Mean Girls (2004)

A Birthday Dedication to:

My friend, Katie

Katie is also abroad right now and it's actually her birthday today so I thought it was best to do her all time favorite film! Which also happens to be a cultural classic and for good reason!

Here is a film that pushes limits with its humor while also finding moments that are actually very meaningful. We have all been there. We all,at some point, will or have already navigated the halls of high school, and as this film so rightly points out...it's a jungle. Yet as Cady walks through this film finding herself we find some of the most quoted lines of our decade...

"Boo you whore." "You can't just ask people why they're white!" "He is almost too gay to function.""SHE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE!""The limit does not exist!"...and as you all know... the list goes on. You can barely go five minutes into a conversation without someone quoting this movie and it is because of the gritty humanism it achieves. Tina Fey pulls out all the things we are thinking and willingly places it on screen for our enjoyment. And she is so very right: we love it!

Not to mention it hearkens you back to some of the other teen dramas. Things like The Breakfast Club or 10 Things I Hate About You, that gave voices to the teens of the 80's and 90's. Mean Girls is the voice of our teen years and for that it will always be special to us. 

In addition, its fun to see Rachel McAdams at the beginning of her career. And, it really makes you hope that Lindsay Lohan will get her life together. But perhaps most importantly it does teach a lesson of acceptance and understanding that transcends its high school setting.

Overall: I don't need to tell you this...but this film is hysterical and heartwarming. While also showing a keen understanding of the struggles of being a teen or rather a person in general.  Happy Birthday Katie! Happy Watching! You Go Glen Coco!

Black Beauty (1994)

A Birthday Dedication to: 

My Friend, Kevin

One of my best college friends is abroad right now...so for his birthday I thought I would review his  favorite childhood movie. 

I remember finding this film extremely boring as a child, so when I heard him say it was his favorite film I was a little baffled. But as I sat on my three hour train ride back home for Thanksgiving I figured what is the harm? If I fall asleep that's alright...If I am pleasantly surprised that is even better. And you know...I think I was surprised.

Yes the dialogue is amateurish and some of the content is pretty bleak for a kids film but this film is actually visually very appealing. There is something quite pleasant about being immersed in pastoral England watching beautiful horses run free. Especially because the color is so much more vibrant compared to today's films. We seem to have fallen into a dark aesthetic nowadays and it was refreshing to watch something that was genuinely warm at times. 

In addition, it was shot very well. The personification of the horses is achieved mostly through framing. Often finding their very giving eyes at the center of a shot, it really made you feel connected to this protagonist regardless of the species gap. 

Also the music by Danny Elfman is beautiful and sweeping truly giving life to this horse beyond the dialogue. 

A couple other things I was entertained by: 1.) Black Beauty has a Scottish accent...alright I am down 2.) Yes if you squint you can see a very young Sean Bean and David Thewlis ...so Boromir and Lupin made it into a film together.

Overall: This is a children's movie that I think I got more out of as an adult. No it is by no means a great film, but you know for an hour and twenty minutes it is actually quite touching. Happy Birthday, Kevin! And Happy Watching! ;)

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Nominee

There is nothing better than Woody Allen taking the very intellectualism he himself clearly loves and shamelessly presenting it with satirical whimsy. Now place that within the artistic and literary rich history of Paris, and you have created genius.

The film starts with Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) and his fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams) traveling in Paris with her parents. Pender is a Hollywood screenwriter with a longing to pen something more substantial, while Inez looks for fulfillment through either material wealth, or feigning interest in art but only from the tourist necessity.When this ill suited couple run into Inez's old professor, the rift begins to grow and while Inez goes out dancing, Pender goes for a walk. Yet as the bell tolls midnight, Wilson is picked up by an 1920's Peugeot and taken back to the modernist period, meeting the likes of Getrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dali, and Picasso...to name a few. These midnight encounters continue over a number of nights, and as the film progresses Pender discovers that although the allure of the past is inviting, it is best to create progress in the present.

Pender is every bit the classic deadpan Allen protagonist, a bit down on his luck and starved for meaning, yet he is completely understated in presentation and in reaction to his circumstance. Owen Wilson delivers this character effortlessly, making it that much more enjoyable to witness the fantastical story.

Speaking of which...the premise of this movie could not be more inviting. There is nothing more fun than bearing witness to the resurrection of the great thinkers of our time. And Woody Allen's screenplay brought them to us in a way that had to win the Oscar. 

I do have two complaints: 1.) The marketing was incredibly wrong. (SURPRISE) They made it look like an Owen Wilson/Rachel McAdams chick flick...I am sure that crowd was disappointed and 2.) The opening cityscape shots drag, but I am impatient.

Overall: This is Woody Allen at his best. Give me subdued understated dialogue within ridiculous circumstance or give me death! Not to mention I love a good cultural or historical reference and this film was brimming with them. Definitely a good time. Happy Watching!