Made It Through May. Woo Hoo.

Golly, May was a crazy month. My son was in his last month before graduating from high school, I was in my last month of work before the summer so that meant end-of-year barbecues and other last things, and my husband is getting our Miata that we never drive ready to sell. Getting back to my son, though, we thought he wouldn’t be able to walk in his graduation ceremony because he has to take summer school in July.

Lo and behold, when we stopped by to pick up his cap and gown, which we had paid for, after all, those in charge told us my boy could walk after all. None of us were expecting it, my son and I were dressed casually, and we both felt a bit bewildered, but my parents and in-laws raced down, my son walked, and we got McDonald’s afterwards. It was all a bit of a blur, and I was so dazed that during the ceremony I ended up taking a photo of the concrete floor instead of my son.

It wasn’t a total loss from a photographic standpoint, though. My dad got some good pictures, plus I got a decent cap and gown photo before the ceremony, albeit showing my progeny looking a bit tired and confused. We’re holding off on his graduation party until he finishes summer school, which was probably a good decision, because for the next two days he, my husband and I didn’t move around much.

It’s probably also good that the movies this month were kind of a wash, because I don’t think I could have taken it if they had fallen to much to one side of the fence or the other. Rants and raves both take their own kind of energy.

Anyway, here we gooooo (click on the images for the full reviews, of course)…

Cellar Door

After Sera and John suffer a miscarriage, they’re in the market for a change, but unfortunately every house in their price range is a fixer-upper. They’re about to give up when a seemingly nice but still mysterious benefactor offers them an expansive mansion for free. The one catch? They’re not allowed to open the cellar door under any circumstances. This movie was promising to begin with, but about halfway through it petered out and got dumb, even if it was nice seeing Scott Speedman again.

Daaaaaali!

Yeah, the six A’s are very important. They’re the most rational things in this fever dream of a movie, in which a journalist just wants to get an interview with the famously voilatile and picky artist, who has his own ideas as to how the interview should be conducted, if he grants it at all. When I say this movie is a dream, I’m not kidding. We don’t know if anything we’re looking at is real or not. Sometimes it works. Most of the time it’s just freaking weird.

Thunderbolts*

I normally make a point to avoid anything from post-2019 Disney and their holdings, but in this case I got five dollars off from Fandango, so there we go. Anyway, Thunderbolts* wasn’t so bad. These characters aren’t perfect, they make mistakes, and it strays a bit from the usual superhero formula. There’s also quite a bit about a character named Bob, which reminds me of a certain Nissan commercial from the early 1990s.

Nonnas

Based on the true story of Enoteca Maria in Staten Island, New York, Nonnas is movie comfort food, especially if anyone likes Italian. After Joe’s mother dies, he wants to pay tribute to her the best way he knows how, and that’s through food. Only at Joe’s restaurant, the cooks are older Italian ladies who make their family specialties. This restaurant is still thriving today, and the nonnas are of all different nationalities, although the core menu remains Italian.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Oh my word, this crazy movie was a fantastic way to wind up the month. I’m not going to say too much about it because I don’t want to give any spoilers, but Tom Cruise and Company have done an amazing job over the past thirty years, and this was a great way to wind up the franchise. And of course, Tom can still run and do stunts like nobody’s business.

---

What did you see this month? Good, bad, or indifferent? Comment below! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you on Saturday, when the Back To 1985 Blogathon will be happening…

If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please subscribe to my Substack page, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only reviews of mostly new and newish movies, documentaries, and shows. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday. You can also subscribe to my Club 15 Tier, which gives you at least one extra Taking Up Room post every month for a small fee.