Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
Look, we've all been there. Those days when everything is falling apart, or has grown stale beyond belief, or when a chapter of your life has just... ended. So you move on, you move out, and you hopefully move up in the world. It's not always easy, but sometimes you just have to do it. Just like characters do in these movies.
Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) Mildred's husband is a louse - she provides more financial support for the family by baking pies and cakes, and he has a woman on the side. So she kicks him out, but has to find a way to support her two daughters on her own. In order to do that, she takes a job as a waitress, with the goal of one day opening up her own restaurant. Which she finally does... while failing to realize that she's unwittingly raised her daughter Veda into a snobbish bitch who doesn't appreciate any of her mother's hard work. One of the key works of the Old Hollywood Studio System, and the role that famously won Joan Crawford her Oscar.
Bridget Jones's Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001) Bridget Jones is a 32 year-old "singleton" living and working in London, and has decided that she's heard one too many behind-her-back remarks about her appearance and personality. So she decides to make an active change in her life, and starts keeping a diary. She vows to quit smoking, lose weight... and stop fantasizing about her boss, the handsome womanizer Daniel Cleaver. Some of those things actually work out. This endearing adaptation of the popular novel earned Renée Zellweger a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her leading performance as the singularly British Bridget, and Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are well-matched as her love interests.
Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2014) Cheryl Strayed has lost her mother and ended her marriage. She's lived recklessly and self-destructively for too long. Finally, she makes a somewhat rash decision: She's going to hike over a thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone. One of the most powerful films about spiritual reawakening and the power of memory I've ever seen, anchored by a never-better (and Oscar-nominated) Reese Witherspoon. All the better for the fact that it's based on a true story.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can take part too - all you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!
Well. Here we are again, back in TV Land for this week's Thursday Movie Picks. And we're talking about one of my favorite things: Adaptations of books! Novels actually lend themselves better to TV mini-series than they do to movies, in my opinion. The extra time allows you to include the full scope of the novel and paint in all the little details of the world. Films can be good for getting to the heart of a novel, but for my money, I'd nearly always prefer a TV mini-series. This week, I've picked one great mini-series, one great short-lived full series, and one absolutely terrible clusterfuck of a full series.
Big Little Lies (2017) What is there to say about Big Little Lies that hasn't already been said? I devoured each episode at least twice by the time the thing was over, and it was worth every second for these richly drawn, beautifully performed characters. It barely even needed the murder mystery framework, even if that was the supposed hook of the series. I can't believe they're doing a second season, let alone that they now have Meryl Streep(!!) and Andrea Arnold(!!!!) involved. This was so perfect as it is, I really hope they don't tarnish it with the next installment. I could heap praise on this for days, but in the interest of time, I'll just say this: Nicole Kidman's character arc, ESPECIALLY the therapy scenes, is the most compelling thing I've seen on TV in a long time. She deserved every award for it - and actually got them!
The Leftovers (2015-2017) The show that introduced The Great Carrie Coon to the world, The Leftovers is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta - or at least the first season is. The second and third seasons were written by Perrotta and series co-creator Damon Lindeloff as expansions of the world that Perrotta created in the novel, and holy WOW is this show tremendous. I get why people didn't want to watch it or stopped after the pilot episode: The premise and execution are downers: 2% of the world's population just up and vanished some time ago, and the people who remained are having a hard time dealing with it. Some go about their business like everything is fine. Some have a newfound death wish. Some are just doing their best to get through each day. And some have rebelled by refusing to speak, wearing only white, chainsmoking cigarettes, and accosting people as living reminders of what happened. And yes, the show is pretty depressing. But it is also utterly fantastic, producing several all-time great episodes. View each episode of the show as a short story set in this world, and its brilliance becomes more clear. I can't recommend it enough. Get past the first two episodes and OH what riches of writing and acting await you!
The Magicians (2015-Present) OH what wasted potential! Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy is stunning: Imagine if Harry Potter was an American high school student and Hogwarts was a college, and that gets you about halfway there. Grossman brilliantly deconstructs every single fantasy trope, making for a decidedly adult version of books like The Chronicles of Narnia. After the success of Game of Thrones, this could have been another great adaptation. But instead, it's listless, and most of the changes they've made to the novels make no sense and bear no fruit. I hate-watched three-quarters of the first season on Netflix before giving up because life is just too short to spend that much time watching something you don't like. Any fans in the house? Does it get any better? Or did I do the right thing?
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling us about them!
I wasn't in a fraternity in college. I thought about it, certainly. There's definitely something appealing about being part of a "brotherhood" and obviously the parties are a huge plus. But when it came down to it, for me, my people weren't in a frat. So I decided not to rush. And I don't regret it at all, even though I probably would have had a great time had I ended up joining.
But either way, movies about fraternities are usually lots of fun, and I will always have those!
The House Bunny (Fred Wolf, 2008) I don't care what anyone else says, this movie is HILARIOUS. Mostly thanks to Anna Faris, who is sublime perfection as an airhead Playboy bunny who gets kicked out of the Playboy mansion and ends up becoming "House Mother" to a sorority of outcasts in danger of getting shut down. Of course, the supporting cast, including Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, and Rumer Willis, is also pretty damn good. I have such fun whenever I watch this movie, even if it isn't "good".
Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic, 2001) Our heroine, Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon), manages to make it into Harvard Law School ("What, like it's hard?") in order to chase after the dreamy beau who dumped her for not being "serious" enough, but soon finds out that if she works hard, she might actually succeed at this whole law thing, too. In the process, she upends people's expectations of her, including her own. Not much of the movie outside of the first ten minutes or so takes place at a sorority, but Elle's status as a Delta Nu sister is important - people judge her because of it, and she uses the network of sisterhood the sorority established to get ahead without abusing it. Enough cannot be said about Witherspoon's performance as Elle, which is one of the great "dumb blondes" in movie history - Elle may be superficial and silly, but the way Witherspoon plays her, she never feels like a caricature. Bonus points for memorable support from Jennifer Coolidge (the kindly, stupid manicurist Elle becomes friends with), Holland Taylor (the hard-as-nails law professor who pushes Elle to greater things), and Selma Blair (bringing many different shades to her performance as the bitch who "stole" Elle's beau).
Van Wilder (Walt Becker, 2002) Van Wilder doesn't belong to a fraternity, but he doesn't have to. As a seventh-year senior, he throws all the best parties on campus anyway. Unfortunately, the fraternities on campus don't take too kindly to this, and when a frat president's girlfriend's interest in Van seems to grow into something besides professional curiosity (she's a journalist writing a story on Van for the school newspaper), a war begins between the frat and Van. Look. This isn't anyone's idea of a good movie. It certainly isn't mine. But, in its way, if you can get on Ryan Reynolds's smug-but-beautiful douchebag-with-a-heart-of-gold level, it's kind of stupidly enjoyable. Kind of.
