21. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

[has it really been 10 years?
...as of July 5th, apparently it will be]


Code-name: Brick


Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Adam McKay and Will Ferrell
Notable Producers: Judd Apatow, (executive) David O. Russell
Type: Frat Pack Comedy


Cast:
Ron Burgundy- Will Ferrell
Veronica Corningstone- Christina Applegate
Brian Fantana- Paul Rudd
Champ Kind- David Koechner
Brick Tamland- Steve Carell
Channel 4 news exec Ed Harken- Fred Willard
Wes Mantooth of the Channel 9 newsteam- Vince Vaughn


Cameos:
Jack Black as the biker Ron hit with a burrito
Luke Wilson as the anchorman of Channel 2 news
Tim Robbins as the anchorman of the Public News Network
Ben Stiller as the anchorman of the Spanish Language News
Seth Rogen as the "eager cameraman"


Write-up:


Introduction


Up until this movie came out, I thought Will Ferrell was an idiot.


...how's that for an introduction? :-P


Seriously, what little I saw him, his sense of humor to me was nothing but idiocy and stupidity. He was nothing but an unfunny man-child and I just didn't get the hype after him.


But when I saw the trailer of "Anchorman," I couldn't explain why but I felt like I had to see it. The idea of a movie about people in a newsroom, a comedy no less... it just looked like one of those "so crazy but just might work" sort of things.


Not that I thought it was crazy. It just looked legitimately funny. And it absolutely was.


Plot, Characters and So On


Something this insanely awesome can't really be sectioned off too much. Everything is more or less interrelated.


Ron Burgundy is THE anchorman with perfect hair, a dog named Baxter and mad jazz flute skills.


Brian Fantana does all the reporting on the streets, is a bit of a womanizer and believes that 80% of the time, his potent Sex Panther cologne works every time.


Champ Kind is an overenthusiastic sport guy who may be a tad possessive with little sense of personal boundaries.


Brick Tamland is the rarely late weatherman with an IQ of 48 who loves lamp and enjoys a good pair of slacks.


And Veronica Corningstone is the new woman [the first ever female reporter] on the block of the Channel 4 new station who soon rises to the role of co-anchor.


Before this movie, I only knew three actors.
Besides Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd (who I was happy didn't disappear with the rest of the "Clueless" cast) and Christina Appelgate (who my family knew as Kelly Bundy on "Married with Children").


David Koechner, I'd seen a couple times doing similar roles to Will Ferrell. Not terribly funny and a bit of an idiot. Including cameos on "The Office" and a small role in "Get Smart"... both are gigs he probably got because of Steve Carell.


Steve Carell


He deserves his own subheading :P
and let's just say he had me from "


This was my first ever encounter with Steve Carell and it made me a fan for life.
I'm not sure if I made this connection with him before or after my dad saw the movie and said "the weatherman is hilarious"... but either way, every one of his lines is funny because it's so idiotic but he says it with confidence.


It all began with: "Right now, it’s 82 degrees in our fair city, and compare that to 48 degrees in the upper Northwest and 38 degrees in the Middle East."


One of the most lovable idiots you'll ever find on film.
It took me a little while to find the humor in "The Office," and Michael Scott is also a bit of an idiot, but he's got a big heart and really cares about the people around him.


I'd seen plenty of Steve Carell since and [not knowing of his involvement in Comedy Central satire] I predicted he'd become a big star.


His films have been a little uneven. For every "Get Smart" and "Dinner with Schmucks," there's a "Crazy Stupid Love" (which became a complete buzzkill when we found out Emma Stone with his daughter and he wasn't okay with her dating Ryan Gosling... so quick to turn on his newest male best friend).


But nothing beats:


"I love lamp" and "LOUD NOISES!"


Back to the Story...


The Channel Four news team has been #1 in the San Diego area for what feels like forever.
Then we're introduced to the newest addition: Veronica Corningstone.


Such a testosterone embroiled workplace, it's obvious where this is going:
she's the latest conquest and all the men fail miserably.


However innocent, Brick had the best idea with his invitation to "that pants party"...
Champ did a seemingly innocent reach-around, which was insanely obvious.
Brian was the second most memorable after Brick and not in the best way: his Sex Panther cologne resulted in a hazmat chemical shower.


Then Ron did the phony workout thing where he pretends to do 100 reps on his "guns" and says his arms are tired from doing so many.
He does however get her attention with a good date where he plays jazz flute and they wind up in "Pleasure Town" when they return to his place.


However, it does not last long as Ron finds himself in a "glass case of emotion" and the studio has no choice but to have Veronica anchor in his place...


Aside from being a chauvinistic pig, the things to remember about Ron Burgundy is that the only thing he loves more than poetry and a glass of Scotch is his dog Baxter...
who gets punted off a bridge by this biker Ron hits with a burrito he carelessly throws out a window...


Yeah, this would have only worked in this movie and with Jack Black playing the biker. And in any other context, Will Ferrell in the phone booth would have just not been funny.
He's crying unintelligibly to Brian Fantana


"Bad man punted Baxter... on the bridge... I hit him with a burrito!"
Even more ridiculous, what sells it for me is when he's just crying, Brian asks him to repeat himself and he keeps doing so at a higher volume :-P hilarious every time


The end result of this entire episode is that Veronica is a hit with the ratings and the guys have no choice but to deal with the fact she's Ron's new co-anchor.


This boils to the point where the guys get in a 5-way bilingual new station brawl with the other news teams.
In other words, let the cameos fly!
Everyone from Luke Wilson to Tim Robbins to Ben Stiller show up... the only person missing is Owen Wilson, who didn't even show up in the sequel... maybe he was off doing another Wes Anderson movie :-P


Again, Brick steals the show on numerous occasions.
Before they even start fighting, we see him standing with the Channel 9 news team, laughing with them.
Everyone takes out their weapons and he has a hand grenade
("Brick where you'd get the hand grenade?" [he responds with no chance of expression] "I don't know")
When the fight breaks out, we see him waving it around, yelling, but never actually see him use it. But he does kill a dude with a trident... very randomly but hilariously.


When all the guys' schemes to get Veronica fired don't work, she pulls something of her own armed with another important bit of information:


"Ron will read ANYTHING that's on the teleprompter"... if you remember from a scene earlier on, there's a question mark in there and he pronounces it...


so... yeah, he unintentionally verbally flips off all of San Diego and is forced to resign...


For this 10 minute period, the movie is back to being Will Ferrell-grade unwatchable. The dude's miserable with a long phony beard.
Lucky for him, though, his ship comes back in when Veronica disappears in the midst of the biggest ratings grab in the San Diego news world...


Yeah, a new panda is being born at the zoo... they must really be starving for stories over there...
Ironically, that part of the storyline is 100% inaccurate. This movie takes place in the 70's and pandas didn't arrive in San Diego until 1987. Considering who's doing the writing, though, we know they're not complete geniuses.


Ron shows up to save the day and, yeah, Baxter is alive and well and arrives to save Ron and Veronica from the grizzlies. Wes Mantooth also gains the courage to tell Ron how he really feels, that as much as he dislikes him, he respects the hell out of him :P


We get a little bit of an epilogue, explaining where the news team wound up.
A couple memorable jokes is that Champ is sued for sexual harassment by Terry Bradshaw and Brick has 10 kids and is an advisor to George W. Bush... in other words, liberal Hollywood is poking fun at the Republican administration :shrug: what can you do, right?


Legacy and Sequel


I'm not entirely sure how big a hit this movie was when it first came out. I believe it was and it only gained more of a following as the years went by.
The lines hold up really well. YouTube is chock full of montages where people segued their favorite quotes and scenes together.


Anyone who didn't know the song at the time like I did also learned a little something about "Afternoon Delight" which the guys sang in a pretty darn good 4-part harmony.


News of a sequel had been on the horizon for years and last year it finally happened. To promote it, Ron Burgundy appeared in several Dodge Durango ads, released an autobiography and even got his own Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
Sadly, "Scotchy Scotch Scotch" does not contain any actual scotch... it does however contain ample swirls of BUTTERscotch. I'm not the biggest fan of the stuff, but I did try it. It wasn't bad, but Stephen Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" still is way better 8-)


As for the sequel... well, it's hit and miss for me... mostly missing.
I had issues with it like I did with the Sherlock Holmes sequel... they tried to up the ante a little too much and it kinda blew up in their face.


Namely, the humor is a little more extreme, going for the gross-out moments or pushing the envelope in general...
Ron is 100x the idiot he was in the previous film. He and Veronica are married with a kid, but they aren't exactly the most stable family. The kid adores him despite the fact he spends zero time with him. Their relationship is tested when Veronica gets a promotion and he doesn't and they wind up separating.


Ron's follow-up job is at a SeaWorld... being a marine biology major and animal lover in general, I was embarrassed with how that scene played out...


He's proposed the idea for a 24/7 news network (kinda like CNN) and "gets the band back together." Champ owns a KFC type place (where the overwought dialogue and puns get tiresome within 5 minutes). Brian is a cat photographer (hilariously because he talks to them as if he's shooting nude models). And Brick makes a cameo where he cries his way through a eulogy AT HIS OWN FUNERAL... now that's just priceless :-P


I think the part that really lost it for me was when Ron ice skates (which I kinda didn't appreciate on the surface since I saw this a few months after the Olympics... no way he could do a quadruple toe-loop) and the rival anchor played by James Marsden causes an accident where he is blinded.


Geesh, the logic of the quadruple toe-loop held more water than that BS.


And the BS continued. Veronica nursed Ron back to health and helped rehabilitate him with the intention of getting her family back together... to the point where she hid from him that a procedure could be done to get his sight back.
Even more idiotic was her starting a cat fight with one of the girls at the news station who had been sweet on Ron. Just, why? She didn't want Ron anymore so why is it her business that he's moving on with someone else?


Probably the worst joke of a scene in the movie was when Ron met the new girlfriend's family and tried to speak all ghetto so they'd understand him. Never mind idiotic, but insensitive... makes me want to ask if Will Ferrell's black friends still talk to him.


At the finale we have the return of the news team fight, but after the first five minutes it just goes too far... Harrison Ford turns into a freaking werewolf and Kanye West (who's already one of my least favorite people in the world) says he's got an idea for Michael Jackson... :facepalm: just no...


The only good thing about the movie was the story arc where they gave Brick the perfect love interest, played by Kristen Wiig.


Coming Soon


Independence Day is next weekend and in an odd sort of way, my next movie plays into that vein.
It got some people talking politics, those who chose to read between the lines.
It got other people, me included, excited with the special effects ALONE


Even after seeing the "true" winner, I still maintain it was robbed at the Oscars in its given year...

26. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

{in this exact clip, he actually says the film's title!}

Code-name: Whackbat



Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: (book) Roald Dahl, (screenplay) Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach
Type: book-to-movie adaptation, animated, dramedy

Cast:
Mr. Fox- George Clooney
Felicity Fox- Meryl Streep
Ash- Jason Schwartzman
Kristofferson- Eric Anderson (Wes's brother)
Badger- Bill Murray
Kylie the Possum- Wally Wolodarksy
Coach Skip- Owen Wilson
Agnes- Juman Malouf
Rabbit- Mario Batali
Boggis- Robin Hurlstone
Bunce- Hugo Guinness
Bean- Michael Gambon
Rat- Williem Dafoe
Petey- Jarvis Cocker

Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Animated Film
OSCAR- Best Original Score- Alexandre Desplat (another frequent collaborator of Wes Anderson's)
Golden Globe- Best Animated Film

Write-up:

INTRODUCTION

According to my other blog, I first saw this movie on Cinemax in October of 2010 and these were my first "in-a-nutshell" thoughts.

As for “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” George Clooney does not disappoint. The movie was not necessarily my cup of tea, but the edginess of it, including the animation won me over. It fascinates and captivates at the same time. The humor derives from some new jokes that haven’t been overclichéd and there are some old jokes in there that have been heard in other movies. In a word, I say its charming.

Charming and incredibly quirky.

I've come into other Wes Anderson movies expecting the same thing. So far, only "The Grand Budapest Hotel" delivered on that. As I might have stated previously, if there was any humor in "The Royal Tenenbaums," it was lost on me... and "Moonrise Kingdom" could have been better if it wasn't taken so seriously with the "Romeo & Juliet"-esque storyline.

Is it silly to expect the same thing in every movie an actor or director does?
Yes, but that's just how I roll.

When I first became aware of this movie, I didn't know what to think. It seemed so different on the animation alone, but since it got good reviews, I had to check it out.

Anyone who read my reviews for "She's out of my league" and "Easy A" knows how I saw lots of movies in 2010 and my favorites were the ones with the most unique writing.
It might have gotten to a point with me where I'd seen so many movies that I was getting sick of their predictability. Luckily, I came across gems like this one that kept me engaged in this medium.

PLOT

Back in the day, Mr. Fox was all about the danger of being a wild animal, stealing various fowl from farmers. But when he and his wife find themselves in a fox trap, he obeys her wish to give up this life for a less hazardous one.

Fast-forward 2 years (12 fox years) later:
He writes a newspaper column, she paints thunderstorm-laden landscapes for a hobby and their son Ash aspires to be an athlete.

Mr. Fox moves his family to a large oak tree at, in his view, an ideal location. It happens to have easy access to three notorious farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
Just for the heck of it, he and his new partner-in-crime Kylie break into the farms night after night to steal chickens, ducks, geese and squab ("whatever they are"). Ultimately, this gives way to some pretty dramatic consequences for the Foxes and the other animals.

The animals struggle to survive. Mr. Fox's marriage gets rocky. Ash deals with some growing pains including dealing with the arrival of his "perfect" yet humble cousin Kristofferson. And the animals give the farmers their comeuppance.

All the while, despite all the drama, hilarity ensues whenever the cracks allow. Which is pretty often ;)

CHARACTERS and ACTORS

We're talking an all-star cast here. Not surprisingly, Wes Anderson has his favorites. Bill Murray obviously. At least one Wilson brother (Owen Wilson is practically a cameo but it's a great one). Jason Schwartzman, who first worked with Wes Anderson in "Rushmore" (another film I gotta see for him and the writer/director).

Willem Dafoe played the psychotic rat that guards Mr. Bean's alcoholic "tastes like melted gold" cider, making a pretty good secondary villain. But I'm not sure anyone caught onto the fact it was him doing the voice. I certainly didn't and I was thinking during "The Grand Budapest Hotel" that it was his first time working with Wes Anderson. Plays a really good villain in that too ;)

Then there're the big guns of Clooney and Streep and Gambon.

In the right context, I love Meryl Streep. But I'm not the biggest fan when it comes to awards season and when she's cast because moviemakers believe they need a name as big as hers to give their project credibility. (Trust me, when "The Giver" comes out, I will be vocal about casting her... among several other things because it's my favorite book).

Michael Gambon plays "possibly the scariest man currently living" Mr. Bean, which is an interesting contrast to the role I will forever associate him with... Professor Dumbledore.
Sure, on looks alone, Richard Harris will always be the Dumbledore I picture when I re-read the books, but you see one actor play the same role over a decade... that stuff sticks with you :-P

Of course, last but not least is George Clooney.
I could care less that he plays the same character in every movie (particularly ones like this, "Ocean's 11" and "The Monuments Men" where he leads heist operations), he's always so pleasant to watch. He's the only actor I can confidently consider a "movie star" because he's a class act and a really nice guy.

Nobody else could play the incorrigible Mr. Fox as good as him. Not in a million years :-P

THE ATHLETE

All of these characters have their faults. Second only to the Fantastic Mr. Fox himself is his son, Ash.

My memory has faded over the years that've passed, but I'm convinced that I stuck through this movie because I'm very partial to that name. My first love, who first inspired me to write, had that name.

I don't know why I find Ash such a compelling character. Maybe it's all about Jason Schwartzman's voice, how he was so perfect as this character. This was my first encounter with him. I've been known to follow actors around like a lost puppy when I fall in love with their voices (Haley Joel Osment is the biggest example of that for me). Oddly enough, so far the movies I've found him in (Scott Pilgrim, The Grand Budapest Hotel) were purely coincidental 8-)

Either way, yeah, he's rude, but I loved his insistence of his athletic status when all but one final scene showed otherwise. (The final scene was the best pay-off this movie has, at least in my book).

Also love this set of dialogue and how he ends it.

Felicity: we all know what it's like to be... different
Ash: but I'm not different. Am I?
Felicity: we all are. Him especially (points to Mr. Fox) but there's something fantastic about that, isn't there? (leaves)
Ash: hmm, not to me, I prefer to be an athlete

(when the situation calls for it, I always love quoting that final line... yeah, I am a total nerd)

On the other hand, we have Kristofferson. He's staying with the Foxes because his father (Felicity's brother) is suffering from double pneumonia. In a short time, Ash takes a strong disliking to him. Particularly when he unassumingly captures the affections of Agnes, another fox at their school, but most notably when he shows him up in gym class;

WHACK-BAT

This is my favorite scene in this movie.
1) because it stars Owen Wilson as the school coach
2) it has great dialogue ("that's the first time that kid has ever swung a whack bat?")
3) the sport itself

Throughout our trip to Sydney, Australia, which was a couple months after I saw this movie, I couldn't help but think of "whack bat" whenever we were trying to discern the mystery of cricket. One dude we met at a pub tried to explain it to us, but his speech was unintelligible after all the drinks he had.

I still don't get whack-bat, but I find it so intriguing. This is the only dialogue we have to go on:
"Basically, there's three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and a player at Whackbat. Center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine."

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

If it's not random quotes, its entire scenes that make me geek-out when I watch this movie because I find them oddly compelling.
The greatest example is when Mr. Fox is delegating tasks to the other animals, calling them by their Latin names. So many random answers. Like Badger says he's a demolitions' expert. And how he enthusiastically shakes weasel, rattles off his Latin name while he responds "Stop yelling!"

There are a dozen great scenes that are just full of laughs, varying from ha-ha funny to slow-burn laughs you have to think about.

Or just running gags.

Like every now and then, Kylie gets the "psycho" look in his eyes where his pupils are the shape of spirals :-P it's even funnier when Mr. Fox gets it after running away from a beagle suffering from Rabies in one of the latter scenes.
Or the ransom notes (where the letters are cut out from magazines to "hide" identities of the letter writers) where the characters break the fourth wall just to get us to laugh.
Or when Mr. Fox has his trademark click and whistle and Kylie asks about it during the final mission to rescue Kristofferson and get back at the farmers. Then later on tries to establish his own trademark and kinda fails at it, lol
Or how they use the word "cuss" whenever they're spewing profanities because it keeps the movie PG. Every now and then, I will use the word "cuss" in my writing for that reason alone. My favorite "cuss" scene is where Mr. Fox and the Badger go at it after Badger says "the cuss you are" and Mr. Fox responds "The cuss am I?"

One oddly cool moment is where Mr. Fox confronts his phobia of wolves (which he brings up a couple times before hand) when he comes across one. There's no dialogue exchanged (at least not by the wolf), but both of them raise their hands in the air out of respect for one another.

It's all about the quirky details and subtle moments with this movie. The way I see it, you either go crazy for it or you just don't get it. But if you're open to something different, this is definitely a good movie to get into.

COMING SOON

Don't know how many people read my previous entry, but forgetting my place in my countdown, I gave away I had another Downey film coming up.

Not just because this particular movie is great in its own right and not just because he actually won something for it (yep, I just gave it away right there, lol), but because the impact it had on me was pretty substantial.

All the more reason to one day aspire to do a "6 degrees of Downey" entry (take that, Kevin Bacon!) where I go into the amazing people and things that might not have been on my radar had it not been for his involvement.

28. Legally Blonde (2001)

Code-name: Bruiser

Director: Robert Luketic (other credits include "The Ugly Truth" and "21")
Type: comedy, court room, chick flick

Cast:
Elle Woods- Reese Witherspoon
Warner- Matthew Davis
Vivian Kensington- Selma Blair
Emmett- Luke Wilson
Paulette- Jennifer Coolidge
Professor Cromwell- Holland Taylor
Professor Callahan- Victor Garber
Enid- Meredith Scott Lynn
Brooke Taylor Wyndam- Ali Larter
Chutney Wyndam- Linda Cardellini

Notable Golden Globe Nominations:
Best Picture (comedy/musical)
Best Actress (comedy-musical)- Reese Witherspoon
[...losing both awards to Nicole Kidman and "Moulin Rouge". As much as I love Reese in this movie, that's kinda hard to argue with :-P]

Write-up:

I don't remember if I saw this first or "Miss Congeniality," but in both cases, I was attracted to the pictures in question based on the premise.

I think I was intrigued by "Legally Blonde" because it was about a seemingly dumb blonde trying to make her way in law school to win back her boyfriend.
Back in those days, email was a roughly new thing in our house and among the FWD'd messages that circulated, there were ample dumb blonde jokes.

My personal favorite is the first one I heard:
A blonde, brunette & redhead are driving through the desert when their car breaks down. the brunette takes water, the redhead takes food and the blonde takes the car door. they ask each other why they brought the things they brought.
..punchline:
the blonde says "in case we get too hot, we can roll down the window"

Isn't it odd that when the "dumb blonde" stereotype is always skewed female?
Like only ditzy blonde girls can be perceived that way.

 So yeah... moving on...
I don't hate on blondes, by the way. Although I do believe they have more fun, so I can't help but wonder sometimes if I'd attract more attention from the opposite sex if I dyed my hair

I guess you could say that what makes this movie awesome to me is that Elle Woods winds up proving to everyone around her that she's actually a smart cookie and she finds herself a legit career path in something she's actually really good at.
A good example of "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

That, combined with Reese Witherspoon at her coolest and near-insane quotability [you wanna see insane, check out next week's entry on the countdown], made this an easy choice for my list of my favorite movies. A great popcorn movie that I can't help watching when it comes on TV.

First Impressions

Elle Woods is a CULA fashion major and president of her sorority, Delta Nu. After the movie opens with Hoku's one-hit wonder "Perfect Day" (ones of my favorite Radio Disney jams back in the day), we meet her as she prepares for a date with her boyfriend. She believes it's going to be a proposal when, in fact, it's the opposite.

Sure, Elle's reaction to the news is completely exaggerated, but every bit of it is so fun to watch :-P only the movies
And the cherry on top:

Warner: Get in the car
Elle: No...
Warner: you're gonna ruin your shoes
(a beat)
Elle: Okay...

spoken as a true Cosmo girl ;)

and I always get a kick out the aftermath where she's eating bons-bons and screaming at "General Hospital" (specifically, Jacob Young, who I know best as JR on "All My Children").

Here Comes the Plot

Somehow, Elle gets the "brilliant" idea that if she becomes a serious law student, Warner will be so impressed that he'll take her back in a heartbeat.
People think she's crazy, but she defies the odds, getting a 179 on her LSATs and making a helluva video admissions essay.

My favorite part:

Elle: I feel comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life.
[someone whistles at her]
Elle: I object.
...what always sells it for me is when she smiles back at the camera, super proud of herself.

The deliberation in the conference room over her application would never happen in real life, but nonetheless, there're too many gems in that scene to go into.
Among them were "faux fur panties" and her being in a Ricky Martin video... back in 2000-2001 when that actually meant something :-P

Needless to say, she does get into Harvard Law School and it goes without saying that her quest isn't as easy as she thought it'd be. After all, Harvard is notoriously difficult to get into for a reason.
I remember a moment where we were watching this for the first time. Elle gets picked on in her first class by Mrs. Cromwell, not knowing the answer because she wasn't aware they had an assignment. I'm flipping out, crying foul and my dad says that, apparently, that does actually happen.

I guess you gotta be on top of things in the Ivy League, but still... if that wasn't embarrassing enough, she gets showed up by the stuck up Vivian Kensington (my first encounter with Selma Blair who I expressed my admiration for in my review of "HellBoy II"). Archetypically, she's the opposite of Elle. She has the plain Jane look with the brown hair & brown eyes and an icy attitude to match. And it's on her word that Elle gets kicked out of class because she didn't know the answer.

Just wow...

She meets her future love interest (Luke Wilson in finest form and probably the only truly memorable role I'd seen him in...aside from the "Anchorman" cameo) who gives her hints about dealing with her other professors. Like how Mr. Callahan loves opinionated people and how Leventhal gets his test questions from footnotes.

Sadly, Elle's day doesn't get any better because the icy bitch known as Vivian happens to be Warner's new fiancée. Seems like he rebounded in record time.
So where does she go? For an emergency manicure.

So many people now know Jennifer Coolidge as the boisterous Polish woman in "2 Broke Girls," so it's easy to forget she got her start in roles like this... talk about going against type. Paulette the manicurist is the first friend Elle makes on the east coast and right now, we see an amazing friendship blossom. Paulette's good for pep talks ("What are you waiting for? Steal the bastard back!") and Elle becomes an angel to Paulette in more ways than one.

Part one is relatively easy. She uses her new lawyer jargon to talk Paulette's ex into giving back her bulldog, Rufus :-P
Elle may carry her Chihuahua Bruiser in her purse like an accessory, but she treats him really well. The only downside to him, if you can call it a downside, is that his presence gave the writers something to work with for the ill-advised sequel "Red, White and Blonde"...

Part two is trying to bring her together with the UPS guy, which brings on one of this movie's most iconic scenes: "The Bend & Snap"
It doesn't go perfectly, but in the end, it does succeed.

From Dumb Blonde to Legally Blonde

What's a good chick flick without a transformative montage?

Elle overhears Vivian talk about a party and gets extended an invitation... but left under the false pretense that it's a costume party.
I wonder if the people behind "Mean Girls" or wrote the source material "Queen Bees and Wannabes" took any inspiration from this... cuz Elle dresses as a playboy bunny. And any fan of that movie knows Halloween (or in this case, costume parties) is the one time you can dress like a total slut and nobody can say anything about it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work here, but getting more tough love from Warner makes her transform herself into something who can compete with the other stuffy rich bookworms.
She gets herself an iMac laptop, starts actually reading and studying her books, all set to one of my favorite montage songs of all time: "Watch me shine" by Joanna Pacitti. Really gets the adrenaline pumping.

And in no time at all, Elle starts to make a helluv an impression on her classmates and her professors: particularly Mr. Callahan, who hosts an internship where pupils get to assist him on actual cases.
Despite everything that has changed for her, Elle still maintains her personality in one aspect: her "glowing" resume. One of the memorable bits from the trailer ;)

"It's pink..."
"And it's scented. I think it gives it a little something extra, don't you think?"

The Climatic Third Act

Sure, it is a little unrealistic that most of the people recruited for the internship are characters we've all come to know.
This includes Vivian, Warner, Enid (the lesbian women right's activist, former women studies' major) and Elle.
And Elle isn't just satisfied with that, but she gives Warner a great zinger in return.

"Oh Warner, do you remember when we spent those four amazing hours in the hot tub together after winter formal?... This is so much better than that..."

Not sure what it is about the scene immediately afterwards where Elle is with Paulette in the nail salon with snow falling outside... there's no dialogue and it's only 5-10 seconds long but it makes me warm and fuzzy every time.

It's become somewhat of a norm for me in recent years, but a lot of movies tend to drop the ball in the third act. Particularly superhero and action/adventure flicks where it gets overlong or bogged down with special effects ("Avengers" is the only exception I can think of right now where this doesn't happen). But they do it amazingly well here where the dialogue and story is as memorable as it is in the first act.

And it's at this point I need to place my SPOILER ALERT warning because unless you want the juiciest secrets to be given away, I'd stop it here.

The case at hand is The People vs. Brooke Wyndam. She's being charged with the murder of her husband, Hayworth Wyndam. While discussing motive, citing the immense age difference, Callahan notes that Brooke was rich on her own right from a work-out empire.

This rings a bell for Elle, realizing they're defending former Delta Nu alum Brooke Taylor who apparently can help you lose 3 pounds in one class. "Heroes" fans know Ali Larter from her duel roles of Nikki/Jessica Saunders (split personality possessing super strength) and Tracy Strauss (genetically modified twin sister of Nikki, can freeze water).

Her first thoughts and another great line: "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands... they just don't."

Another friendship solidifies here as Elle and Brooke get to know each other throughout the process.. this includes learning her alibi and being sworn to secrecy about it.

Kinda hard to win a case if you can't declare your defendant's alibi (as it would tarnish her reputation)... but somehow Elle does manage it and we find out the actual killer.
It's definitely one of those super amazing, surprising moments that gets me excited every time, even though I know the end result.

Now for the-SPOILER-ridden portion.

While it evokes frustration at first, Elle's unwillingness to share the alibi wins Vivian's respect. They have a great moment discussing why Mr. Callahan never sends Warner to get him coffee and even dishing how Warner got wait-listed for Harvard.
Duh duh "his father had to make a call..."

It also gets the attention of Callahan who winds up doing something scandalous... he asks her to his office to discuss her future and he rubs her thigh.
Of course, it's very cliché that Vivian witnesses this through the crack in the door and their new friendship gets thrown out before the ink can dry.

My friend Pat made a comment on this once, saying how they kinda let that part of the storyline fall slack. Callahan never gets officially "outed" for hitting on Elle when he probably should have been.

To their credit, though, the misunderstanding doesn't last long (at most, 5 minutes of screen time). Thanks entirely to Luke Wilson, who tries to talk Elle out of quitting (she winds up getting convinced, oddly enough, by Mrs. Cromwell who happens to be at the nail salon when she's saying her goodbyes) and he also gives Vivian and Brooke the truth about why Elle quit.

With Luke Wilson's help, Elle takes charge of the defense with him supervising, something perfectly legal in Massachusetts.
As we saw in the early portions of the movie, if Elle is smart about one thing, it's fashion and hair care. Goes with the territory of being a Cosmo girl (who see Cosmopolitan magazine as their "Bible"). And that's all the knowledge she needs to discount the testimony of Enrique the pool boy and nail the daughter, Chutney, for the actual murder.

Around the time this movie came out, I think I did have more of a grasp on what meant to be gay... certainly more than I had pieced together in "Clueless"...
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2014/03/36-clueless-1995.html
but either way, it's priceless when Luke Wilson follows Elle's lead and gets him to declare his sexuality in front of the entire courtroom.

His "story" until that point was that she and Brooke were having an affair and she shot Hayworth over that.
The rapid fire line of questioning ended with "And your boyfriend's name is?"
"Chuck," he responds without even pausing.

The courtroom goes nuts with laughter. He tries to correct himself: "I thought you said friend; Chuck is just a friend."
Chuck stands up in the back of the courtroom and scawls "You bitch!"

[After taking a few moments to get my own laugher out of the way]
Yeah, I'm aware that scene takes place BEFORE Elle takes charge of the defense, so sue me for going out of order a bit.... that pun wasn't intentional, I promise.

Even more jaw-dropping is how Elle pokes a crater-sized hole in Chutney's alibi.
In her list of activities the day of the murder, she puts together two things that don't make sense:
She says she got a perm that day, but her alibi was that she was in the shower when the gunshot went off.

I'm a bit of a tomboy so I didn't know this... when you get a perm, you are forbidden to wet your hair for 24 hours...
it's even more amazing how the murder actually came about.

Chutney did fire the murder weapon and kill her father, but it was accidental.
In an amazing performance from a young Linda Cardellini, she confesses her disdain of Brooke because they were the same age and further:

"I didn't mean to shoot him, I though it was YOU coming through the door!"

The Ultimate Payoff

Except for maybe Callahan's position at Harvard with the scandal never formally surfacing, all of the loose ends are tied up.

Vivian and Elle are officially besties.
Elle does succeed in getting Warner back... and she rejects him... and he gets rejected from all of the law firms he applied for. (IN YOUR FACE!!... and apparently this was a last minute add-in to satisfy the test audience... thank god for that)

And Luke Wilson and Elle wind up getting married...

Ill-Advised Side Ventures

which enlists an obligatory sequel that should never have been made because it was nowhere near as good as the original.
The two of them are getting married and Elle wants to invite Bruiser's mother to the wedding, finding out that she's involved in animal testing, so she begins a crusade against that at Washington D.C. If memory serves me, it wasn't nearly as bad as "Miss Congeniality 2" but it was still a disappointment.

And much like "Bring it on," it was turned into a Broadway musical... now that's one trend I really LOATHE... the money alone just seems like a stupid reason to turn well-known movies into musicals. Movies that aren't even musicals to begin with.
Most recently, "A Christmas Story," "Young Frankenstein" and "Rocky"...just why?

Theatrical Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Date: May 4, 2014
Location: Pocono Community Theater
Time: 1pm
Party: 3 (my mom, sister & I)

Writer/Director: Wes Anderson

Duration: 100 minutes (+3 trailers)

Cast:
M. Gustave- Ralph Fiennes
Mr. [Zero] Moustafa- F. Murray Abraham
Zero- Tony Revolori
Madame D- Tilda Swinton
Heckels- Edward Norton
Dmitri- Adrien Brody
Jopling- Willem Dafoe
Agatha- Saoirse Ronan
Deputy Kovacs- Jeff Goldblum
M. Ivan- Billy Murray
M. Jean- Jason Schwartzman
M. Chuck- Owen Wilson
Young Writer- Jude Law

Theater & Previews:

We arrived a few minutes before the movie started. There was maybe a dozen other people in theater, most of them looked older than 50.

The first preview was for a Richard Linklater called "Boyhood," which I'd seen posters for on IMDB but don't know much about it. It sounds like it's a labor of love he spent 12 years slaving over and is unlike any movie you'd seen before. Something about following around a family for a dozen years and filming them, although I'm not sure if it's an actual family or they're all actors.

The second looked interesting. It was called "Words and Pictures," starring a very handsome Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche (who I know from "Chocolat") and they're teachers that develop an unusual relationship. He's a writer who's an English professor in danger of losing his job because he has a drinking problem. She's a newly arrived art teacher that's a little rough around the edges and fresh from an injury we'll likely hear about later in the film.

Then the third was "Dom Hemingway," which is said to be a Jude Law performance unlike any other... might be interesting to see down the road. He certainly can't do any worse than "The Talented Mr. Ripley" or "Closer".

Write-up:

Every now and then, we will take the trip downtown to see a movie not available locally. We'd been here maybe a handful of times, including the two Oscar winners I picked correctly (The King's Speech and The Artist), "Water for Elephants" and maybe one other that I'm forgetting.

I kinda expected this movie would be another one of those. For whatever reason, Wes Anderson movies are still deemed to be on the independent circuit so they don't come to all theaters.
Since its release date, I've said how much I want to see it, but it's not playing locally. Luckily, it finally did make it and my patience was well awarded.

When it comes to this particular writer/director, a few things are inevitable.

• Bill Murray will be in it somewhere
• We'll get at least one Wilson brother
• The sets will be incredibly detailed, all the way down to the shelf knick-knacks
• I'm going to compare it to "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" because it was my first Wes Anderson film.

I was attracted to "The Grand Budapest Hotel" because it looked like another quirky, fun Wes Anderson movie. A few months ago when it was just coming out, I watched the Behind the Scenes special about it on HBO and all of the reviews were positive. People were saying it was the best movie of the year so far.

I'm happy to say that all of the Wes Anderson movies I'd seen so far, this one has been my favorite... second only to "The Fantastic Mr. Fox".

Other than that, I'd seen "Moonrise Kingdom" which I thought was more serious than it had to be and "The Royal Tennebaums" which was so serious it bordered on depressing.

It's kinda hard to explain what "The Royal Budapest Hotel" is about. It starts out with a girl leaving a key at a statue dedicated to a man and she's reading a book named for the movie. We hear the narrative in voiceover and that leads us to the writer talking to a camera. We go back a couple decades and see the writer much younger (played by Jude Law) talking to the man who owned the hotel.

This man (played by F. Murray Abraham) tells us the story the majority of the movie goes into, following the concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his loyal lobby boy Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori).

M. Gustave teaches Zero the ropes, telling him how a lobby boy treats the guests so well that he anticipates their needs before they do.
The hotel is located in a very exclusive, but beautiful location. The inside runs like a well-oiled machine, like something we'd only read about or see on film. Just wondrous to behold.
It's also suggested that M. Gustave takes such care of his guests that he meets their every need, some of which are sexual.

This movie is R-rated, but it goes as far as partial or brief nudity (some of this is in paintings and drawings on the walls) and the amount of cussing.
With the former, I was wary because I didn't want to expose my sister to too much. She was a little more concerned with the amount of cussing (she counted 13-14 f-bombs).

The plot takes off when one of the regular hotel guests passes away. He and Zero goes to her estate to pay respects and to see if she left anything in her will to him. Her will bequeathed to him a portrait known as "Boy with Apple."
Her family is all looking for their cut and is taken aback by the concierge's inclusion in the will. Her son Dmitri is the most vocal, very opposed to him getting the painting... for whatever reason :shrug: seems silly to me, but there's gotta be conflict somewhere.

When they arrive back at the hotel, the police are there looking from him... for some reason believing he killed her.
I saw this scene in the Behind the Scenes where he says "I knew something was suspicious, we never got the cause of death" and he proceeds to run from the authorities.

The movie progresses as he's put in jail, he and some inmates plan a break-out and another member of the Madame's family, Jopling, goes after the executor of her will.
Willem Dafoe plays this role almost like it was written for Christopher Walken. He's pretty hardcore about it, although I'm having trouble recalling if he has much dialogue.

The humor varies from being incredibly obvious to an actor randomly cussing up a storm when something doesn't go their way to something that takes a while for the laugh to hit. The pacing is slow at times. There was a period after the prison break scene where I found myself getting bored because not much was going on and there weren't many laughs to be had.

Another thing that can be expected in a Wes Anderson film is pacing. Often times, you'll have a scene where things race by you, both with the scenery and with the dialogue that it's hard to keep up. Then in the scene immediately afterwards, everything stops and it's almost so quiet you can hear a pin drop.

Probably my favorite part was the chase scene (and its hilarious resolution) where M. Gustave and Zero on a toboggan are chasing after Jopling on skis. You get all kinds of twists and turns. You see a sign that welcomes us to the sight of the local winter games (how timely of them :-P), which includes slaloms, ski jumps and sledding tracks. I won't give away the resolution, but it's unexpected and one of the best laughs of the entire movie.

Pretty much all of the actors are great in this. It's certainly interesting to see Ralph Fiennes do a comedic role after only knowing him as Voldemort for the past several years :-P
Most of the cast members, Wes Anderson has worked with before, including Jason Schwartzman (who I will give his due in my "Fantastic Mr. Fox" review), Edward Norton and Jude Law.

Overall, I found it very enjoyable. The details and quirks were as I expected them to be but there were plenty of surprises in between. The scenery was often vast and the fact it takes place in wintertime with plenty of snowflakes... I just love that, it makes it all look so beautiful.
Yeah, winter does suck and the fact we've had so much snow this year sucks, but I'm a sucker for great winter scenery. My "Frozen" review went into it quite a bit ;)

In its constructs, it's probably the best realized movie I'd seen so far this year. I didn't fully enjoy it as much as some of the other ones I'd seen so far, but it was very satisfying.
I guess you could say it's a sleeper hit in that the enjoyment comes in small subtle doses and doesn't hit as many highs as it could have.

Grade: B+

41. Midnight in Paris (2011)

Code-name: Nostalgia

Writer/Director: Woody Allen
Type: Fantasy, Drama, Romance

Cast:
[Mortals]
Gil Pender- Owen Wilson
Inez- Rachel McAdams
Inez's mother, Helen- Mimi Kenndedy
Inez's father, John- Kurt Fuller
Paul- Michael Sheen
Carol- Nina Arianda
Tour Guide- Carla Bruni
Gabrielle- Lea Seydoux
Adriana- Marion Cotillard
[Immortal Greats of the Arts]
1920's
Zelda Fitzgerald-Alison Pill
F. Scott Fitzgerald- Tom Hiddleston
Cole Porter- Yves Heck
Ernest Hemingway- Corey Stoll
Gertude Stein- Kathy Bates
Pablo Picasso- Marcial Di Fonzo Bo
T.S. Eliot- David Lowe
Salvador Dali- Adrien Brody
Henri Matisse- Yves-Antoine Spoto
1890's
Toulouse Lautrec- Vincent Menjou Cortes
Degas- François Rostain
Gauguin- Olivier Rabourdin

Awards & Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Picture
nomination- OSCAR- Best Director (Woody Allen)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Art Direction
Golden Globe- Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)- Owen Wilson
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Picture (Comedy/Musical)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Director (Woody Allen)
AFI- Best Film of the Year
Grammy- Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media

Write-up:

[On a Whim...]

As a general rule, I usually don't like to buy movies without seeing them first. But in the rare occasion that I do, it works out pretty well. The one thing it didn't... well, I'm willing to give "The Big Lebowski" another shot. It just wasn't at all what I expected. I'll never make that mistake with Coen Brothers films again.(While on the subject, I loved "Burned After Reading" and really enjoyed "Fargo").

I've heard of "Midnight in Paris," but only who was in it and it was already up for several Golden Globes. I had trouble imagining Owen Wilson as a serious contender for Best Actor.
I remember watching the awards show and seeing it win Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen wasn't present to accept).

Then the following night I had the most unusual dream that made me take the gamble of buying it... On a good night, I'm a vivid dreamer and often times, celebrities star in them with or without me.
The dream was as follows: I was in a relationship with Rachel McAdams and I had serious thoughts about cheating on her with Owen Wilson, who I happened to be good friends with and was venting to about the current lull in said relationship.
I'd go further, but the entry as a whole would do better if I kept my mental dialogue out of it. For the record, I am straight :-P but I don't mind divulging when I have a girl crush.

So yeah, probably the strangest reason to pick up a movie... and this worked out better than I could have imagined. To me, "Midnight in Paris" was one of those "life-changing" movies because I was a different person after seeing it.

[Plot]

Before I get too ahead of myself, here's the plot in a nutshell:

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a former Hollywood screenwriter struggling with his first novel. He's vacationing in Paris, his favorite city in the world, with his fiancé Inez and her parents. While returning home from a wine tasting, he stumbles upon an old Peugeot, which transports him into 1920's Paris... which happens to be teeming with his personal heroes of art and literature.


[Old Friends and New Friends]
Spoilers Start Sprinkling in from this point on...

As if picking up where they left off in "Wedding Crashers" (just change the names and add in new people), Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams play an engaged couple vacationing in Paris with her parents. Except the movie becomes less about them as a couple and more about Gil (Owen Wilson) finding himself as a writer alongside his personal heroes.

Up to this point, the only Woody Allen movie I ever saw was "Antz." Yeah, I know, it's animated and he didn't write/direct it, so it really shouldn't count. But as I got lost in the fantasy of this movie and the depth of its dialogue, I instantly became a fan.

2010 had quite a few movies I enjoyed because their scripts were fresh and different. Often times, they were comedic in nature and made jokes out of things people think but often won't say aloud. Having said that, "Midnight in Paris" stood out to me because it was probably the cleverest writing I'd seen in a movie. I related so much to Gil Pender as a fellow writer and in that he's such a dreamer. To be real, nobody outside of movies talks the way he does, but the way he explained things... it's hard to describe, exactly, but I agreed with his way of thinking. Other characters too. They often address commonplace things and editorialize what they see. The dialogue has a lot of depth and more than enough room to breathe so you can take it in at your own pace.
I wanna say it's a writer/director thing, but it might just be a Woody Allen thing. This movie convinced me to give "Annie Hall" a shot (which I enjoyed quite a bit), but I need to see more of his work to be absolutely sure.

As much as I liked Rachel McAdams's look in this movie, I liked her character less and less as the movie went on. It's so strange how the two seem so in love at the beginning, but over time, you start to wonder why they're even together because their ideals are so different. Gil's a dreamer, but Inez and her family are wealthy realists. There's a conversation in the beginning where he and her father (Kurt Fuller, who I know as Woody the M.E. in "Psych") butt heads. Gil is absolutely in love with Paris and his would-be father-in-law looks down on it. He says how much he hates their politics because they never pledged their support to America. Gil backs them up, saying they probably didn't want to follow us "down that rabbit hole" in Iraq...

So he gets the impression (from this as well a comment he made about the Tea Party) that Gil is a communist because he doesn't agree with him.
Again, I don't want to get off topic, but that closed-minded-ness just annoyed the hell out of me.

Even more annoying was the character of Paul. (I'd only seen him previously as Aro of The Volturi in the "Twilight" films). When they weren't spending time with her parents, Gil gets dragged into spending time with Inez's college friend, Paul and his wife, Carol. They'd spend time in certain artistic areas of the city and Paul would give them tours as if he knew EVERYTHING. Like he's an expert in fine art, wine and so many other things and Inez eats it up as if he's Jesus Christ.
As it turns out, there is a word for someone like him, which shows up in the book Gil is writing about the man working in the nostalgia shop.

 

Pedantic: (adj) someone who makes a show of knowledge

Two scenes I find particular infuriating involving him:

• he argues with an actual tour guide (played by the actual wife of France's then-President, Nicolas Sarkozy) over who inspired Rodin
• they're in an art museum and happen to stumble across the Picasso painting Gil saw the night before at Gertude Stein's... he tries to explain the truth, but Inez thinks he's high. Earlier in this scene, she also tells him to shut up, adding "you might learn something," as if Paul's word is always true and Gil's wrong even when he isn't.

Could it be more obviously that Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen were dating at the time?

Out of the actors who play the historic figures, Adrien Brody (an oddly hilarious Salavador Dali who seems to be obsessed with rhinoceroses), Kathy Bates (a very helpful Gertude Stein) and Zelda (Alison Pill, who I briefly mentioned in "Scott Pilgrim") and Scott Fitzgerald (Loki himself, Tom HIddleston) were the only ones I recognized.
Then there was Marion Cotlillard who played fellow dreamer and artist groupie Adriana, who I'd only previously seen in "Inception," but this would become the role I'd forever associate with her. Not just because I love her in flapper fashion, but I loved the relationship between her and Gil. How they have so much in common, how she almost proved to be more compatible with him than Inez. You're just drawn to her immediately.

All of the renderings were on point. You truly believed that they were these historical figures. How F. Scott Fitzgerald used the term "Old Sport" as his character Gatsby did regularly. How Dali and the other surrealists were so out there in the matter of speaking. Probably the most convincing was the dude who played Hemingway. He was SO hard-core and intense. I thought Corey Stoll deserved a little awards recognition for this portrayal.

[Golden Age Syndrome]

My code-name for this movie was "nostalgia" for a number of reasons.
Gil's protagonist is a man that works in a nostalgia shop, which sells memorabilia and such. He wishes he lived in 1920's Paris because it was a time period that inspired many of his heroes and he'd like to have that experience as well. 

Then there's a side-plot later on where he and Adriana stumble across a horse-drawn carriage that takes them to Paris in the 1890's, a time she wishes she could disappear into. There, they meet artists Degas and Gauguin who long to be in the Renaissance. This more or less puts an end to Gil's romance with Adriana because he realizes he'd only been escaping into the 20's to run away from things in his own life.

In a way, I can relate to this phenomenon as well. I'm particularly nostalgic for the pop culture of the 80's. I was born in 1986, so I'm really fascinated with this decade. Some of my favorite movies and some of the best music comes from the 80's.
After seeing this movie, would I still take the chance of visiting the decade? Absolutely. But I never want to get to the point where I get tired of it.

[Souvenirs]

Aside from a couple of actors, I got a lot of other things out of this movie. Paris was shown in such a gorgeous way that I have even more reasons to want to go visit. The way the film is shot, how Gil and some of the other character speak so lovingly about the city... it's breathtaking. It brings out the romantic in you, but here they show it in ways you don't quite expect.

Before the film, I'd read Fitzgerald and Hemingway and knew of Dali and Picasso. Afterwards, I became acquainted with Gertude Stein, Matisse, Degas and Gauguin... I want to get to know their works... if only to be better prepared for the category in Jeopardy 8-) and I'm always up for getting more culture in the arts. Open my mind to new and different experiences, kinda the way I did in Chinese culture when we covered the different religions and art forms.

...ironically, I'm posting this on Michael Sheen's 45th birthday. Except for Aro, it seems like every other role I see him in, I just want to punch him in the face :-P he never seems to play any likable characters

# 81: The Family Stone (2005)

Code-name: [Formerly] Her Last Christmas... [now dubbed] Mushroom Allergy

Writer/Director: Thomas Bezucha
Type: Family-oriented Christmas Dramedy

Cast:
Mr. Kelly Stone- Craig T. Nelson
Mrs. Sibyl Stone- Diane Keaton
Everett Stone- Dermot Mulroney
Meredith Morton- Sarah Jessica Parker
Amy Stone- Rachel McAdams
Susannah Stone- Elizabeth Reaser
Ben Stone- Luke Wilson
Thad Stone- Tyone Giordano
Patrick Thomas- Brian White 
Julie Morton- Claire Danes
Brad Stevenson- Paul Schneider

Notable nomination:
Golden Globe- Best Actress (comedy/musical)- Sarah Jessica Parker

[Write-up]



If I'm not dubbing these movies after animal characters, the 2nd easiest go-to is a quote from the movie...

One of my favorite lines comes during a scene where Meredith is making Christmas breakfast the night before and is told that her boyfriend Everett is allergic to mushrooms.
The second time this happens, she immediately freaks out and as I tend to do during my favorite on-screen freak-outs, I scream along without her: "I didn't know!!"

I think this was another one of those in-flight movies my dad recommended we watch.
And it's become somewhat of a staple during Christmastime.
I believe I watched it last Christmas Eve, but my memory escapes me.

Right now, it's hard to put my finger on exactly why this is one of my favorite movies.
I come from a large quirky family (relatively speaking, my immediate family places me as one of 4), so part of me does get into it for that reason.

Without taking any of the good quotes into account, my love of this movie comes down to some of the actors and the characters they play.

This was Rachel McAdams (one of my favorite actresses) just after her "Notebook" success and after she, unknowingly, leaped into our hearts in "Mean Girls." With the exception of 1-2 roles, she seems to fill up the archetype of "designated bitch." Not to the same degree as Regina George, mind you, but Amy Stone is really mean to Everett's girlfriend Meredith... seemingly for no apparent reason.

Maybe she and her overprotective, tightly-knit family are under the impression that nobody is good enough for him-- certainly not a stuffy, uptight businesswoman like Meredith.

Here's the crazy part:
I found Sarah Jessica Parker extremely refreshing in this capacity, so much so that my opinion on her changed in an instant.
I can't explain exactly why I disliked her so much as I did previously. I never saw any of "Sex in the City," but in whatever I'd seen her in previously, she gave me the impression she was a complete airhead, someone I could never take seriously.

As Meredith, I enjoyed her performance and felt really bad that she couldn't gain the favor of the Stones no matter what she did.

The basic premise follows that this is Christmastime and we're spending it with a large family with the surname Stone.
You have the happily married couple, patriarch and matriarch.
Five siblings:
Amy (single, but the end suggests she'll rekindle an old relationship)
Susannah (married, one daughter and another baby on the way)
Thad (deaf, in a happy relationship with his boyfriend, Patrick)
Ben

and Everett who is bringing his girlfriend Meredith home to meet the family.

As previously mentioned, for whatever reason, the Stones have deemed Meredith not to be good enough for Everett even before meeting her... seemingly based on one time when Amy met her and disliked her.
It's gotta be more than just the fact "she's a throat-clearer," something she and the other Stones make fun of whenever they get the chance... and the fact she has to give up her bedroom to accommodate (although that'd be a more legit reason than the previous one).

Meredith feels so unwelcome she breaks down and has her younger sister to come stay with her in a hotel.
Julie, of course, is the prettier, nicer, more out-going on sister, and everyone loves her... naturally this treatment has Julie wondering why Meredith begged her to join her.

Admittedly, things get out of control during a conversation at the dinner table... which makes one wonder why they put it in the script because there is literally no way for Meredith to come off well.
One lesson to be taken from this is that if you're getting to know people for the first time, do not bring up the nature vs. nurture debate.

Mrs. Stone sarcastically comments that she had hoped all of her sons were gay because then they would never leave her.
To which Meredith asks "you wouldn't actually wish for your children to be gay, do you?"
going on to say life is hard enough as it is and to make easier for the child to navigate it, she wouldn't wish it...

The misunderstanding escalates until the dinner table explodes with screaming and swearing, leaving Meredith no choice but to run out of the house.

It's the toughest part of the film to endure and, of course, all of us watching are screaming for Meredith to shut up and backtrack before initiating the wrath of the matriarch...
spectuators eveywhere probably agreed that she should have let the topic drop because there was nowhere good for it to go.

In her attempt to escape, she accidentally crashes her car into a tree. Ben goes out to see how she's doing and he takes her out for a couple beers so she can loosen up.
At the bar, they meet up with a couple of EMTs. One of them happens to be Brad, whom Meredith (more than a little intoxicated by this point) recognizes via previous conversation as "the guy who popped Amy's cherry" and she begs him to go to the house on Christmas, believing Amy would be happy to see him.

The scene doesn't last long, but this is one of my favorite parts of the whole movie. Meredith finally loosens up and relaxes, dancing to the jukebox and all that, and she doesn't invoke the airheadness of her past life on "Sex in the City." There's just something about the way it's written and acted I just love.

Just to briefly address the sensitive issue from my perspective, to quote a distraught but newly intoxicated Meredith early into the bar scene, "I love the gays! Gay people!"
I respect them, support their right to marriage, adoption and so on, and believe it's a non-genetic predisposition they're born with.
Gays & Lesbians are great people. 8-)

And to stop myself from coming off overally preachy, I'm going to leave it at that.

spoilers ahead

Another major storyline in the movie is the fact Diane Keaton's character's breast cancer came back and it is assumed (evidence at the end of the movie supports this) she is terminal. The news leaks out little by little and everyone in the family uses it as an opportunity to embrace one another and stay as tightly-knit as they are.

Apparently, it isn't intergal to the overall plot because it's only mentioned a few times... unlike "Step-Mom," where it was an ever-developing plot point.
A couple people on IMDB brought this up and I can't help but agree that's a little... odd... that little attention is brought to it outside of 2-3 scenes and the final epilogue.

A couple of times, Everett asks his mom for "the ring" because he wants to propose to Meredith, which she shoots down each time. Then he picks up his own ring and asks Julie to try it on for size.
It fits, but they have trouble getting it off... which brings hilarity and awkwardness... slowly, things give way and the women end up changing partners.

Everett ends up falling for the younger sister, Julie.
Ben manages to get Meredith back home in one piece and she wakes up to find herself in his bed... leaving her to believe that they slept together... a point Ben later corrects, but a relationship eventually does develop between them.
Luke Wilson doesn't play the sharpest crayon in the box, as in he has a frat-boy-like demeanor, whatever the male equivalent of an airhead is. A few comments on the page indicate he helped make the movie easier to get through. He's easily the nicest, easiest-going of the Stones.

Finally on Christmas morning, when the 2nd misunderstanding occurs and Mr. Stone is chasing Ben around the house to get at him, displeased with what he and Meredith supposedly did (which they didn't), Meredith is in the kitchen getting her breakfast dishes out to put in the oven, the kitchen door swings into her, making her drop it.
Mrs. Stone and Amy go in there to help her clean up, she's in hysterics, and they do their best to make her feel better.

Meredith Morton: [crying] I'm just as good as any of you!
Amy Stone: [laughing and crying at the situation] Maybe better.
Meredith Morton: [still crying] What's so great about you guys?
Sybil Stone: [laughing and crying along with Amy... patting Meredith's cheeks] Oh, nothing! It's just that we're all that we've got

Overall, the sequence is very slapstick-ish in an old school sort of way, but it accomplishes its intented purpose: to finally clear the air between Meredith and the Stones.

And in the end, all of it works out quite well.