My maternal grandmother passed away over the weekend, so I’d like to pay her tribute with a movie list. I’m not sure how big a fan of movies she was, having not grown up very close to her, physically, but Grandma Gloria can be credited with introducing me to movie hopping, at least. One of the few summers I was able to visit her was in 1992, and I mainly recall the year due to the movie we snuck into, Sister Act. And the movie we legally watched before it, Death Becomes Her. I probably would have forgotten both of these lame films in any other circumstance, but the significance of the event has kept the specific time and place of their viewing in my memory probably forever.
Grandma Gloria certainly wasn’t the most free-spirited grandmother to ever live, but a few things, such as the introduction to movie hopping, always made me think she was a bit cooler than other kids’ grandmas. Then there was the fact that she’d been married four times, which my friends found shocking. Grandmas aren’t supposed to go through husbands like that, apparently. Did it make her cool, though? My cousin would refer to her as “Grandma Get-Around,” and supposedly Grandma Gloria took the nickname as a compliment. I guess that made her a little cooler, proudly acknowledging this decidedly un-grandmotherly trait.
A list of coolest grandmothers in movies may not be the greatest way of honoring Grandma Get-Around, but in a way the fact that most of the following characters aren’t really that cool shows me just how hip my grandma really was. While grandfathers are often portrayed as fun and wise and as great storytellers, grandmothers tend to fall to one of two uncool extremes, traditionally grandmotherly or youthfully lewd. The latter category doesn’t necessarily only consist of unlovable characters, and I hope one day there’s a Who’s the Boss movie so that “Mona” can take the top spot on this list. Until then, here are the ten coolest grandmas I could think of. If you know any that are cooler, please let me know by commenting below. …Read more
Apparently three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer has been relegated to playing only “cougars.” The slang term has been used heavily to describe the actress’ latest character, a Parisian courtesan who has an affair with a pretty boy half her age (Rupert Friend). But just prior to appearing in Chéri, which reunites her with the Dangerous Liaisons writer-director team-up of Christopher Hampton and Stephen Frears, Pfeiffer starred in two direct-to-video releases in which she similarly ends up with a much younger guy. In Amy Heckerling’s I Could Never Be Your Woman she falls for Paul Rudd, while in Personal Effects she has an affair with Ashton Kutcher (ironic since Heckerling’s film takes shots at Kutcher’s marriage to real-life “cougar” Demi Moore).
The term “cougar” has some negative connotations, which is a shame given all the movies we see in which an older man romances a younger woman and think nothing of it. But it’s good to see Pfeiffer still getting work at her age (51), especially in roles celebrating the idea that older women can still be desirable. And in our opinion she’s every bit as desirable as she was at age 25, when she broke through with her sexy appearance in Scarface.
Below we spotlight ten other actresses/characters who’ve shown us that aging women can still be very attractive to young men. …Read more
Sure, The Dark Knight is conquering the world, but Mamma Mia! has just surpassed Titanicto become the highest grossing movie of all time in the UK. Compared to the Batman flick, which has only earned $88.8 million in the UK’s territory (shared with Ireland and Malta), Mamma Mia! has made $132.2 million.
Following their 2007 share of Michael Cera’s breakthrough, directors Jason Reitman and Greg Mottola are sharing in the rise of another young talent: Jesse Eisenberg, who stars in Mottola’s upcoming Adventureland, will next star in Reitman’s The Wedding, which sounds like The Graduate in more ways than one.
Gore Verbinski will helm a movie about a real-life, married, role-playing 53-year-old diabetic who spends 20 hours a day online as “a musclebound entrepeneur” with a virtual wife. To acquaint yourself with the whole story, particularly why his real spouse is pissed, check out the Wall Street Journal article upon which it will be based.
This is it, the day we’ve been waiting for two full decades (or, at least, since we first heard it was happening back in December): the Huey Lewis plot song written specifically for the David Gordon Green-driected, Judd Apatow-produced stoner comedy Pineapple Express has hit the web! The Playlist first posted a clip of the song last night; today, Whitney at Pop Candy points to the full thing, available for streaming or download on MySpace.
It’s very much in classic Huey Lewis plot song mode, complete with gratuitous hand claps and sax solo. It’s not as directly narrative as, say, “Back in Time” (above), but it’s slightly more literally connected to the film than, like, “The Power of Love.” A sample from the chorus: “How did we get into this mess? Pineapple Express! Can’t deal with this stress! Totally gone, cause we’re on, Pineapple Express!” It is the best, and it is also totally the worst.
As we’ve discussed before, plot songs take the science of the source cue to a new level. After the jump, a brief, video-guided journey through plot song history. Let us know what we’ve left out.
As you read this post, I am sitting on a college campus wearing a maroon cap and gown as I attend my graduation commencement. Yes, 13 years after I first went off to film school, 11 years after I dropped out, and 2 years after I returned to finally finish my undergrad, I’m getting my bachelor’s in film studies. So, to celebrate the occasion, I figured I’d take a look at some of the film characters who are in my mind as I walk toward the stage to pick up my diploma.
Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) in The Graduate - This one’s obvious, so let me start with him and get it over with. I do wonder, though: if he were just graduating today, what would be the substitute for that famous one word of advice, “plastics”? Would it be “blogging”? It sure wouldn’t be “film criticism.” And not just because that’s actually two words. …Read more
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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