Feelings double feeture

Yes I know I spelled "feature" wrong.

I wrote earlier this year about the existence of two 2023 films with the word "feelings" in the title, but since their U.S. release dates were separated by a month, I didn't envision that they would make a viable theatrical double feature.

Fortunately, in Australia their release dates were separated by only a week.

Nicole Holofcener's You Hurt My Feelings hit cinemas on June 15th, with Gene Stupnitsky's No Hard Feelings following suit on June 22nd. On Tuesday night, I saw them back to back, because I was not missing that opportunity.

As an extra novelty, my wife joined me -- but only for the first film. (She felt someone needed to go home to feed our kids dinner.) We think it was the first movie just the two of us had seen in the theater together, without our kids present, since Joker, which was not a pleasant experience for either of us.

The extra casualness with rules -- leaving our 12-year-old at home in charge of our nine-year-old -- was a result of it being school holidays. I usually get off work around 4:30, and judged that we could make it to Yarraville by 4:50 to see No Hard Feelings. (And only just did -- I didn't factor in the extra time it would take during rush hour traffic.) Then with only about ten minutes in between them, You Hurt My Feelings would follow at 6:50. Popcorn and peanut M&M's would suffice as my dinner.

Neither film reached the heights I had hoped. As it's been out longer, I wrote a review of You Hurt My Feelings first, which you can find here. I expect to write my No Hard Feelings review tomorrow if you want to check the link to the right. 

I've already landed on a 7/10 (3.5 stars) for Holofcener's film, which I think might be a little generous -- and if I end up with the same rating for Stupnitsky's, it will also be a little generous.

But because I really don't want these films to disappear from the theatrical release schedule, since these represent two of the more endangered types of mainstream films, I don't mind if I assess them a little more generously than they deserve.

And anyway, I really don't want to hurt their feelings. 

Feelings ... nothing more than ... Feelings

It's been a long time since I've written a "hey, that's a coincidence!" post, so here, this will slake your thirst.

Did you know there are movies coming out in 2023 called You Hurt My Feelings and No Hard Feelings?

Granted I am probably stealing material from myself for my year-end portmanteaus post, but I'm sure I'll think of something else to talk about at that point.

I had been aware of the former, which is Nicole Holofcener's latest and stars regular Holofcener collaborator Julia Louis-Dreyfus. (Well, they've collaborated one other time, at least.) Amber Tamblyn, Tobias Menzies and David Cross fill out the cast. That one hits theaters, in the U.S. anyway, on May 26th.

Only four weeks later on June 23rd, it's No Hard Feelings, which I only just learned about this past weekend. That stars Jennifer Lawrence, with Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Natalie Morales and Matthew Broderick co-starring. It's directed by Gene Stupnitsky, who directed 2019's Good Boys, which I really liked.

But Vance, you say. I'm sure there are multiple movies that come out every year with the word "feelings" in them.

Not quite. In fact, if you want to know how many other movies I have seen -- out of 6,375 total -- with the word "feelings" in the title, the answer is: zero.

IMDB does produce a smattering of other results when you search the word "feelings," including a couple other movies with each of these titles, but not a one of the results had I ever heard of before now.

In a couple months I'll be able to see if either of them gives me the feels.