hours back home to discover that our pipes had burst!
Bah humbug, am I right?
That’s not to say that there weren’t bright spots, though. Milo got to spend his first Christmas in Georgia with his dad’s side of the family, and we had our traditional holiday creme brûlée. This year’s version was an orange-flavored Gran Marnier concoction that was simply divine!
We also got back into our routine of watching new movies together, something that isn’t always easy with a three month old but that makes us feel like “us.” (Remember when we watched dozens of movies in one year thanks to MoviePass?)
Here are the best movies I streamed this December, some with a holiday vibe and some that were just good movies in general.
Amazon Prime Video really came out swinging this year! They have two of the best movies I watched this month, including this holiday romantic comedy that felt like it could’ve come out in the golden era of rom coms beside While You Were Sleeping or When Harry Met Sally.
Something from Tiffany’s stars Zoey Deutch, who I’ve always loved, and Kendrick Sampson, who I spent the whole movie going “where do I know this guy from?” and then realized he was on How to Get Away With Murder. The premise is that the main guy buys an engagement ring for his girlfriend while the main girl’s boyfriend buys her earrings for Christmas… and then their bags are accidentally swapped. Chaos ensues!
The entire cast is really great in this one, and I appreciated that there’s more to the story than just the romance plot. This is one of the better new rom coms I’ve seen in a while, and I would absolutely recommend it, holiday season or not!
Guillermo del Toro does everything well, so I was excited to watch this one the other night with Spencer. His take on the classic Italian story is set in Mussolini’s Italy, and fascism plays a big role in it. His ability to see the way war and authoritarianism affects children is truly a gift, and it always leaves me thinking.
I loved the stop motion animation, and the inventive storylines that Pinocchio finds himself in include being a carnival attraction, a child soldier training for war, and of course, the prey of a giant fish.
Overall, it’s a gorgeous adaptation with a star-studded cast, and it had me reading all the interviews del Toro gave and thinking on the themes days later.
Knives Out was one of my favorite movies in 2019, and I’ve been impatiently waiting for this one to drop since Netflix announced its partnership with Rian Johnson.
Glass Onion has everything you’d expect: Daniel Craig reprising his role as the ace detective Benoit Blanc, rich people with more money than sense, a perfect locale for a murder to take place. Janelle Monae has the standout performance of the movie, but the entire cast brings nuance and life to their roles. I especially enjoyed Kate Hudson’s character!
I can hardly imagine how difficult it would be to follow a breakout mystery like Knives Out, but I think Glass Onion does it well. Now to wait impatiently for the third installment of the franchise!
I chose this movie on a whim one morning while nap trapped. I didn’t know a thing about it except that Asa Butterfield gives a good performance in most everything he’s in, and I wasn’t disappointed. This was very cute!
Your Christmas or Mine? begins with a young couple parting ways to spend Christmas separately with their families. Despite only having been together for a few months, they each decide to jump on the other’s train home, leading the woman to her boyfriend’s (surprise!) estate with his Lordship father and the guy to his girlfriend’s casual and fun family home. Hilarity ensues!
This is another one with a few well known actors. (It’s the second one on this list with David Bradley aka Filch in it!) Overall it’s a very sweet film with more depth than you would expect on first glance. It’s probably the most Christmas forward on this list, and it’s worth a watch!
Okay, this is incredibly unorthodox, but I watched Spirited the night this post went live, and I knew I had to immediately add it. Not only is it another Christmas movie to round out the list, but it’s the most inventive take on A Christmas Carol that I’ve ever seen!
In this movie musical (!), spirits actually perform the rites from Dickens’ classic story, choosing a different terrible “perp” each year and spending the twelve months before Christmas planning out the visits with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, all in the hopes that they will see the error of their ways and change in time for Christmas.
I don’t want to give too much away, but Will Ferrell, Ryan Murphy, and Octavia Spencer give great performances. The music is by Pasek and Paul (you’ve heard their stuff in Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land, and The Greatest Showman) so you know it’s good, and the film makes fun of itself enough for the “breaking out into song” moments to work. Basically, we’ll be forking out the monthly fee for Apple TV+ so we can watch this every December for the foreseeable future!
What movies, holiday themed or not, did you love this month?
P.S. You can check out all the Friday Finale posts from the year for other recommendations, if you aren’t looking for movies.
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