Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Come on and join the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
A new month! And with it, a new theme for Thursday Movie Picks! And this one is quite interesting: A Story Within A Story. I like stories about storytelling, but I feel like they mostly come in novels as opposed to films. Makes sense given their respective mediums, I suppose. Amazingly, only one of my picks this week is based on a novel, and that one (the first) is TERRIBLE.
Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford, 2016) This piece of utter, complete dreck is one of the worst films I've ever seen in a theater. A Los Angeles art gallery owner (Amy Adams) receives an invitation to dinner along with a manuscript from her ex-husband - his about-to-be-published novel, dedicated to her and named "Nocturnal Animals", his pet name for her. The novel (the content of which we see acted out by Adams look-alike Isla Fisher and Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays the husband in both versions, among others) is sadistically violent and full of raw emotion. As she reads the book, she reminisces about her relationship with her ex. It sure is pretty, but Ford never gets a good handle on what he wants to say about... well, about anything really: Masculinity, violence, femininity, beauty, art, commerce, love, social mores, America. He puts the audience through the ringer and ends up with a one of those films where the plot makes sense, but nothing that happens actually makes any sense - if you know what I mean.
Definitely, Maybe (Adam Brooks, 2008) AKA How I Met Your Mother, The Movie. Abigail Breslin has been sent home from school after her first sex ed class. Naturally, she asks her father Ryan Reynolds the story of how he and her mom (currently getting divorced) met. He decides to tell her, but he changes the names (and some facts) to make a guessing game out of it: Which of the various women he meets is actually the mother? With Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, and Isla Fisher as the three options, Definitely, Maybe is one of those silly rom-coms that may not be "good", but that I kinda love anyway. It's sweet, and loves its characters, but doesn't let any of them off the hook for their at times pretty terrible behavior. And yes, Breslin is unbelievably mature for her age, and it's nearly impossible to believe Reynolds at this age as a father. But the endings - both when we find out who the mother is, and when we find out who Daddy was "really" "meant to be with" - play like gangbusters.
The Fall (Tarsem, 2006) It is the 1920s. A depressed, injured stuntman meets a young girl in a hospital. In a ploy to get her to get him more drugs, he tells her a story about five mythical heroes, which we watch come to life through her imagination, which naturally merges the story with reality. A passion project for director Tarsem, the amount of detail, care, and love poured into every single frame is evident - this is one GORGEOUS-looking film. And if the narrative story itself ends up being a bit less than the sum of its parts, then so be it; the visual storytelling is a treat.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join in the action by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them - it's easy and fun!
This week on Thursday Movie Picks: THE INTERNET. Meaning, the thing that I'm writing on, and you're reading on at this very moment.
Well, I'm writing now, and you're reading in the future.
Wait. Or you're reading now, and I'm writing in the past?
Is this how time travel starts?
Anyway, there's one very specific movie about the internet that I'm sure everyone will pick this week, because blah blah blah GREATEST MOVIE EVER yadda yadda yadda.... and I just don't feel that way about it, so.... I'm just not going to pick it.
So there.
Unfriended (Leo Gabriadze, 2015) Cyberbullying, meet the found-footage horror film. Unfriended is completely ridiculous, and honestly not all that scary, BUT when watched late at night, with the lights off, on your laptop.... it really does become almost unbearably creepy at points. The premise - a group of friends chatting via Skype become haunted by a malevolent ghost in the machine, possibly their friend who recently committed suicide after an explicit video of her was posted on Facebook - is kind of genius, and if you want an idea of what the youth of today are up to when no one's looking, this is pretty hard to beat. But... a great idea does not make a great movie.
We Steal Secrets (Alex Gibney, 2013) I mean, you COULD bother with Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, but other than Benedict Cumberbatch.... WHY? Especially when you have the real thing right here? Gibney's incredibly engrossing documentary wades deep in the moral muck surrounding the website WikiLeaks and its divisive founder, Julian Assange. It's fascinating, depressing, and deeply, deeply cynical all at once. An essential film for anyone currently living on planet Earth.
Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron, 2010) OH, the lengths to which I will go in order to NOT pick THAT movie this week, ladies and gentlemen! I know what you're thinking. "This movie isn't about the internet, it's about cooking!" To which I can only say, "Well, yeah, but it's ALSO about BLOGGING about cooking!" I don't know that Julie Powell was the first celebrity blogger, or the first to have her blog lead to a book deal, but Ephron's deliciously entertaining trifle is as much about being a blogger as it is about being a chef, or being a woman, or being an American abroad. And as such, it really feels like the best possible choice for a blogger to pick when picking films about the internet!
For the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves, just pick three movies for the week's theme. That's it. Join us! It's fun!
This week's movie picks are Live Action Fairy Tale Adaptations, which is apropos since Disney's Ever After remake live-action Cinderella opens this weekend. But I have to say, this one threw me a bit. Where do you draw the line between a "fairy tale" and a children's fantasy? Or a folktale? For example, is Alice in Wonderland a fairy tale? Is The Wizard of Oz? The Emperor's New Clothes? I'm really not sure. The first two involve a "magical" trip to a strange land, but only Oz actually involves magic, which for me is a key ingredient for a fairy tale. The third involves no actual magic, but was published in Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales Told for Children, and a version was filmed for Shelley Duvall's Fairie Tale Theatre. I decided that, for me, a fairy tale is a story that involves both magic (in some form) and a royal family (usually in the form of a princess). From there, these three basically picked themselves.
La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau, 1946) The Big Kahuna of live-action fairy tale adaptations, and with good reason. This is one of the most stunningly gorgeous films ever made. Jean Cocteau's near-surrealist version of the French fairy tale is so influential that every subsequent fairy tale film owes a debt to it - not just versions of this tale. How Jean Marais is able to emote through his Beast makeup I will never know, but he does, and Josette Day overcomes her resting bitchface to be a Beauty for the ages. But make no mistake, this is Cocteau's show, and even now, over 70 years later, the images he created still retain their ability to inspire wonder and awe.
Ever After (Andy Tennant, 1998) When I first saw the trailer for the new Cinderella, my immediate response was "So... they're just remaking Ever After?" Drew Barrymore makes for a lovely, proto-feminist Cinderella (née Danielle), and Anjelica Huston slyly spins gold from the stock role of the wicked stepmother. Yes, the script contains that heinous line about a bird loving a fish, but in Barrymore's hands, it doesn't feel nearly as cringe-worthy as it should. This is a fairy tale firmly grounded in reality (the role of the fairy godmother, we have.... Leonardo da Vinci?!?) that is all the better for it, reminding us that all stories we tell, however fantastical, have some basis in reality.
Snow White & the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012) Charlize Theron is God. Make no mistake, Snow White & the Huntsman is... not a good movie, but it is a fantastic-looking one, one of the most striking films in recent years, fairy tale or otherwise. And the centerpiece of the whole enterprise isn't either of the title characters, it's Theron's tremendous performance as the evil Queen Ravenna. Aided by some imaginative, truly special visual effects (the mirror! the soldiers that shatter like glass! the ravens!) and stunning costumes - both deservedly Oscar-nominated - Theron tears into the part like a hungry lioness, a vengeful wraith in medieval rock star couture descending on the land to avenge the pain brought upon her (and all women) by the men who had ruled it.
Oh yeah, and Kirsten Stewart isn't terrible in it, either, so...
BONUS PICK
Enchanted (Kevin Lima, 2007) Look, I know it isn't actually based off a pre-existing fairy tale (existing on its own as a send-up of Disney's animated fairy tales), but this is by far the best live-action fairy tale of the past twenty years. Clever Alan Menken-Stephen Schwartz songs, a fun, funny script, and flat-out brilliant performances from James Marsden (as the fairy-tale Prince Charming) and Amy Adams (who should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her bonkers princess Giselle) make this one a film I will probably never stop enjoying, no matter how many times I see it. The "That's How You Know" scene still makes me shake with uncontrollable laughter (actually, Patrick Dempsey is really underrated in this - watch him in this scene again and tell me he doesn't make you laugh). Pity about Susan Sarandon's Evil Queen, but you can't have everything!
