Thursday Movie Picks - Non-Linear Timelines

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!

This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're looking at movies with non-linear timelines. Time always moves forwards of course, but with film, we have the capability to rewind, fast forward, double back, start over... we can view a series of events in pretty much any way we want. And these movies take advantage of that.

Cloud Atlas (Wachowskis & Tom Tykwer, 2012) This wildly ambitious film, adapted from David Mitchell's Russian nesting doll of a novel, probably never should have been made. The book has such a literary conceit that it's nearly impossible to adapt to cinematic form, but God bless the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer for trying. Whole long sections of this are just thrilling arias of pure cinematic expression, linking stories hundreds of years and thousands of miles apart by the elemental forces of human experiences. The overarching story (such as it is) is about the journey of a soul as it learns over the course of several lifetimes what it means to be good. The ensemble cast is full of some spotty performances (and some even spottier makeup), but Halle Berry, Doona Bae, and a near-unrecognizable Hugh Grant have never been better than they are in sections of this.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) How this didn't win every single goddamn award walking away in 2004, I'll never know. It's a goddamn masterpiece, with career-best work from Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey, Charlie Kaufman, and Michel Gondry. Nothing I could write about it will ever top this that I wrote four years ago, so I won't even try.

The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002) Oh those wild and crazy kids! What ever will they do to fuck themselves up next? This Bret Easton Ellis adaptation throws so much style at the wall to see what sticks, and a surprising amount of it does. Hopping back and forth between different attendees at a fateful college party and what led them to make the decisions they made there, we watch as teen heartthrobs Jessica Biel, James Van Der Beek, Ian Somerhalder, Kate Bosworth, and Kip Pardue do some VERY bad things, to themselves and to each other! The movie as a whole holds together only barely, but the best scenes (including a homoerotic bedroom dance/pillow fight to George Michael's "Faith", a rapid fast-forward through an entire vacation abroad, and one of the best, most effective suicide scenes ever put on film) really linger.

Thursday Movie Picks - All in the Family Edition: Twins

Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join us. We don't bite! Just pick three films that fit the week's theme and tell us about them. It really couldn't be easier... well, maybe not this week...

For this month's All In The Family edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the Wanderer has asked us to come up with three movies focusing on twins. Twins.

Twins?

Couldn't this have been around April Fool's Day so I could just choose three Olsen twin films and call it a day? Because this one is REALLY difficult. But never fear! For when I have a task in front of me, I simply must complete it. And complete this week's task I did!

The Parent Trap (Nancy Meyers, 1998) Oh, Lindsay. Where did it all go wrong? You started off so promisingly here, believably adopting a British accent and speaking in French and acting so winningly and natural that it was easy to imagine the star you would one day become. But unfortunately you succumbed to every single one of the "child star gone bad" clichés. Please just talk with Drew Barrymore and figure out how to get out of this funk and get your mojo back! Because sure Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid are lovely as your parents in this, but it's really your tiny little shoulders on which the film rests, and despite the film being too long you carry it as ably as Hayley Mills did the original. And that's no mean feat!

3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977) Okay, so this film isn't really ABOUT the twins, but they are very important supporting characters. "We don't like the twins," says Shelley Duvall's immortal Millie (née Mildred) Lammoreaux. And then Sissy Spacek's Pinky (née Mildred) Rose wonders what it must be like to be a twin, and even tries it on for size for a bit, walking in perfect step with them (in my Best Shot for the film). And then later, after hitting her head, Pinky starts to take on Millie's identity, and things get kind of weird. Three Women is an utterly unique film, one of the best of the 70s.

Adaptation. (Spike Jonze, 2002) Say what you will about Nicolas Cage, but the man is an Oscar winner for a reason, and he is damn inspired here as actual real-life writer Charlie Kaufman, tasked with adapting Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep)'s book The Orchid Thief into a film, and his fictional brother Donald, whom Charlie calls for help when he realizes the book simply can't be turned into any kind of conventional film. And if that sounds too crazy-meta for you, consider this: the film's screenplay is credited to Charlie and David Kaufman, mirroring the film, and both the HFPA and AMPAS nominated both Charlie and Donald Kaufman for "their" screenplay for this film, despite the fact that Donald Kaufman is a fictional character. This may be the most kookily inspired both Cage and Kaufman have ever been. And Meryl Streep, for that matter.

BONUS PICK:

Original Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983) Luke and Leia are twins. LUKE AND LEIA ARE TWINS. This is the greatest twincest that never was. And that's all I have to say about that.