MOVIE REVIEW: The Full Monty

The Full Monty is just, like, one of the best. Movies. Ever. It's an especially good one to watch in the midst of a recession, we find, because of the overall message of the film: Times might be really tough and life might kind of suck, but in the midst of it all, there are people who, in the immortal words of Tom Jones in his tender ballad "You Can Leave Your Hat On," give you reason to live.

One of the best scenes in the movie is this one, when Gaz watches his mates, who are standing in line at the unemployment office to receive their dole checks, start absentmindedly grooving to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" when it comes on the radio. That is the moment when he knows that his racy scheme to earn enough money to pay his in-arrears child support is actually going to work. The smile of amusement and relief on his face is priceless. And Gerald's trench coat-swinging turn isn't bad either.

The language used by these ex-steelworkers isn't exactly pristine, but somehow doesn't sound as jarring when rendered in the soft slur of a Yorkshire accent, but be warned anyway. The language plus some other choice scenes make this a grown-ups only kind of show. And by the way, there is no actual full monty in the show, but there are a thousand laughs and a few tears, but only the happy kind.

One of the cutest -- Flipped, the movie

If you've ever read Wendelin Van Draanen's celebrated young adult novel Flipped, you know what a sweet and funny book it is - a totally different thing than what you (if you're a mother) are possibly envisioning when I say "young adult novel," what with the barfy visions of Twilight dancing through your head.

I was excited to find out that Flipped -- a romantic comedy about first love and true love and what might be love but probably isn't -- has now been turned into a movie. And if you're looking for something that would be a pretty much universally appreciated gift for Christmas, this would be the movie, a great film for the family to watch together or for mothers and daughters to watch while curled up on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn while the winter weather does whatever it plans to do outside.

Flipped is available on DVD and Blu-Ray at Amazon.com and Wal-Mart and other usual retailers. HIGHLY recommended!

Retro

 

I saw this picture of George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn online the other day in a scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's (a truly sucky film, and anyone who has read Truman Capote's bittersweet little novella with undoubtedly agree with me) and I couldn't help but notice Audrey's oversized sunglasses, her streaky hair and her stylishly bumped up hair. Not to mention her basic black, although I'm not sure if you're allowed to smoke in bars in New York City anymore, you poor dears. Anyway, Breakfast at Tiffany's came out in 1961 (which was way before I was born), so here we are almost fifty years later sporting the exact same look. Kind of like that old French adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same," only with more actual français.

  

Our five favorite Halloween movies -- whoops! Six!

Halloween is a fun time of year for me. I love cute little carved pumpkins, scarecrows, sweet Linus and his blanket and chubby little preschool girls dressed up like witchies, not to mention babies in bumblebee costumes. I love Victorian Halloween art and trick-or-treaters at the door and my favorite childhood book, Old Black Witch, which I made my mom read to me night after night after night, almost as many times as Where the Wild Things Are and Katie the Kitten.

When the girls were little, we had so much fun devising costumes for them to go trick-or-treating in -- we never did scary costumes -- and I really enjoyed greeting little kids dressed up like Teletubbies and Disney princesses at the front door - I was always one of those people who gave the kids a whole handful of candy, not just one little piece. And OH THE MEMORIES of trick-or-treating in my neighborhood growing up, where Pat and I both had these tall plastic pumpkins to collect candy in. The neighborhood was so big and the neighbors were so generous that we'd have to stagger home halfway through the evening to empty our pumpkins out because they got too heavy to carry. That also gave Mom and Dad a chance to "go through the candy," which we all know is Parental Code for "select the choicest pieces and hide them from the kids, to be enjoyed after they go to bed."

The girls are too old for trick-or-treating now, of course, and our neighborhood never seems to have many trick-or-treaters, which is a great disappointment to me. So help soothe my sorrow, we've collected some Halloween movies that we enjoy watching every year, and I thought I'd post a list of them here. Maybe your family likes the same ones? Or maybe you could suggest a movie that you enjoy that you think we'd like too.

All of these, by the way, are family movies. We don't go in for the scary stuff because I have enough trouble sleeping as it is and once when some tree branches were scraping against the side of the house by our bedroom one windy October night and it sounded like skeletal fingers groping their way toward to window to slam it open and come in and GET ME, I exasperated my husband by waking him up and asking him if he'd mind going outside with the ladder and climbing up to trim that tree back before I turned into a gibbering idiot. He responded by saying grumpily that I already was a gibbering idiot and trimming back tree branches in the middle of the night wasn't going to change a thing. Besides, he added pensively, it was a full moon and the werewolves would be out.

I think he said that just to toy with me.

Anyway, here's my little list, in no particular order.

Halloween Movies We Love

1. The Midnight Hour - This movie, which stars Peter DeLuise (Dom's son), Shari Belafonte and Levar Burton, is a 1980s made-for-TV film that is about both zombies and vampires who come back from the dead to terrorize the people of Pitchford Cove due to a Halloween prankish spell worked by some wacky teenage troublemakers. They didn't think anything would really happen, you know; it was just a goof. But in the process, just about everybody in the place becomes either a vampire or a zombie and it's all up to Phil (Peter DeLuise, with an awesome Rick Springfield haircut) and his ghostly cheerleader friend Sandy to reverse the spell and return Pitchford Cove to normal. This movie is silly and cheesy, but it's supposed to be. You aren't to take it seriously, except maybe the part where Sandy, who has met Phil just a few hours before, decides to put the moves on him, which I told the girls was a bit fast, especially for someone who'd been dead for thirty years. Proof yet again that Fats Domino was finding more than the blueberries to be thrilling out on that hill.

2. The Corpse Bride - This is a Tim Burton special, the same kind of stop-motion animation that was such a success in The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Corpse Bride is a very slightly eerie re-telling of a Russian folk tale about a young man, Victor, who inadvertently finds himself married to a girl who is already dead, even though he was about to marry another girl...one with a pulse. The corpse bride is actually a very nice girl and she and Victor work to resolve their problem so that the bride's murder can be avenged and Victor can marry his true love. A creepily romantic story with clever songs and voices done by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, among other luminaries. Adorable!

3. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown - I remember how terribly exciting it was when the night came along for this movie to be broadcast on television - everyone in my class at Riley Elementary School was all a-buzz with the fun of seeing Linus and Sally waiting it out in the Very Sincere Pumpkin Patch, Lucy in her witch mask, Pigpen in his dirty sheet, and poor hapless Charlie Brown in his sheet full of eye-holes. I got the same kind of thrill when this movie came out on DVD. This is one of the cutest movies ever, no matter what the season.

4. Hocus Pocus - This is a Disney delight starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as three witchy sisters who are awakened by -- get this -- a prankish spell worked by some teenagers who didn't really think that anything would happen. Hmmm. There seem to be a lot of Halloween movies that operate on that premise. The three weird sisters are too funny, particularly when they can't find their brooms and have to fly around on vaccuum cleaners. This one is just the tiniest bit creepy, and instead of featuring a hormone-charged cheerleader, the teenagers are aided in reversing the bad spell by a ghost who has...turned into a cat? I know. I don't get it either. But it's a really fun movie.

5. Something Wicked This Way Comes - This is another Disney movie, based on the Ray Bradbury book by the same name. Ray himself wrote the screenplay, so the movie sticks to the book -- which is everything that is awesome -- in a very satisfying way for those of us who think what's TRULY FRIGHTENING IN THIS WORLD is the film adaptation of Gone With the Wind, the suckiest movie ever. In my humble opinion. Anyway. Set in the 1930s, SWTWC features an evil carnival which comes harmlessly to a picture-perfect hamlet named Greentown. Dark's Pandemonium Carnival features the usual games and sideshows, but there's, well, a darker side: The proprietor, Mr. Dark, who is played by the devilishly handsome Jonathan Pryce, intends to give the people of Greentown their deepest desires....at the expense of their immortal souls. It's up to two intrepid boys, Will Halloway (born on All Saints Day) and his best friend and blood brother, Jim Nightshade (born on Halloween) and Will's dad, Charles (Jason Robards), to stop Mr. Dark from damning the town to eternal darkness. This is a classic tale of good versus evil, of the young learning the wisdom the old, and the old taking courage from the young, and how hope can restore life and light to lives that are lived in the shadows. A beautiful, spooktacular Halloween classic.

6. The Haunted Mansion - And yet another Disney favorite, this one starring Eddie Murphy and that guy from The Princess Bride and no one else I've ever heard of before, I'm sorry to say. Eddie Murphy plays a husband and father who is also an aggressive realtor - he'll do anything to make a sale, including interrupting a family trip to the lake in order to stop by a piece of prime real estate that turns out to be a real fixer-upper. The plot is tolerably interesting, the special effects are really good, and Eddie gets in a lot of one-liners that will remind you of Donkey from Shrek, but that's not such a terrible thing. Cute stuff.

Not where I should be

This is a shot of the television in our living room where the rest of my family is watching Avatar and I am sitting here "watching the movie," which has completely BORED ME TO SOBS.

I have to admit: unless it's a Shakespeare film, or The Full Monte or A Christmas Story, I'm just not a movie person. I really hate going to the cinema because it is just awful having to sit there in the dark for hours and you can't pause the show and get up to pee. And at home, it's even worse. Because there, if you get up and sneak off pretending that you're going to just go grab a Diet Coke when really what you're going to do is go over to the computer and play Solitaire on Webkinz until the credits start rolling, people start yelling, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! YOU'D BETTER NOT BE GOING TO THE COMPUTER!!! SIT DOWN AND WATCH THIS WITH US, BAD MOMMY!"

Ugh, it's just awful.

I have to hand it to James Cameron, however. He certainly seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to movies. I still haven't forgiven him for the epic stupidity of Titanic, and now the man has convinced a gazillion people to pay gazillions of dollars to go see this movie about blueberry people and there's something really pro-environment and anti-military about the whole thing but I just don't CARE ENOUGH to sit there and piece it all together. If I did, I'd probably be really annoyed and then I'd care too much and be forced to write a strongly worded letter to....who? Maybe my husband, whose idea it was to do an insta-rental from Comcast On Demand. But why write him a stongly worded letter when I can just pinch him in his sleep?

I just don't get it. What was it that was supposed to be so good about this movie?

Lovin' the Redbox

These cute little Redbox DVD rental kiosks are everywhere nowadays. In my city, they're outside every McDonald's location and inside every Kroger. They offer a plentiful array of new release movies for only a dollar, which is a pretty darn good deal.

This city has a number of chain movie rental stores, but we were dealt a truly crushing blow when the Blockbuster CLOSEST TO MY HOUSE closed down a few months ago, a fatality of the stinky economy. I say "crushing blow," not only because that Blockbuster was close to my house because this is not all about me, even though my brother rolls his eyes and claims I think it is; no, I'm assuming that that Blockbuster was also close to a lot of other people's houses and now if they want to rent at DVD from Blockbuster, they not only have to drive about three miles further, they also have to drive BACK TO RETURN IT, which we all know is the hard part.

It would be so helpful if movie rental stores would employ people to drive around to everyone's house and pick up the DVDs they watched over the weekend, and if the public library would also do that instead of having their usual attitude of "You checked it out and we expect you to bring it back," this would be a perfect world, would it not?

Anyway, this is our spring break and while the first half of the week was warmed with the golden sunshine that poured down on us like honey, the latter half of the week has been cold and rainy. Thus, Meelyn, Aisling and I have been interested in watching a few movies and those chipper red kiosks started looking interesting to me.

The Redbox movie kiosks seem to hold about forty-eight new release movies, most of which I seem to have never heard of. When Meelyn and I went to rent "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" two days ago, it was one of the three movies in that whole giant (red) box we wanted to see, but that's okay, because apparently the Redbox fairies bring new DVDs fairly frequently: there was a list of new releases and when they'd be added to the (red) box posted on the machine.

The nice thing about this new movie rental system is that there are about four of them within a five minute drive of our house and you just can't beat that. The not nice thing is that they do offer only new releases, so if you have a hankering to watch, say, "Weekend at Bernie's" or "Viva Las Vegas," you're out of luck. And if you want to watch "Julie & Julia," you have to get there while it is still considered to be a new release, or it sucks to be you.

But these things are a lot of fun, they're not hard to figure out, they're cheap and they've made the past couple of days of our spring break very pleasant indeed.

MOVIE REVIEW: New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Part 2)

As part of the ongoing Christmas cheer around here, my husband and I took Meelyn and Aisling to see New Moon yesterday afternoon. This was a major treat because we only go to the movies once a year or so and also because nearly all of their friends have seen it multiple times already.

"We may be the only two teenage girls in the United States who haven't seen this movie yet," Meelyn said eagerly when we told her of our plans yesterday morning. "Well. Except for the Amish teenage girls."

I can assure anyone else who has read the book but who has not yet seen the movie that it followed along with the novel surprisingly well, which, if you're me, meant that you wanted to feed Bella to an alligator about five minutes in. She is possibly the worst protagonist in modern American literature.

The roles of Bella and Edward are played by young actors Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and if you've ever wanted to see an unsmiling pair of mopey dullards, it would be those two. Well, I mean when they're in character. I'm absolutely certain that Kristin and Rob are lovely, smiley people in real life, but in this movie, they make true love -- even at a birthday party -- look about as desirable as a colorectal exam.

The only ray of light in this whole mess (both book and movie, but ESPECIALLY THE MOVIE) is Taylor Lautner, who should probably have sonnets written to his bare chest and poignant melodies to his dark eyes and bright smile. (Don't believe me? Click here.) *ahem* Young Mr. Lautner plays the role of Jacob Black, the werewolf, although anyone who is as much of a stickler to the codes of rightness and decency surrounding the horror genre of literature and film as I am knows that Jacob is technically not a werewolf, Stephenie Meyer, he is a shape-shifter. EVERYBODY knows that. But I digress.

Anyway, Edward leaves Forks with the rest of the Cullens, thinking that it is the best way to keep Bella safe because she smells so luscious to all the undead who flock to Washington state, which must be a hellmouth similar to Sunnydale. Joss Whedon, would you care to weigh in on that? He leaves her even though it just about flat-out kills him. Well, if he weren't immortal. And here's the point where I urgently need to add that there is a lot of talk about Romeo & Juliet here, but seriously. Seriously. Stephenie, do not flatter yourself.

At one point in the early scenes, Edward and Bella are in one another's arms, gazing humorlessly and with great angst into one another's eyes. "Bella, you give me everything I need just by breathing," Edward said with a facial expression indicating a severe migraine was coming on and he'd left his Flexoril back at home. My husband thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and jacknifed himself over in his seat, wheezing. I sat tensely, wondering if we were going to be attacked by a swarm of Twi-hard fans, who would try to bludgeon us to death with the rolled up movie posters they bought at Barnes & Noble. Luckily, none of them appeared to hear him.

So Edward leaves and Bella becomes catatonic in spite of the fact that the hunky Jacob is hanging around, helping her repair some motorcycles she rescued from the junkyard because when she finally snaps out of her Edward-induced coma, she finds that she can discern his dreary presence warning her not to be reckless, which for the two-left-footed Bella is a simple matter like walking down the stairs. Jacob is big and handsome and endearing and he has a sense of humor - he likes life and he likes Bella and he couldn't have made it more obvious if he'd worn a great big sign.

But no. No. Bella needs must continue to pine for the absent Edward. And I would have been all, like, "EDWARD WHO??" but who can explain this dope? I know that Meelyn and Aisling can't, because when Edward, in an attempt to end his immortality by exposing his sparkliness to a crowd of humans after getting some bad info concerning Bella's demise (she tried to butter a piece of toast and cut her arm open and they thought she was going to bleed to death right there at the kitchen table: no, not really, but she probably could have) and ripped open his shirt to expose his twinkly skin there in the town square, his chest was so....narrow. So pallid and skinny, like a plucked hen, that the girls groaned audibly and Meelyn leaned over to hiss, "I HATE BELLA."

Bella and Edward are reunited there in Italy -- oh, yeah, there's a bunch of in-betweeny stuff like the wolf pack and the vengeful Victoria and the stolen Porsche and the Volturi -- and you might have hoped at this point that Bella and Edward could reach deep down inside and summon, I don't know, A SMILE??!! Because, you know, they're glad to see each other? But no. No. All they can do is hang around looking dejected and funereal together. I'm thinking that that one key scene, the one where Bella and Edward are lying together in that field of improbable flowers? It would have been better filmed in a freaking mortuary.

The unlucky Jacob gets kicked to the curb in spite of his heartfelt plea for Bella to give up her vampire-lovin' ways (prompting another outraged gasp from Meelyn and Aisling) and the movie ends with Edward popping the question, the BIG question, the question which causes most young women to clasp their hands and look at their sweethearts with starry-eyed delight. Instead, Bella looks like she's experiencing intense gastrointestinal distress. My husband and I both agreed that the director majorly missed the boat: this final scene would have been perfect if accompanied by the music of Meat Loaf singing "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)". Bummer.

The fight scenes in the movie were wonderful and made up for all the time when we had to watch Bella sit there longing for Edward while in the presence of the nicest, kindest and good-lookingest guy she could ever hope for. The special effects were pretty decent too. If you go to this movie prepared to exit the theater as a confirmed member of Team Jacob, I think you'll enjoy it.

Our Top Ten Favorite Christmas movies

Every year, there's a big hustle in our house to find all our favorite Christmas movies on Comcast's program guide and get them set to tape. We used to own most of these movies on VHS tapes -- well, okay, we still do own them, but the only VCR is upstairs on a small television and we're all so abominably spoiled by the whole DVD/DVR age we're living in that we just leave them collecting dust in the media cabinet. So we tape them.

Here's a list of our Top Ten Favorites:

10. The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000, Disney) - Allie is a southern California girl who wants a snow day, so she steals a weather machine from Santa and causes a blizzard to stop school, yes. But it also stops her father from being able to come home for Christmas. Stars Peter Scolari (Newhart, Bosom Buddies) as the nasty television weatherman.

9. Snowglobe (2007, TV) - Gina, a member of a large Italian-African American family, is dreaming of a WASP-y Christmas, complete with a proper Christmas goose and Dickensian groups of carolers instead of a loud, boisterous ethnic bunch yelling at each other over the lasagna. When she receives a mysterious and magical snow globe that takes her to the perfect Christmas village of her dreams, she finds out that maybe what she already has isn't so bad after all. Lorraine Bracco (The Sopranos) plays the part of Rose, Gina's no-nonsense but loving mother.

8. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965, TV) Cartoonist Charles Schultz lamented that there were so many mistakes in this wee gem of a Christmas classic, but after watching it every year for as long as we can remember, my husband and I still can't find one. The music, the simple snowflakes, Snoopy playing Crack-the-Whip and most of all, that little tree....cartoony perfection.

7. Unlikely Angel (1996, TV) - Ordinarily, you might wonder at a Christmas movie with Dolly Parton in it, because you just know she's going to sing something and I can't bear country music. However, in this movie, Dolly plays a nightclub singer named Ruby Diamond who meets an untimely death, but can't enter heaven until she performs a good deed on earth. Whether you're a fan of her music or not, Dolly is adorable and this movie is very cute and funny, pure Christmas feel-good schmaltz.

6. The House Without a Christmas Tree (1972, TV) Growing up in Nebraska in 1946 when you never knew your mother (who died in childbirth) and your father makes Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Anne of Green Gables is difficult, but that can't stop the irrepressible Addie Mills from living her fifth-grade life to the absolute fullest. This year, as in every other year, she begins her wily campaign to get her father to put up a Christmas tree and is surprised at the things she learns about dear old dad when she finally gets him to agree. Jason Robards stars as Jamie Mills and he, Lisa Lucas (Addie) and Mildred Natwick as Grandma Mills give the audience a show worth watching every single year. I don't really feel it's Christmas until I've bawled my head off over this lovely, funny, bittersweet movie.

5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966, TV) This is the original, the best, one of the few movies that is even better than the book. Boris Karloff's creepy-voice narration and the singing of the Whos on that barren Christmas morning are primo entertainment for every age. And then there's Max, Max the dog in his Santa Claus get-up riding that sleigh down the side of the mountain: Irresistable.

4. Eloise at Christmastime (2003, TV) I remember Hilary Knight's Eloise books from my own childhood, so of course I read them to Meelyn and Ailsing. When I first heard about this movie, my lip curled scornfully: There was no way, I thought, that a movie could ever have even half the charm of the books. NO WAY. But then we watched Eloise at Christmastime one Christmas day and I was hooked, as were the girls. Little Sofia Vassilieva makes a perfect Eloise and Julie Andrews is all Super Nanny and the Plaza Hotel is beautiful, so watching this movie has become a Christmas Day tradition at our house while my husband has a little nap in his chair.

3. White Christmas (1954, Paramount Pictures) Sweet, funny and goofy, with a plot line as thin as gossamer and a gold-plated cast, this movie is a major classic in our house. How could you not love Danny Kaye? And Bing Crosby! Singing "White Christmas"! (Although several of us here are hold outs for "Mele Kalikimaka.") Rosemary Clooney is so pretty as buttoned-up Betty and Vera-Ellen has a waist the circumference of a chapstick. The military angle is a tear-jerker and we all just ignore how that horse-drawn sleigh is able to skim right over the ground that is only covered with about a half-inch of snow. Holiday magic!

2. Elf (2003, New Line Cinema) "You sit on a throne of lies"...."I like smiling, it's my favorite!"...."Buddy the Elf! What's your favorite color?!" All these quotes, plus about a hundred more, and Zooey Deschanel doing a fabulous rendition (with Buddy's help) of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and the deadpan Bob Newhart....*sigh* And to think that when I first heard about this movie, it didn't even want to see it! I thought it sounded stupid. But now that I have seen it approximately four thousand times and know huge swatches of dialogue by heart, I am willing to admit that I was wrong.

1. A Christmas Story (1983, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer) "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." The number of times I heard in my childhood that everything is fun and games until someone loses an eye is the same amount of times I have seen this movie. We love every second of it and settle down to watch on Christmas evening armed with cookies, popcorn, candy and other snack items both sweet and salty. Which is kind of what this movie is like: sweet and salty. You've got your cussy dad and your distracted mother and Mommy's Little Piggie and Ralphie. Ralphie helping his dad change the tire and dropping the lug nuts makes me laugh out loud every year.

But the Christmas movie that refuses to be classified, the one that is in a league all its own, the one you'd have to have a heart made of Kevlar to not cry your way through is:

It's a Wonderful Life (1946, RKO Radio Pictures) I can hardly even type the title of that movie without choking up. Seriously. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed make the best couple, especially because of Zuzu, whom I stubbornly persist in thinking is their real life daughter because it would be too cruel if she weren't. This movie is our third Christmas Day pick and I have to watch it while wearing absorbent clothing and holding a giant Costco-sized box of tissues. It's just a lovely, lovely movie, so lovely that I don't even care if it's black and white, which is SAYING SOMETHING for me.

The movies we watched: Mamma Mia, The Sex in the City Movie, Slumdog Millionaire

Susie had to make about a thousand different phone calls in order to get a new bulb in the projection machine in their theater room; it turns out that this one company, while they were very anxious for Susie to purchase the (expensive) bulb, they weren't all that fussed about coming out to her house to actually install it. So she had to call a different home theater company, who told her that something more needed to be done other than just the bulb, but they were polite and respectful and there, so they fixed things up and were just leaving as Carol, the girls and I arrived. We wanted to hug both guys, because movie watching has become an integral part of the CousinFest experience.

Here's what Susie ordered from Netflix and my ratings of the same out of five stars:

Mamma Mia *

This musical movie starts out in a dicey manner with the 20-year-old soon-to-be-married Sophie reading her mother's diary from two decades back. She greets her two bridesmaids at the dock of some island in Greece where her mother, Donna, has a little hotel, reading bits of Donna's diary out loud to them as they posed adorably on rocks and next to trees. Where is the proverbial sniper on the grassy knoll when you really need him?

As it turns out, nobody knows who Sophie's daddy is because her mother has had what the diary coyly refers to as "dot, dot, dot" which just in case you're brain dead or haven't otherwise clued in by the third time Sophie says it, means "sex" with three different guys in the same month. To the tune of Abba's "Honey, Honey," the three chippies all rhapsodize on how romantic it is that Sophie's mamma has been a great big slut back in the day, and that's where Carol and I both looked at each other, puzzled.

"I thought you were supposed to be embarrassed if your mamma was a ho," said Carol.

So did I. Anyway, we made it through about fifteen more minutes so that we could see Donna (Meryl Streep) and her two friends Rosie and Tanya, all of whom were straight out of central casting: Donna, the bohemian free spirit; Rosie, the tough, smart alecky bestselling author; and Tanya, the serial-divorces, high-maintenance society queen. It was just like The Big Chill without the funeral and St. Elmo's Fire without Judd Nelson's hair and The Breakfast Club without the teenage angst and how in the world was this stinker ever nominated for all those awards?

"Do you hate this movie?" I asked Carol hopefully.

"I do. I really do," she said. So I went downstairs and asked Doug if he could make it stop.

"I knew you wouldn't like it!" he said triumphantly.

Susie wasn't at home when Carol and I started watching Mamma Mia. By the time she got home, we were already watching the "Sex in the City" movie. She was very disgruntled that we disliked Mamma Mia and accused us of not truly appreciating the music of Abba, which is a terrible thing to say to people who went to high school and college in the 70s and 80s. We were chastened, but unrepentant. Mamma Mia went unwatched.

The Sex in the City Movie **

We did watch this one all the way through, but since Carol and I had neither one ever seen the HBO series "Sex in the City," our lack of appreciation for the trials and triumphs of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda -- and good grief, doesn't anyone have friends who are just named "Lisa" anymore? -- made Susie a little edgy. Carol and I kept talking irreverently during scenes that Susie felt were important, so she kept stopping the DVD and scolding us, filling us in on the backstory so that we would watch with a more respectful attitude.

My first problem with this movie is that I hated Miranda, who couldn't even interact with her own child long enough to sit through a spaghetti dinner at a restaurant without the nanny there to run interference. My second problem is that I hated Samantha, after whom I would never sit on the same toilet seat unless I had a sandblaster and a vat of bleach because from the way she described her own sexual experiences, there is no telling what is crawling around up in there, if you know what I mean. My third problem is that I found Charlotte a bit smug in her own version of happily-ever-after and only the fact that she poughkeepsie'd in her pants after accidentally opening her mouth and allowing shower water to go in while in Mexico made her more tolerable.

I liked Carrie, though. She was okay. For all her feminist stylings, I found it very strange that she was willing to allow her boyfriend of TEN YEARS to buy a penthouse apartment for them to share, until one of her friends pointed out what a vulnerable position she was putting herself in. She went ahead and did it, though, and it bit her in the rear end, just like you might imagine.

Here are two points, though:

1) I live in Indiana and I just can't make myself care all that much about Prada or Manolo Blahniks (Susie's friend Liz calls them "Vanilla Colonics," which I thought was the wittiest thing I'd ever heard) and although I can appreciate the style and beauty of a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown, I can't imagine myself worshipping it.

2) I am a Church Lady AND a Girl Power type of person and I couldn't believe that Carrie was willing to be dated for TEN YEARS and have an apartment bought for her without any type of meaningful committment other than a custom closet. Where I live, we still say things like "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" and darned if that very concept wasn't played out, right there in this movie! I felt extremely vindicated.

After ten years of dating Mr. Big, Carrie suddenly begins to realize that by moving into (his) penthouse (not theirs) and giving up her own apartment, she's putting herself in a potentially devastating situation. So she cajoles Mr. Big into a half-hearted marriage proposal that could have put frost on a January radiator. When he jilted her on their wedding day, forcing her to leave their wedding venue in her gown, I don't think Carol and I were surprised at all.

When they finally were able to talk via cell phone, Mr. Big asked Carrie why she hadn't been answering her pages -- I don't know where he thought she was supposed to be carrying her phone -- and then meweled like a sniveling little nancy-boy, "Will we still be us if we get married?"

WHERE is that sniper on the grassy knoll??!!

Carrie tried to tell him that they were, indeed, going to still be "us," trying to reassure her gallant groom that they weren't going to turn into Pamela Anderson or Britney Spears or one of that ilk and whoever they're with right now and have drunken fights that ended up with new tattoos all around and naughty videos posted on the internet. To no avail! Mr. Big wasn't big enough and it all just goes to prove that if he was that in to her, he would have asked her to marry him about nine years ago.

The Carrie went ahead on her honeymoon to Mexico, but her friends came along and took care of her and it was very sad, but very sweet.

During all this, there was a lot of shushing by Susie and a lot of peremptory commands to "pay attention because something important is getting ready to happen" and Carol and I teased Susie mercilessly.

There were a lot of subplots that involved some characters maybe getting a divorce and others splitting up because the female partner wanted to be free to have all the unrestrained sex she desired -- I would rather poughkeepsie in my pants myself before using the toilet after that woman -- and a new baby. Some of it was nice and some of it was just downright awful, including a number of extremely graphic sex scenes that caused Carol and I to shriek and hold sofa pillows in front of our eyes.

"You mean the title of the movie didn't clue you in that there were going to be sex scenes?" said Susie incredulously.

At the end, I was horrified -- horrified! -- that Carrie went on to marry Mr. Big after experiencing ten years of dating, one half-hearted marriage proposal, and the cruelest and most selfish rejection possible, all because he got down on one knee and proposed to her in her custom closet, when she went to the penthouse to pick up a pair of Vanilla Colonics she'd left there. There wasn't even that much apologizing or 'splaining or couples therapy, or anything.

I just didn't get it at all. From the literary standpoint, it was kind of like an ancient Greek drama where the plot has become so hopelessly tangled that they playwright uses the device of the deus ex machina to descend from the heavens and say, "I am a god! And I declare that everything is now better! Because I have said so in a god-like manner!" From the modern screenwriters' standpoint, I suppose it was more of a thing about "This movie is already about six hours long, what with all the gratuitous sex scenes and the shots of Carrie wearing quirky yet haute couture-y outfits, so we'd better wrap this thing up. I know! Let's have them get married!"

Although this movie had its nice parts, the bad outweighed the good for me, especially that acquienscent Girl-of-the-Eighteenth-Century ending. I suppose it would have helped a lot if I'd seen even one episode of the series so that I could have connected with the characters more, but I didn't have the opportunity to know their history. I appreciated the depth of their friendship and how they were willing to care for one another, though, and since that's how I feel about Carol and Susie, that was one thing I connected with completely.

Slumdog Millionaire *****

This movie was extremely engrossing -- I really can't say "entertaining," because that word implies a light, frothy sort of attention that one might pay to a movie like, oh, just to pull a title out of the air, Mamma Mia. Anyway, engrossing. As in "unable to look away from the screen, even when I wanted to." It was a painful movie to watch, but it really raised awareness of how hard life is in some places of the world. I mean, I already knew something of the plight of the poor in India due to reading about Mother Teresa's great good works, but oh, my goodness. Just seeing the searing poverty on film makes me feel sad for ever complaining about eating tacos and spaghetti over and over again last winter.

Just in case we didn't understand things, Susie explained the plot in detail to us as things went along. Here's what I took from the plot:

The story is about three little musketeers, orphaned brothers Salim and Jamal and their friend, the girl Latika. Salim and Jamal are protective of one another and they take on the care and comradeship of Latika after the anti-Muslim attacks in 1993. The three children survive on the meanest streets possible through the craftiness of Salim -- it's obvious early on that his shrewdness is going to land him in a sticky mess somewhere along the way, and sure enough, it does. But not for about fifteen more years.

Jamal loves Latika from the very beginning. They're maybe about seven or eight when the movie begins, but his devotion is unswerving. The two children are separated by events that transpire, find one another and lose one another again in a series of circumstances that is very painful. Sometimes, you just feel like your heart is going to be torn in pity.

But then Jamal winds up on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and he is brilliant at answering questions. He answers questions based on the experiences he's had in his life, most of which have been things that would have killed a lesser man like Mr. Big. Naturally, the producers of the show can't figure out how this uneducated "slumdog" knows the answers to all these difficult questions, so they resort to punishment to get Jamal to confess his cheatin' ways.

Since everybody in the world has apparently seen this movie except for me and Carol, I'll say that things turned out well both in terms of the money and in Jamal and Latika's loving, loyal friendship, which had turned into something more. It was a blissful ending, and when the whole cast assembled in the train station after the credits to sing and do the Bollywood thing to the song "Jai Ho" (which means "Victory to Thee"), your heart just melts in happiness.

It was a hard movie to watch, but the action was non-stop, the story was excellent, and the ending was the stuff all good romances are made of. No half-hearted proposals and wishy-washy last minute cold feet from Jamal -- he was a pure-hearted, uncompromising beloved who could move any woman's soul, maybe even witchy Miranda's.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: Mr. Holland's Opus

"Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I can't teach you that other stuff."

As a former public high school teacher, I like movies about other high school teachers, particularly the ones about the other high school teachers who don't go to their jobs in order to change the world. They go there more to earn some money and just get through the day -- and somehow end up changing the world in the process.

Mr. Holland's Opus is about a musician named Glenn Holland, played by Richard Dreyfuss. Glenn Holland's real job -- and his life's goal -- is to compose a symphony, one that will take the world of music by storm, one that will feed body, mind and soul. But everyone knows that artists were born to starve in garrets, huddled over the pianoforte and warming their hands over a candle while feverishly scribbling notes on staff paper, so Glenn takes a job as a high school music teacher. [The only task in a school that I think could possibly be more thankless than that of a band director is that of an English teacher (I might possibly be biased) because everyone has to take English, while band is an elective and the students presumably want to be there.]

Glenn Holland encounters varying degrees of talent in his students as his fake career as a teacher continues on over the years. His real career as a composer is sidetracked by teaching and family responsibilities -- he marries his sweetheart, Iris, and they have a son, Cole (named for jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane). The turning point in the movie comes when Glenn and Iris realize that their tiny baby is deaf.

Glenn struggles to come to terms with the fact that his son will never be able to hear music and as the years wear on, taking us through Kennedy's assassination, the VietNam war, the drug culture of the 1970s and on into the program-slashing, down-sizing 1980s, Mr. Holland grows up as he helps his students through the same thing. Along the way, with life's big disappointments and tiny victories, he finally realizes that his entire life has been a symphony of sorts, the music sometimes moody, sometimes despairing, but ultimately bursting forth in triumph, just as bright and beautiful as any of your Mozarts or Vivaldis.

The end of this movie is very beautiful and happy, but the moment that really shines is when Glenn, tormented by his son's disability, sings John Lennon's lovely tribute, "Beautiful Boy", to Cole. Very moving, it is.

Recommended for everybody, not just former band geeks.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: Pride & Prejudice (2005)

"Mrs. Darcy...Mrs. Darcy...Mrs. Darcy..."

This version of Pride & Prejudice is the one that stars Keira Knightly (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) as Elizabeth Bennet. I am listing it because it is a movie, whereas the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice, the one that stars Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth and the unbelievably drrrrrrrrrreamy Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, is actually a many-hours-long miniseries. But really, I think both versions are very good. It all depends, as so many things in life do, on how much time you have.

One of the reasons why I like this movie so much is because actually reading Jane Austen drives me batty -- I'm not one who has much appreciation for that verbose Regency style of writing, no matter how much you may be sniggering in disbelief if you're a frequent reader of this (long-winded) blog.

But ol' Jane sure can write a good tale. In terms of following her plot, the BBC version is much better; in interests of forcing her storyline into a two hour screenplay, screenwriter Deborah Moggach had to do a lot of cutting. When I took Meelyn and Aisling to see the cinema version, I had to do some 'splaining so that they'd understand what was going on with Elizabeth's sister. That's one drawback of the shorter version.

It's still a wicked funny and beautifully romantic movie, though. I really love pretty Kiera Knight as the spunky Elizabeth. And Donald Sutherland is a hoot as the much-tried Mr. Bennet and gets to utter one of the best dryly humorous lines ever written for page or screen: When the enervating Mrs. Bennet wails, "Oh, Mr. Bennet! Have you no consideration for my poor nerves?", he replies with mild acidity, "You mistake me, my dear. I have the utmost respect for your nerves. They've been my constant companion these twenty years."

My ideal Pride & Prejudice would be one with Kiera as Elizabeth and Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but since he's old enough to be her father (being several years older than I am, and since I graduated from Cretaceous High, that may give you some idea of how old Colin and I are.) At any rate, both are very good movies with brilliant costumes and hairstyles and sumptuous manor houses and wide views of windswept moors. If you dig that kind of thing, rent this movie before Jane gets any older.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: Jerry Maguire

"Have you ever gotten the feeling that you aren't completely embarassed yet, but you glimpse tomorrow's embarrassment?


Considering my feelings for Tom Cruise, which are of the eye-rolling and chuh!-noise-making variety, it's strange to me that one of my favorite movies of all time is Jerry Maguire. But who could resist this happy-ending movie with all its funny one liners and uplifting theme of nice guys finishing first and getting the girl and the enormous contract for his football player?

One of the best moments of the movie is, oddly enough, when his football playing client (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) takes a smashing hit from a linebacker and is lying on the field, unconscious. The player's wife is watching the game on television with a bunch of other football wives and when she sees her husband, she hysterically dials Jerry's cell phone to find out what has happened. "This family means everything to me, Jerry," she says tearfully, trying to contain her fear, "and it doesn't work without him."

And that's what it's all about. Families with their loyalty and trust and committment to one another, whether the family in question is a husband and wife with their children, or two sisters making a household with one another, or whether it's in the relationship Jerry wants to forge with his clients -- he's a sports agent with a difference.

This movie, of course, is also famous for Jerry's "You complete me" speech to his wife/business associate Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), as is her following line, "Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at hello."

There is just no maintaining composure during this happy moment. My husband has even been known to clear his throat loudly a time or two. It's just that kind of movie. If you don't come away from it loving Jerry, you're eating the wrong brand of popcorn or something.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: The Full Monty

"Dancin'? I dunno, really... Let's see, there's the, uh... The boomp, the stomp, the boos stop... Me breakdancin' days are probably over, but there's always the foonky chicken."

I heard things about The Full Monty for about two years before I saw it, things that I simply couldn't grasp (no pun intended.) I didn't see how a movie about a group of desperately broke, unemployed steel workers in Yorkshire and their decision to raise some cash by performing a striptease at Ladies' Night at a nightclub could possibly be funny, sweet or heartwarming.

So when we finally rented it -- on one of those snowy, grey weekends when everybody goes to Blockbuster as soon as they get off work on Friday, leaving latecomers with unappealing choices like Jaws II and The Neverending Story -- I felt we were lucky to get it, even though I was pretty sure it was going to be a stinker.

Several hours later, after having laughed until I had a stitch in my side, after wiping happy tears off my face onto my sleeve, I said to my husband, "I have to own that movie. I have to. It will be wonderful to watch it when I feel blue. It's sure to cheer me right up."

So he bought me the DVD and I loved it so much, I memorized long swatches of dialogue, which I would repeat softly to myself in times of stress, to make myself laugh. I've never been able to get that thick-as-suet accent down right, but oh, well. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen, and if you've never perceived Donna Summer's disco smash-hit song "Hot Stuff" as a sentimental tear-jerker before, here's your chance.

HAPPY MOVIES WEEK: The Wedding Planner

"You smell like sweet red plums and grilled cheese sandwiches."

That's the moment Mary, the wedding planner, knew it was for real, the minute that Steve tackled her to save her and her Gucci slingback from being plowed over by a runaway dumpster. The only problem is that Steve (Mr. Sweet-plums-and-grilled-cheese) is the fiance of Mary's biggest client, the one who's going to insure that she's made a partner in the business.

But she doesn't find that out until later, since grooms, as she puts it, are "N.I.D.s" -- Not Interested in Details. When she does find out, it explodes her orderly world of Scrabble, alphabetized lists and handy belt of bottled Evian water, tranquilizers, sewing implements and breath mints she conceals beneath the pastel suits she wears to each wedding she plans.

Mary and Steve keep getting thrown together because of the wedding plans in progress. The bride, Fran, makes them dance the tango together. They accidentally rip the willy right off a statue and engage in a mad scramble to reattach the limestone member. They visits various wedding venues together. Gradually, it comes out that Fran has a major case of cold feet, and one crazy motorbike ride later, right before Mary says "I do" to the man her traditional Italian papa fixes her up with, things all come together, as you imagine they might.

This is pure escapist fluff, witty and sweet and fun to watch. Especially because the delightfully handsome Matthew McConaughey plays Steve. And because just about every movie is better if Jennifer Lopez is in it.

MOVIE REVIEWS: Four old movies I saw this week

My husband is an old movie buff.

I am not.

He likes movies that have an actual plot, where sometimes things blow up, where good wins over evil.

I like movies with Jennifer Lopez. If you ask me, "Shelley, what makes a good movie?" I will automatically answer, "Jennifer Lopez. If Jennifer Lopez is in the movie, it is good. Unless it is that horrible one she starred in with Ben Affleck. But even Jennifer Lopez is permitted one stinkerfilm.

He doesn't mind if movies are in black-and-white.

I do. Deeply.

This week, because of his birthday, I grudgingly told him that I would watch some old, black-and-white movies with him, so he spent a lot of time going through the programming, trying to find a few that wouldn't have me sneaking off to the kitchen to "get a drink of water," which in this instance means "going to the kitchen with my book hidden under my sweatshirt to sit at the table, read and eat cookies until he comes out to find me and gives me an accusing look."

He taped The Bells of St. Mary's, The Shaggy Dog, The Bishop's Wife and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I thought I'd do a few brief reviews of these four from notes I took while watching. Otherwise, they might conceivably melt into one big, grey blur.

The Bells of St. Mary's -- Adorable movie, with Ingrid Bergman as Sister Benedicta and Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley. Snickered to self while watching, thinking that Bergman, in her desire to be alone, should have played the part of an anchorite, or at least a cloistered nun. Cannot get out of head that Bing Crosby, as jolly, gentle priest, was actually a mean drunk in real life. Find this creepy. Cannot believe the effrontery of smug doctor who thinks that Sister Benedicta, an adult with a mean uppercut, should not know that she has tuberculosis. Jerk. Ended well. If you're not worried about the idea of infectious lung disease being spread to all the schoolkids. Yikes.

The Shaggy Dog -- Annette Funicello was adorable, as I mentioned. So was the dog. Some of the scenes with the dog were actually very funny. Two big worries in this film: 1) What has happened to Robbie, Chip and Ernie? This cannot be right. Is Dad leading a double life as an allergic, grumpy fussbudget? My world is reeling. 2) Found it very difficult to get used to Fred MacMurrary as a grump. Anyone so handsome, with such a nice smile, should not be such a sourpuss. Maybe he's feeling guilty about leaving his three real sons with Uncle Charlie while he sneaks off for clandestine weekends as a "postman" with his wife and other kids. Want to cry.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington -- Graft, corruption and Karl Rove, is that you? Surely not, as Karl Rove and I are both Republicans and everyone knows that Repubicans don't lie, cheat or commit outrageous acts of self-serving cheaty-ness. At least, that's what Grandad told me. Feel very nervous about admitting this, but Jimmy Stewart kind of irritates me, him in his rubbery-faced aw-shucksness. Husband may demand that I sleep on couch tonight. This was a pretty good movie, although I kept wondering where Mr. Smith was peeing during his 23 hour filibuster. Maybe he passed out from dehydration or perhaps renal failure? Absolutely indignant at horrible ending to movie. Sure, it ended well, but it seems like about twenty minutes were left on the cutting room floor. Could we not have seen some retribution and restitution? And how about a wedding? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE BOYS THAT WERE RUN OFF THE ROAD? General opinion of living room is that Frank Capra dropped the ball and left it in the Lincoln Memorial or similar.

Extra: Living room amazed and had to do a re-wind to see the shot of the White House with no enormous iron fence in front of it. The whole place was just open, suburban-lawn style, as if you could just walk up to the door and ask the First Lady if you could borrow two eggs and a cup of sugar. Know, of course, that citizens used to be able to do such; what an innocent world. Also disturbed by the sight of ugly awnings over the windows on the distaff side of the White House. Must have made the rooms really gloomy. Glad someone had the sense to remove those.

The Bishop's Wife -- Wondered why, if divorce is allowed in Episcopal church, Mrs. Bishop didn't leave a note for His Reverence propped up against the sugar bowl and take off for Reno with Cary Grant? I mean, really. David Niven obviously has priorities screwed up; living room thinks he should marry that selfish old biddy that runs the parish after Reno divorce goes through. Wish self could wear sweet little hats and big, dramatic hats and hats with a cunning fur trim; would especially like to be wearing an attractive hat while being taken to lunch at Michele's by Cary Grant. Living room pleased to see Zuzu from It's a Wonderful Life in the role of Debbie, the Littlest Bishop. Do we have better fertilizers nowadays that grow real Christmas trees? Have never seen such ridiculous looking things, all scrawny branches and bare spots.

Synchronized sick-ish-ness

I still laugh every time I think about seeing Ratatouille last weekend, when unbeknownst to me, Kayte was seeing it as well. We had originally planned to see it together in August and take Meelyn and Aisling with us (Kayte always needs some pink in her life, she says), but what with one thing and another, it just never happened.

And now come to find out that we were both so grossed out and that neither one of us liked it. Both of us spent our time in front of our separate DVD players, nervously clenching and unclenching the sofa cushions and fighting down that terrible feeling that one gets when one's tongue takes on the texture and consistency of an old army blanket in the mouth.

Imagine what it would have been like if we'd had to watch that nasty little Remy in Linguini's hair and scampering around the restaurant, walking on the countertops and drinking soup out of a ladle -- the same ladle that was being used to stir the soup -- on a huge cinema screen.

I am not prone to anxiety attacks, but I know that would have likely reduced me to a shivering mess, dampening the popcorn with my tears and rendering the Diet Coke undrinkably salty. Not to mention throwing up on everyone in, say, a ten-aisle radius.

MOVIE REVIEW: Ratatewwwwwwwwille

Our family movie this weekend was Ratatouille, a movie I was totally prepared to love, being a major fan of Pixar. Unfortunately, I was so skeeved out by the sight of a rat crawling around on a kitchen counter and picking up some bread -- which it later put back down for a human to pick up and eat -- and a horde of rats falling through a ceiling into a person's living room, I couldn't enjoy the movie, what with the little bit of vomit that kept coming up in my mouth.

Yes, I know it was just computer animation. And I even know that the entire ironic theme of the movie was that this rat -- a dirty, flea-ridden, disease-carrying verminous creature -- wanted to be a chef in a five-star restaurant and had an actual talent for creating wonderful food. My impressionable head was filled full of Templeton at an early age and I'm sorry, but I just can't get over it. E.B. White trumps Pixar, which is as it should be.

The only thing that could possibly made things worse would have been for the rat to have had a cockroach as his sous chef.