Here at M.O.M. we take movies very seriously. Movies made a relatively strong comeback this year, with some notable releases being something other than a run-of-the-mill Marvel movie. We’ve plugged 2022’s best and worst movies into M.O.M.’s super advanced mommy-rithm, and let the machines do the rest. Sort of like those AI Chat’s you keep seeing on Twitter, but way more advanced because we only use the best of the best.

There’s no point arguing or debating what movie is best when we have algorithms. They know everything about anything. Algorithms tell us  we should buy next, watch next, and even when the optimal time is to take a piss. Pretty soon, algorithms will be writing all of our movies and tv shows  (or at least lending a hand in the creative process). So, M.O.M. readers, soak in these last few years of movies that come from the soul, because soon we’ll have perfectly curated content that will whelm us all the way to our graves. Gee whiz, ain't living in the future just the best?

Enjoy!

(psst, before you read on, consider subscribing to Billy West's newsletter: Moose Droppings. You can check it out here)

I watch way too many rom-coms. I fucking love them, so I decided to rank every rom-com I've seen. And then I watched some more, rewatched some others, and decided it was time to update the list. Here are the tiers: ​

Many of my friends know this story, but I’m not sure many of them know this detail that made one of the worst nights of my life—and easily the single worst night at the time—that much worse.

There are three things you need to know before I tell this story:

1. I swam competitively from ages 7 to 24.
2. MacGruber is currently a comedy series streaming on Peacock starring Will Forte. MacGruber is a parody of the original MacGyver series, the premise of which is that MacGyver is a secret agent whose schtick is that he is really resourceful and handy. Before that, MacGruber was a movie that came out in 2010 and flopped pretty bad. Before that—and most pertinent to this story— it was a recurring sketch on SNL. Unfamiliar with these sketches? Click here.
3. I loved SNL in high school and still do today.

WARNING: SPOILERS (kind of). I reference things that happen in the movie without context, and I discuss the themes.

Before I say anything else, I need to say that this movie is not for everyone. As soon as the lights came on in the theater, a teenage (I think?) girl stood up and looked at who I can only assume was her dad and said, “That was the worst movie I have ever seen.” Her mom was already walking out, as if embarrassed her husband made her go see the movie. Probably not a movie to take the whole family to, so yeah, not for everyone, but the message this movie has is.

I saw Morbius today. If you are online in any capacity, it's very possible that you've heard that this movie is bad. So I had to know for myself. I had to know just how bad it really was.

​Warning: There are a lot of spoilers below. That's kind of the point of this post. I watched it, so you don't have to. 

If you know me, you know that I watch a lot of movies. If you really know me, you will know that I fucking love rom-coms. I have watched so many. I don't know why exactly. A part of it is because I am a hopeless romantic, and another part of it is that I am simply fascinated by them. Why do some of them work well and others don't? Who is going to be the next guy to exclusively do rom-coms? In the 90s, it was Hugh Grant. In the 00s, it was Matthew McConaughey. Who's next? For a while, it seemed like it was going to be Noah Centineo.

Regardless, I started to have a Pokémon, "gotta catch 'em all" kind of approach to rom-coms. It is my goal to watch as many as I can and to be a walking rom-com encyclopedia (sure, it's a weird goal, but I don't care).