Hysteria at a Funeral

I watch a lot of movies on the weekends. This weekend I think I watched more movies than I did homework. In some cultures that's what's known as screwing yourself over, but I call it watching a lot of movies. Some day I'll actually plan ahead and watch Meryl Streep movies. But obviously that hasn't happened yet.

Friday night I saw The Dark Knight. Fuck, that movie is scary. I'm scared of clowns, I don't think it was a good decision to see it. I'm still trying to come up with a logical, not roundabout way to link it to Meryl Streep, this is the best I've got so far. Michael Caine is in The Dark Knight and Little Voice with Ewan McGregor who's in Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman who's in The Hours with Meryl Streep. But it doesn't make any sense in my head that Meryl Streep and Michael Caine haven't done anything together because they're both so brilliant, yet nothing is coming to mind. I might have to look that up later.

I spent most of Saturday in Philly. We went to the protest against Prop 8 in front of City Hall and that was pretty amazing. It's awesome to see so many people out there supporting something that wasn't even on the ballot here. And I think we all need a good protest now and again, good for the soul. We have freedom of speech and right to assemble, good not to forget how to use it. After protesting we went to South Street to buy things for Rocky Horror. Not everyone just has garter belts and fishnets lying around. Although wouldn't that be handy?

Saturday night there was a screening of Death at a Funeral. My role was to put the DVD in the DVD player and push play. I almost couldn't take the excitement. Luckily, I held it together because I spent most of Death at a Funeral laughing hysterically. British humor is so under-appreciated here. All our movies should include blackmail, acid, and everything possible going utterly wrong. I have two ways to link it to Meryl Streep and both of them I'm missing names. And both of them use the movie Love, Actually. So, there's a guy in Death at a Funeral who was on an amazing British sitcom called "All in the Family." I think. He was also in Love, Actually, he played Colin, who goes to Wisconsin to pick up girls. One of the better story lines of the movie. Also in Love, Actually is Colin Firth - wow that sentence was written by Yoda. Anyway, Colin Firth is in Mamma Mia! too. I think I use him too much.

Then we watched Rocky Horror. I love that movie. I'm Brad in our show of it here. Susan Sarandon was in The Banger Sisters with Goldie Hawn who was in Death Becomes Her with Meryl. So Hah. I'm late for history.

Edit: Epic fail. Colin Frissell, the guy from Love, Actually is played by Kris Marshall, who was in the sitcom "My Family," not "All in the Family." Oh well, I was close. But otherwise that works.

One Month till Doubt

I've had the pestilence for the past week.  It's been a party, but I think I'm getting over it.

Not much has happened on the movie front.  I watched half of Pride and Prejudice (new version) and half of Sophie Scholl and twenty minutes of Angels in America.

The presence of Judi Dench in Pride and Prejudice (not BBC version) got me thinking.  I want there to be a movie with Meryl Streep and Judi Dench and Helen Mirren and... Laura Linney and Emma Thompson.  Ideal situation.  Fantasy casting, like fantasy football, but better.  And they're be in a really well written movie about women being kick ass and awesome, and it'd be altogether a fabulous experience.

That's be cool.

The main reason for this post is that there is exactly one month until Doubt comes out.  I think that's pretty important.  Unfortunately, because it is the day before my show and the weekend before exams, I don't know if I'll get to see it on opening weekend.  That makes me very sad.  I hope other people go see it for me, because I'd hate to have to go on another crusade in defense of a Meryl Streep movie like I did with Mamma Mia!.  Because that wasn't amusing and entertaining at all.  No sir.

Still, Catholic nuns, priests, possible sexual harassment of altar boys.  Sounds like a party.

Tipping the Velvet

With the exception of Prop 8 and its friends, I'm pretty thrilled about the results of the election.  Washington state even managed to keep its democratic governor, cool beans all around.

Yesterday I watched Tipping the Velvet with a friend.  Meryl Streep is not in this film, but it would be awesome if she was.  There's this extremely kinky (well, extremely kinky for London circa The French Lieutenant's Woman) woman who sort of takes in the main character and even though Anna Chancellor is very attractive, Meryl Streep would have been amazing in that role.  Anyway, movie was fun, I highly enjoyed it.  The smut scenes were excellent.  I tried to explain the plot to my friends afterwards and they really could not handle the main character's name being Nan, so she became known as Main Character for the rest of the evening.

Anna Chancellor was Mr. Bingley's sister in Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth who won the most adorable award for Mamma Mia!  That's using a mini series, which isn't technically a movie, but Tipping the Velvet is a mini series as well, so I don't feel bad.

So the plan of watching Out of Africa this weekend is totally not going to work out.  It's parents weekend and there's a million other things to do, like going to see the student production of Macbeth and an orchestra concert.  But I'm still watching plenty of movies.  I want to write my term paper for history on European identity in film, so viewing some potential candidates.  I'm going to try to get through all four this weekend, but I doubt that'll happen.

More Non Meryl Movies

This weekend was a big movie weekend.  Not a big Meryl Streep movie weekend, but maybe next week.  I want to finish Out of Africa someday.

Friday night we watched The Jane Austen Book Club.  Well, first, in honor of Halloween, we watched an episode of Supernatural.  I really liked TJABC, it was cute.  Nothing too serious, but sometimes serious is really overrated.  The moments of "serious book club" were fun, but few and far between.  Sort of like the director was like "oh shit, it's about a book club, right, I'd better make sure people know it exists."  Then back to lunch dates and romantic visits to used bookstores.  And Emily Blunt was in Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep.  Or, Hugh Dancy was in Ella Enchanted with Anne Hathaway who was also in Devil Wears Prada.  Or Hugh Dany was in Evening with Meryl Streep, but I didn't know that one off the top of my head, I looked it up.

Last night we watched Young Frankenstein.  I love that movie.  It has all my favorite things in it, utter silliness, black and white, Madeline Kahn, bad puns, good puns, immature jokes, and bizarre sexual references.  It makes me happy.  I'm still trying to figure out how to link it to Meryl Streep, give me a second.  

A random film recommendation:  The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother.  Gene Wilder wrote and stared in this one with Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn, so basically the same cast as Young Frankenstein.  It's not the greatest, but the last fifteen minutes made me laugh so hard I fell off the couch.

OH!  Okay, so I had to look up the title of the Sherlock Holmes movie, I couldn't remember if it was younger or smarter brother.  But, anyway, Dom DeLouise is in that and also in Robin Hood: Men in Tights with Cary Elwes who's in Ella Enchanted with Anne Hathaway.  Or, he's in The Princess Bride with the guy who plays the Sicilian who's in Manhattan with Meryl Streep.

Damn I'm good.  My roommate says I get ten points.  Yay me.  The Sicilian's name is Wallace Shawn, I did look that up.  

Mamma Mia! Party

I realized I never actually did a post on seeing Mamma Mia.  Just several posts on how other people were seeing Mamma Mia.

Well.  Now I've seen the movie three times.  I love it.  I can't wait for the DVD.  That's on November 27, by the way.  I looked it up.  Everyone should buy it.  

So last night was viewing number three and it has not decreased in awesomeness.  In fact, its awesomeness may be exponentially increasing.  I may make a graph of Mamma Mia awesomeness as a function of circumstances.  One such circumstance is viewing it with a lot of happy people who have been fed and given feather boas and shiny sunglasses.

It wasn't crazy as I wanted it to be though.  It would have been way more fun with a bunch of people (possibly intoxicated) singing and dancing like crazy people.  I mean, the movie's grand awesome fun on its own, but singing and dancing would have helped.

Then we watched Finding Nemo on a computer while drinking beverages.  Finding Nemo can be linked to Meryl by Allison Janney who plays Peach in Finding Nemo and Clarissa's lover Sally in The Hours.  If I have to look up my links, I'll admit to that.  But usually I can do it off the top of my head.

Plenty

It's incredible what procrastination can do to a person.

I live in a dorm that will burn down in 37 second if fire reaches the roof.  For some reason, this doesn't really ever bother us.  There is also reason to believe that Harry Potter lives in our cupboard under the stairs.  But since I'm being Harry Potter for Halloween, I'm apprehensive about this rumor.

Next to Harry Potter's cupboard there's a nook.  Unlike other nooks, I'll be honest, my experience with nooks is rather limited, but ours is very special.  There's a light, two windows and a plaque that someone up up in 1997.  We like to study there and watch movies.  Nearly a month ago (I've been busy) we watched Plenty.

I love this movie.  I wish I could tell you what it's about, but I haven't the faintest idea.  Most of it makes no sense.  Or I just didn't get it.  I love Tracey Ullman in this film, she's a shining light in an otherwise rather bleak premise.

So Meryl's this World War II spy type person and she has sex with this with this other spy type person.  Well, first they have tea, obviously a pick-up line, then they look at the mackerel sky (there are no fish in the sky, however) then they have sex with their clothes on.  This shows they are not French, but British.  

Meryl spends the rest of the film looking for the same dude.  Instead she marries a dud.  And has a lot of sex.  She has sex with Sting on a couch and it would be really sexy if you didn't feel like you were intruding on something.   I totally think she should have hooked up with Tracey Ullman, that would have been an awesome movie.

I really had fun with this one - it's beautifully shot, the costumes are awesome.  Somebody amazing, not Ann Roth, put Tracey Ullman in a man's suit and she's adorable.

Later we watched the first twenty minutes of Out of Africa, but then I had to return it to the library and we haven't checked it out again.  Hopefully we will soon.  I liked the first bit.  Once again the fact that Meryl has a completely different dialect blows my mind.  But I've started seeing bits of Miranda Priestly in some of her parts, that's kind of amusing.

Not much else is new.  My calc midterm is on Friday and I might die.  I bought Angels in America and it's beautiful.  There's a Mamma Mia party in the campus center on Friday, it's going to be amazing.

Everyone should go see Doubt on December 12 because it looks totally hardcore.

Happy Sweater Vest Wednesday

Falling in Love

Falling in Love (the film, not the action) is about trains.  If it weren't for trains this movie wouldn't have been made.  Otherwise Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro would have had no place to chatter together.

The plot to this film is very simple.  Two people meet... you get the idea.

I'm sorry.  This movie was probably be a lot more impressive if we hadn't had over two decades of romantic comedies since its release.  By now we have the genre down to an art form.  And this subtle, rather quiet piece doesn't stand up to likes of When Harry Met Sally, Notting Hill and Runaway Bride.  Several reasons why:

For a movie the frequently features trains, everything moves alarmingly slow.  Early in the film they run into each other (literally) in a book store and both drop every single bag they're holding.  Then they have to pick them up and drop them again, a bag rips.  It goes on forever, long past where it might have been funny.  And it's so slow.  Of course, again, now we're used to movies where they have sex by twenty minutes in.  Or, maybe they've already had sex and we're into the post coital issues.  In this movie they talk about things instead.  And play tic tac toe with a chicken.

No one seems to be able to decide what kind of this movie is.  The soundtrack is determined to make into a comedy, blasting us with a score that's so peppy we might die in the opening credits.  But the problem is, Meryl and De Niro aren't sure either.  I'm not going to blame them, I'm going to blame the script.  When it isn't angsty, the two stars are so charming it radiates off the screen and they could probably carry the film on that alone.  But the script wants to go off on all these thought provoking, introspective jaunts into angstville.  And we sit going "WTF!  Is this funny or depressing?  There's not enough of either for me to be sure."  

There might have been another reason, but I don't remember it.  This isn't a bad movie, it just hasn't stood the test of time that well.  There needed to be more of the chicken who played tic tac toe, perhaps some witty banter.  But it's not bad.  Next is Plenty and Out of Africa.

Mostly unrelated side note: Today is Robert De Niro's birthday.