Absolute Wannabe

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for the amazing women who are changing Hollywood. Oh, and that I'm not stuck in space. If you haven't guessed already, I watched last year's it-film Gravity . However, this wasn't initially the film I was going to watch this week. This time of year, I love to watch The Hollywood Reporter's Roundtables that they do with the most influential (and Oscar-worthy) writers, directors, producers, and actors of the given year. I was shocked this year to find that there were so few noteworthy female performances again this year. In my book, this has nothing to do with the actresses. The ones who appeared in this roundtable gave remarkable performances in remarkable films. However, most of the films that are being lauded this year revolve around male characters. I think a good story can be told through the eyes of a character of any gender (or anything else you'd like to use to label them, for that matter). But, as a female write...

Fun Fact: I love fun facts. I love to include what I can in these posts. So, in an effort to keep you informed (and to entertain myself), I look up a few each week. While I was looking up fun facts this week on IMDb, I came across what may be one of my favorites ever: Some Like It Hot  was not shown in Kansas upon its release because cross-dressing was dubbed, "too disturbing for Kansans". Boy, am I glad I am not in Kansas ca. 1959. I have to admit, I'm a little late to the Marilyn Monroe game. I saw Gentlemen Prefer Blondes  when I was 15 and I loved it, but didn't really pursue her movies further. It was a few months ago when I saw All About Eve  (one of my very favorite movies now) that I said to myself, "People like Marilyn Monroe. Should I?" So, in the last few months, I've watched a few of her films, a documentary about the last years of her life, and My Week With Marilyn , a 2011 film starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn during the making...

I've always found that the best way to relieve the stress that is the mountainous work load during pre-Thanksgiving weeks is to watch a funny movie. With that in mind, I opened up the list this week, and it popped out at me: Airplane! I'm so glad this movie was what I watched this week, not only because I laughed for the first time since I heard the words "due Friday",  but also because this is one of those movies that has been constantly referenced in my house since I was a kid. The biggest testament to the movie's influence on my family comes in the form of a dog. A few years ago, in an attempt to explain our rambunctious golden retriever Mac's behavior toward strangers, my mom took to YouTube. What she wanted to show us was this scene: I think every family has a few movies that are interwoven into the their lives. Lines are quoted involuntarily, scenes are acted out at the dinner table, etc. To me, that is the best evidence to film's influe...

I always love looking through my list and coming across a movie I've always wanted to see. Ghost World was one of those movies. I've been reading about this movie since I was 16 and started reading Rookie . Most people seem to enjoy the movie, a cult classic, for the protagonists' eccentric behavior, cynical attitudes, and Doc Martens. I loved the movie, but for an entirely different reason. The film chronicles the transition from high school to the real world for Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson). The girls plan on moving in together "somewhere downtown", but Enid refuses to get a job and starts hanging around with Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a record collector and shut in instead. Enid starts ignoring Rebecca to admire Seymour's life, developing an obsession with getting him a date. It's clear the two see a bit of themselves in each other. When Enid calls Seymour lucky for having a room full of records and antique oddities, Seymour ...

in this day and age, with so many books, magazines, blogs and other media covering film, it's easy to read about a film before seeing it. This is especially true of classic films like the ones I've been writing about, many of which I have read so much about over the years that I feel like I have already seen them. There are other films, however, that people recognize by an iconic image. With   Anatomy of a Murder, the poster immediately popped into my head. I knew nothing of the plot, the actors, or the filmmakers, but the black crude paper cutout of a body that was #1 in Premiere's 25 Best Movie Posters came to mind. To say this film was influential is an understatement. I didn't realize that, though, until I did some research. Anatomy of a Murder , about the trial of a man who fatally shot his wife's alleged rapist, plays out to the modern audience like a well-acted, black and white, long episode of Law and Order: SVU . But to an audience 55 years ago, the ...

I said in my last post that I was going to watch something lighter this week. I lied. I struggled when thinking about how to write about these two films side by side. While On the Waterfront and The 400 Blows are both classics, they have very little in common on the surface. The come from two different countries, the minds of two very different directors, and deal with protagonists in very different times in their lives. Once I got past those differences, though, I did begin to see some similarities. Both deal with family trouble and crime. Both male protagonists are grossly misunderstood and wear plaid. Both movies have water in them...this is where my ideas run out... The differences these movies have don't stop anyone from calling these movies classics. Watching both (and agreeing with the title of classic for both) made me think about just how wide the range of classic movies is. Every genre and subgenre has its own set of classics. Both movies I watched this week are c...

Did you know MASH was a movie before it was a TV show? I didn't. Maybe that's a well-known fact. Maybe I'm very out of the loop. Anyway, I watched MASH this week. I'm just discovering Robert Altman, the director of the film. He made a movie in 1975 called Nashville , which I sort of felt obligated to watch since that's my hometown. I loved the film, especially because it had so many interesting characters mashed together. MASH  charmed me for the same reason. I've never been one for war films (this is set during the Korean War), but I was fascinated by the band of arrogant, witty surgeons in the film. It really didn't feel like a war film, to be honest. It felt like the Korean War was just where they happened to be. That feeling makes sense when you realize that these men and women are just trying to feel that way themselves. I don't have any personal experience with war, but I have read a few books about the subject, fiction and nonfiction, and ...