Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.
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| Like The Queen Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content. |
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2 Comments:I too, thought the movie was much better than I expected. And I agree that Diaz can't play cute dumb blondes for much longer. Shirley McLean (spelled that wrong, I know), is fantastic, as usual.
Hated it. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Wednesday, June 07, 2006 Ahh, Mary - The list is just my Ariadne’s Yarn ball to find my way out of the Labyrinth of Gloom. Others don’t need to care about it, but my saying it out loud - in public - as it were - helps me remember that these mundane things are ImportantToMe. I don't want to forget to do them while I wallow in a blue funk. And Glenn - I hope you come across the river next Tuesday at 7 for Knitters gathering. 7 p.m. at the library. As for the Extreme Misery and Flight Desire - it is evidently a Virgo thing. L called yesterday and asked me if I felt like running away and ending it all and how she saw an ad for a 3 bedroom condo, but couldn’t convince her husband to sell the house and you know - I completely understood. And it felt soooo good to be able to blame it on the stars. And the list helped. I’m not out of the morass but I can at least slog forward to some future Comfort Zone. Here’s yesterday’s tally. Get county guys to assemble DVD table Get flyers to middle school Ditto elementary school Put up SRC posters at gym, walmart, swimming pools, (hmmmm video store? where else do kids hang out?) ALSO marquee stuff Adjust June schedule, make up July schedule Story Hour prep Make prototypes for Awesome Authors program Make sure all computers have Publisher loaded Write up SRC instruction sheet for staff&volunteers PSA to radio Is there $ for a newspaper ad? not just article? - bet there is Post schedule of SRC programs for all staff to see Make reminder calls to SRC guests Cut new stick hooks for own story program - probably need 25 + tie yarns Decide scope of summer workers responsibilities and assign regular staff new duties 06-07 board budget - devise then meet ... Call Bill Talk to board about problem with Hill brothers Schedule fall auction for Friends Other auction committee activities including membership list Staff meeting Reunion stuff - contact BB, NM, CH for address changes - mailed by June 30 Anniversary Party stuff - big posting board, find kiddy games, borrow S’s cooler Jane and E-books!! And now I present you with: A film review that prompts the question: “Doesn’t she ever stop talking?” I can’t quite give this movie 5 stars, and I’ll tell you why in a moment, but first the praise because it deserves plenty. The reviews I either read or heard about this movie didn’t do nearly enough of that. Oh, they all talk about the ugly duckling who becomes a swan, but there's more than one blossoming in this movie. Yes, it’s a chick flick. It’s also a movie about redemption - or at least about growth. It’s literature that makes the effort to develop a character and succeeds. It's not your typical movie-land live action cartoon figure blasting through the impenetrable. Mind, now, there’s a place for Crash, Boom, Bang, but it is a peripheral enjoyment of the vegetative state. In Her Shoes is a move to think about. So - this flick - two sisters, one, a pretty, illiterate, sluttish moocher and one, a homely dumpy workaholic lawyer. Their only bond, other than a DNA link, seems to be a shoe fetish and an inescapable tragedy from their childhood. Typical plot of two people frozen in their familial roles who squabble about ancient injustices, part, seek their dens to lick their wounds and discover Truth and Self and enough Inner Strength to reunite. What makes it a 4 star is the fine writing, the fine acting and one or two really super lines perfectly delivered. Shirley McClaine is the biggest of the big names in this flick, and she never once overplays it. I kept waiting and she didn’t miss a step. Toni Collette was grumpy, but not so bitter she couldn’t get over it - this is no Oh!! Hell hell hell hell hell blogger lost the last half of this review! Can I recreate it in 7 minutes? ... this is no "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" creepy gothic family. Cameron Diaz is the blonde we all wish we looked like. The boyfriend is sensitive without being too sweet. The cad is not so very wicked and at least he apologized - for the right crime. The wicked stepmother, another part that could be overplayed, is evil enough to hate and to move the plot along. There are some other endearing peripheral characters. This movie meets an essential literary criteria for me - the author really liked the people she created. Why didn't it get 5 stars? Alas, it was an issue of belivability. Cameron Diaz will never see 20 again, nor 25, nor 29 nor 30. And she looks it. Mind now, she looks fabulous, but she also looks cemented in grown-up-hood. So - here is this woman who's spent 1/3 of a century slutting around, mooching off her sister, stealing from eveyone, failing at everything - even at being a slut since she gets too drunk to hold the interest of her pick-ups. And she is going to be redeemed by living with her long lost grandma and taking care of Old Folks in the Home? Do you belive that? Me neither. If the actress had been younger, someone who looked like there was still time to get it together, someone who could still smell her teens, a Lindsay Lohan type - well, yeah, okay. Or from a different launch pad - if Diaz had ever once given any evidence that she could actually succeed at anything - had not been a 100% looser, well, then, yes. I could believe there was something to salvage. So that was a writer's mistake. Don't know if it was the book author or the screen writer, but 30 years of complete failure does not a redeemable character make, at least, not without lots of expensive therapy and perhaps - some deeper degradation. So, a 4 star. Definitely a pleasure. Just make the exisential leap that nobody that pretty could be completely lost, the same way you believe that They lived happily ever after, even if nobody else you know does. And enjoy some killer lines. Hmm. 13 minutes. Not bad. posted by Bess | 7:18 AM |
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