Twilight Reviewed

April 22, 2009 by Leave a comment

Dear CF,

From the moment Bella and Edward meet and he gets his paper erection, it’s clear that Twilight is a glittery gift to cynics and romantics alike. Having watched it with a group of hardened souls, here’s what emerged:

  • The dad is the poor man’s Dennis Quaid.
  • Native Americans have specialized knowledge about all things supernatural.
  • And make inconveniently attractive boys who steal scenes from the pasty-faced smolderer.
  • And emerge from Thomas Kinkade paintings—complete with filtered God-rays of forest light—to try to rescue the heroine from herself.
  • They do not tuck in their dress shirts. They are free spirits, you see.
  • In a vampire vs. Native American baseball game, vampires would totally win.
  • Vampires are scrupulous about their attire.
  • Soulful seriousness is best expressed with a slightly open mouth.
  • When seeking to convey desire, cut to an image of nature red in tooth and claw, or unrestrained—say, a waterfall.
  • Failing that, colorize your film so that the grass is literally greener on the particular patch the heroes occupy (and approach the shot by first panning a hectare of suggestively flattened meadow).
  • The phrase “hang on, spidermonkey, it’s going to be a rough ride” is not hilarious. Or an innuendo. Stop it.
  • It’s crucial that the hero stare at the heroine’s crotch whenever he says the word “wet.”
  • When acting the part of an estranged father, your mantra should be “I’m terse.” Learn it. Live it. If you forget your line, just think, “terse.” And keep two cans of beer next to your double-barreled shotgun just in case someone missed the subtext.
  • Vegetarian vampire=virginal vampire. Evil meat-eating vampire=sexual deviant. (See porn-star moustaches, child-molester stereotypes.)
  • Does animal blood cause constipation?  Good acting shows and doesn’t tell. Mr. Patterson is clearly shilling for X-Lax.
  • Even a vampire family has a pixie-girl.
  • Vampire movies should abound in impromptu car commercials.
  • And montages. And montages of montages.
  • Montages of Amazon shopping and Googling do not make for high drama.
  • Same goes for shopping-for-prom-dress scenes. (In which opinion we are joined by Bella, who doesn’t even bother to look at her friends’ choices despite inviting herself along on their outing.)
  • Trucks are laughable.
  • Start the couple off in a forest, then a mountain. Then transport them to a mossy crevice. It’s metaphorical, see?
  • The heroine must not move while being romantically approached; otherwise she risks making the hero lose control, to her peril. In which case, she really has only herself to blame.
  • The prospect of living in Florida can make even a seasoned actress like Ms. Stewart hysterically overact.
  • Judging from Mr. Patterson’s accent, 1918 America was actually British.
  • When he shows her his room, and is dialogue-free, he’s projecting a) This is where I come to be INTENSE and b) I may not sleep, but I matriculate regularly. It’s good for the complexion.
  • Vampires forget to dye their eyebrows to match their hair. And sometimes forget to wash their hands after matriculating. RP’s coiffure is a touching homage to There’s Something About Mary.

Fondly,

Millicent

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Hauling Foam Away By The Truckload

November 2, 2008 by 9 Comments

Dear CF,

I’d pay good money to see you in your stirrup pants, and wish so much you could have come. I wore our shirt, as you know, and my weirdo jeans from when I was 13. They’re oddly high-waisted, and from the knees down they’re tie-dyed white with embroidered stars. I have an actual picture of my first day of junior high which I will share with you some day. It is beyond description. For starters, I’m wearing a “Hello, My Name Is” sticker. At home. Before leaving for school. Meaning, it wasn’t mandatory, nobody was handing out nametags and sharpies. It was on my own initiative and of my own free will that I chose to announce myself to Middle School thusly. No wonder I didn’t last long.

It was odd and delightful to have the apartment filled with people. Many of them gentle souls. All in all, it was a cheery night. I’m pleased beyond all sense with the outcome.

I haven’t been able to see Pillow Talk (which isn’t on Netflix? Where did you find it?) but I saw The Thrill of it All the night my grandmother died. I was shocked by the whole third-baby subplot–his plan to impregnate her in order to arrest her career, his subsequent pretense that he was having an affair (how exactly did he plan to prove he WASN’T, I wonder?), and his decision at the end to interpret her desire to “be a doctor’s wife again” not to be a gesture at reconciliation, but a total surrender of her own hopes.

I take your point that Doris Day is the silver screen’s reproductive queen. There is something so wholesome about her—surprising, considering the artificial coloring of her skin and hair. She’s perfect, she’s impressively sexed, golden-skinned, golden-coiffed, golden-bosomed, and yet she’s absolutely unsexy. I think our modern-day equivalent (minus the fake-n-bake) is Reese Witherspoon.

The money discussion was fascinating: that she was offended that her money was hers, while his money was THEIRS. Incredibly realistic–one of the movie’s better scenes. I loved the fight, too. Some dimensions of that relationship are so dead-on and relatable. Which made it all the more odd that the movie chooses to take Doc’s shining moment, when he apologizes for being jealous of her career, and turns it, without warning or apparent discomfort, into a bald manipulation. That was played so straight! I didn’t anticipate the chauvinist wink, and it took me off-guard. (I compare the off-kilter feeling to the most recent episode of The Office, that uncomfortable and slightly aimless scene in which Jim’s brothers “prank” him by mocking Pam’s career. The episode refuses to direct the audience’s response, so we’re left to draw our own conclusions about What It All Means in a highly unfictional, unsatisfying way.)

I miss you, savvy? In my dreams you will be wearing stirrup pants and Vans.

Fondly,

Millicent

P.S. Hm. It may be some time before I can reclaim “savvy” from Jack Sparrow.

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The Glories and The Bad Thing

October 9, 2008 by 1 Comment

Dear Millicent,

So, I am not yet through all of Peep Show season 1, but in my half review, I remembered how the first time I watched the show, it made for a particular syndrome for me.  I would watch and laugh aloud, sure that they were some of the funniest things I had seen in awhile, and then not be able to remember any of the punchlines.   It is almost as if Peep Show is simply too much.  We get the effect of the drug, the afterglow, but the actual stimuli is more of a blur than anything apropriate to later recall in conversation (perhaps like orgasms or dreams).  This was, of course, until I started watching this time with pencil and paper in hand.  These, so far, are things that have, as they say, cracked me up:

  • The first scene of Jez (Jess?) telling himself how awesome he is in the mirror.
  • The list of makeup groceries Mark has planned for Jez. So very normal, so tender.
  • Drinking in the bathroom! Why did we never take to our bathroom like a long lost bar? That moment of scotch in the bathroom made me homesick for life with roommates.
  • Mark’s glee at finding shelter in the supply closet–“I’m in the Ardennes!”
  • Speaking of drinking in the bathroom, the brilliant timing of Jez laughing at his own interior monologue. And then, asking for more water from their pathetic sink shower nozzle thing.
  • Mark’s note of “Ha! You’re not going to help with small talk, fine then. Let’s all die together.”
  • Jez, at a party in episode 3, about how it’s the 21rst century, and olive oil is a definite small talk subject.
  • THE BAD THING.  A: well, it’s funnier than anything expected, and  B: the genius of thinking of smoking a bunch of cigarettes through a sub sandwich. So innocent in relation to the real bad thing, but so delightfully absurd.

Why is this glee so sharp? Is it because they handle the POV so well, and the timing as deftly as Gervais and Merchant delivered in The Office? Is it because they nail anxiety and delusion is a way that Seinfeld only hinted at? Is it because the props and references are painfully, wonderfully exact? Is it because they say “pedo” all the time, and there is a character named Big Suze?

Like crack, as Super Hans (why not Super Hands? it wouldn’t not make sense for his character)  would say, it has a more-ish taste.

I kinda love all of them, and will do my duty and watch more pronto,

CF

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The Mermaids, Singing

October 1, 2008 by 1 Comment

While watching Funny Girl, I kept wanting to apply the plot from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.  It doesn’t completely hold up, but is fun to consider.

  • Red hair.
  • The view from the bottom (Fanny’s Henry Street her own little ocean kingdom)
  • The singing, usually about yearning or adorable shenanigans.
  • Legs as the beauty ideal.  Fanny is constantly referencing her skinny legs, while Ariel just wants legs and a pass to the castle.
  • Major transformation: street-kid to confident celebrity, or mermaid to leggy bride.
  • Nicky and Prince Eric both go for ruffled shirts.

Maybe it was the sense of ingenue that both films share, but it was very fun.  Other thoughts:

  • Fanny’s first dinner with Nicky is so full of first relationship flutters.  I love her back and forth between the shock that this man, this hot guy likes her, and then her insistence on her own control/narrative of elegance/composure.  She is both inexperienced and fairly sure of what she wants (though unwilling to thoroughly announce it).
  • That divan.  Wait, that dining room.  I hate to be crass, but that private dining room is pretty much one giant vagina (at least, this is the thought I had when the doors open, which led me to thinking if all the infamous red rooms of bordellos are actually giant versions of engorged membranes).
  • Back to the divan.  There it is, giggly and very present.  I love her reaction to it.  I’m not sure I love how she succumbs (that we actually see her ultimately horizontal), but I love how it is the big scary hilarious unavoidable (she can’t stop sitting on it) elephant in the room.  Also, I do kinda love that she is ultimately horizontal.  She’s no seducee, she’s an interested newbie.
  • Much enjoyed quote: “A stranger should be strange,” says Fanny’s mom at her party, surmising Nick as he happily gambles with the older ladies.
  • Is one of the reason’s Streisand is so popular the same reason most people like Springsteen’s “Thunder Road”? In that song, there is the famous line “You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright.”  Julia Roberts even identifies with that line (I read that in a Rolling Stone once).  Do we love things that acknowledge our fear that we aren’t gorgeous, but are still indeed attractive in some other soul serving way?  Do we love watching obviously gorgeous people talk about their insecurities, thus proving that our insecurities insure our own humble beauty?
  • Oh! The costumes.  Le sigh.
  • Did you notice the strange refrigeration theme? In that first song she sings on roller skates she keeps talking about the Frigidaire man, and once rich, she shows off her in home icebox.  Thoughts?
  • I also kept thinking of Jennifer Aniston.  So, Ariel and Anniston.  Odd?
  • Lobsters in Maryland? No, silly movies.  It’s crabs.
  • Speaking of lobsters, this brings us to Doris Day.  Fanny could have a good long chat with Day’s character in The Thrill of it All!.  They both have men that cannot handle their women in higher paying, more satisfied jobs.  Except, fertility does solve Day’s problem, and mostly seems to complicate Fanny’s (though it’s more of a sidenote).
  • Nicky is gross, full of weakness that I will allow myself but not anybody I want to marry.  He is so frustrating at the end that I cannot believe her last song.  The ending is bullshit.  The dress is divine.
  • Nicky is fairly dreamy at the start. But, he reminds me of two similarly dreamy men (upon initial acquaintance) that are wracked by immaturity and self-esteem probs. So, lesson learned.

This comes together to another theme that has been running around my head lately.  A very dear friend of mine is recovering from a recent pregnancy loss.  The pregnancy itself was unexpected, embraced, and then discovered to not be a successful pregnancy.  This all happened in weeks, and the changes in her life and outlook (as you know the power of a few weeks), were immense.  I am starting to think that all major things in our life are about creation–love, reproduction, work.  These are the places where the stakes do not need our tampering to make them higher (versus the pettier intense narratives that I may create and obsess in my daily life).  But when it comes to these things, time can stop, worlds can change.  These things are the stuff of biography, of that certain juice where we perk up and say “I didn’t know it could be like this. I didn’t know this could be part of my life.”   This could go either good or bad, but it where we become our own movie, and get to leave the television redundancy of the every day.

We make some good things,

Loves,

CF

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Notes on His Girl Friday

September 29, 2008 by Leave a comment

  • I love your take on the hat’s journey from couture to cap. I love her coat. I loved her interview with poor Earl. “Production for use.” Interesting take on journalism too—they clearly have no problem becoming part of the story.
  • Cary Grant’s character is pretty repellent. His saving grace seems to be that he’s exceptionally funny and immensely active. Funny how attractive that combination can be, and how completely it overcomes his other shortcomings.
  • I think the title refers to Defoe’s Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe—a “native” from a neighboring island with ability and smarts who keeps Crusoe alive (after Crusoe helps deliver him from being cannibalized by his own people).
  • The movie’s a remake of an older movie called Front Page. Hildy should have been a guy. It was only when Howard Hawks’ secretary read the lines that he decided to cast the character as a woman. I think this might explain why it’s such a great part.
  • Molly Malloy doesn’t die—they say several times that she’s moving. But this doesn’t change the fact that no one seems to much mind her attempted suicide. I guess we’re supposed to take that opening caption seriously: “It all happened in the “dark ages” of the newspaper game – – when to a reporter “getting that story” justified anything short of murder.” Were you sorry you never got to hear Hildy’s story? I was. I wonder whether Molly’s attempt would have entered into it.
  • Why, in the name of all that’s holy, does Cary Grant tap the rolltop desk three times? I’ve watched it twice and I still don’t get it. Did he screw up, or did he want Earl to show himself?
  • He did have the whole planned out. He gave Louie directions to pay her back with counterfeit money. So he made sure Bruce would be in jail.
  • The luggage she’s carrying at the end is hers. My take is that, although at the beginning she objects to the fact that he’s not a conventional gentleman–he won’t invite her to sit down, she has to ask him for a cigarette, then for a light, then tell him not to walk ahead of her, etc.—she’s decided by the end that he offers her access to something she likes better. Makes sense, I guess. She’s not much of a gentleman herself; seems totally unperturbed by the journalists’ abuse of Molly.
  • I do find it weird that she’s so attracted to the idea of being a housewife. Doesn’t seem quite right. It’s interesting, though, that she lets slip, while typing out her story and distractedly fighting with Bruce, that she’s glad he’s going if he thought she was going to be some suburban wife and he was going to try to change her.
  • After Molly leaves the first time the journalists are totally deflated and uninterested in their poker game. They’re ashamed of themselves. This scene seemed both ugly and right.
  • I totally missed the rum thing. And yes, the mock turtle line is spectacular.

Fondly,
Millicent

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That Peaky Cap, and Then Some

September 23, 2008 by Leave a comment

I just watched the 30 Rock episode where Tracy’s little league team runs parallel to Iraq.  It was so good, my heart almost flipped out of my chest.  This happens especially with television.  TV, especially sitcoms, can blindside me with delight because I have no expectation for them to actually enthrall me.  Perhaps my little neuron receptors are particularly slutty and at ease when watching TV, but, my my, the thrills can be so lovely.

Onto other delights: Rosalind Russell! I watched His Girl Friday at your bidding, and was charmed by her hat, her shoes, and her.  On a list of my favorite things, Rosalind Russell is up there with Pika Pika and cucumber sandwiches.  Have you seen Auntie Mame? If not, run to it.  The costumes alone can save a life with their cheer.

As with any of our recent Netflix/Nitpicks, I have some thoughts:

  1. Is it at all an issue that Cary Grant makes her carry all the luggage at the end?
  2. Does Grant want her back only because she is beyond his control?  He seems sincere when he tells her to run to her fiance on the train, and he seems genuinely surprised by the counterfeit money.  She assumes it was all part of his grand plan.  Was it?
  3. I especially wonder this because Grant is so two-faced throughout the movie.  He constantly lies to people.  Why not her?
  4. I appreciate how fully she is shown to enjoy her work in the movie.  Cary Grant seems less of a loss than her job. He seems to know this himself.  Everybody agrees she is a fantastic writer, and we also get to see her skills as she interviews, tackles, and buys info.  She is fully alive in those scenes, and it is wonderful to see it onscreen.  She runs down a prison guard.  It’s great!
  5. A woman jumps out a window.  A surprisingly well developed character commits suicide in response to the unjust media.  It is a grave scene for such a light comedy.  The death seems to have no effect on Grant or Russell.  They are laughing at the end.  Even the convict in the desk, Williams, doesn’t seem too shook up about the suicide.
  6. Best line, in my opinion: “Get back in there, you great mock turtle!” Grant says this to Williams when he is hiding in the roll top desk.
  7. The woman who jumps out the window…the did a great job of dressing her so you kinda wondered what kind of girl she was for asking as stranger up to her room.  Her boobs seemed very shiny.
  8. Why is it called His Gal Friday? The entire movie takes place in one day…was it a Friday? Or, a Thursday? She just doesn’t seem like she was ever the personal assistant/secretary type.
  9. If we know one thing from movies, it is that people who sell insurance are safe, conservative, and dull (thus, Along Came Polly).  Also, one should also never marry somebody who doesn’t want rum in their coffee at lunch if everybody else at the table is having it (that scene particularly reminded me of Oceans 11).
  10. That great joke about them sleeping together in the hotel when they were hiding out on some other story.  She mentions the case was probably illegal, and he shoots back something like “that wasn’t the only thing.”  Salty, salty.

A captivating movie, with more plot than I expected.  I also like how the hat she is wearing throughout moves from a high fashion piece to floppy reporter gear by the end.

Hooray for Netflix wonders.  Hooray for Rosalind Russell and her beautiful legs and sharp wit.  Hooray for stories about women who are really really good at what they do.

And hooray for the blessings of television when they come along,

Yours,

CF

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It Happened to Jane

September 20, 2008 by Leave a comment

Dear Carla Fran,

I hope that your table at the wedding is surrounded by Viking paraphernalia and flowing with mead. I can’t wait to hear your reflections on marriage and the strange world of weddings.

I watched “It Happened to Jane.” Never before or since, I think, have lobsters–specifically, their delivery and sustenance–played such a pivotal role in a plot. What a bizarre symbol for the average American’s struggle against Big Business. What an odd thing for the public to rally behind. Not the flag, not the bald eagle, but the almighty lobster.

It reminds me, you know, of a weird detail in Conrad’s short story “The Secret Sharer.” It’s a story about a young and anxious ship captain struggling for command over his crew and his ship, who ends up stowing his doppelganger in his cabin. He finds his be-whiskered chief mate’s compulsion to examine and explain everything especially oppressive. To illustrate, he tells about a scorpion the chief mate found drowned in his inkwell. Why would the scorpion go to the chief mate’s rooms intead of the cellar? the chief mate wonders. And why on earth would it climb into an inkwell, and once there, let itself drown?

I’ve never come up with a satisfactory account of what that scorpion means, if anything, but it’s a detail that delights me.

Fondly,

Millicent

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Nitpick: The Miracle is That He’s Kissing the Old Apple

September 13, 2008 by Leave a comment

First, a fun fact about Glenn Ford, the original Dude, courtesy of the New York Times:

By 1965, his star power [no pun intended] had enabled him to build a luxurious home home in Beverly Hills featuring an atrium over which hung a 900-pound artificial sun. Mr. Ford could switch it on whenever he wanted to feel drenched with light.

I suppose an atrium with artificial sun is even better than one that lets in actual sun.

Nits I picked:

  • Joy Boy’s the narrator at the beginning. It’s Peter Falk’s voice that tells us that “By the second year, the club was a sensation,” and that Queenie was “pretty good.” Why doesn’t Joy Boy give us a grumpy epilogue in which his heart either implodes or grows grows three sizes?
  • Best quote from that VO: “The dude kisses the old apple, but I know better. I kiss the iron doors.”
  • Weird things happening with literacy. Apple Annie’s pretty damn eloquent in her letters, but the high society recruits can’t read. Also, literacy humor: chauffeur guy says “If I could write, I’d be in the navy.”
  • They don’t seem to know what to do with Bette Davis’ character, whose transition from curmudgeonly weirdo drunk to lovely maternal figure boggles the mind.
  • Bizarre portrayal of alcoholism. So real in the hovel, when she’s reading the letter. So strong a theme throughout. Her alcoholism seems to have something to do with her witchy Sybilness:

    “Because the little people like you. You can’t see ‘em. They live in dreams.”

    Once she’s gone ladylike, she reaches for the bottle just once. Yes, at breaking point, but honestly. So much less complex. Not a single attempt at doubletalk? Not one attempted hustle? At least the Judge gets to play “billiards.” For a screwball comedy, there are lots of missed opportunities.

  • Why all the love for Apple Annie from the other “godfathers”? I guess it’s kind of like those “Adopt a Child” campaign, except that the poor are all chipping in to buy stuff for one girl.
  • Kind of unforgivable that the “godfathers” never even get to meet her (not counting the deaf woman who gives her a flower). Unless I missed something—they were riding in a cab at the end, but I didn’t get why.
  • The poster—at the 12 minute mark—of Queenie. Fascinating. Not a nit. Just surprising.
  • Poor Herbie. The only one deprived of a happy ending, and just because he stole her letters for her.
  • Gayness: Yes, there’s Pierre. But what do we make of the fact that Hutchings and the Judge are clearly falling in love? Also, aww, Hutchings.
  • Constant allusions to Cinderella and Snow White. Is this supposed to be the witch from Snow White redone as Cinderella? The Dude snatches Queenie’s shoe during the fight, Apple Annie’s obvious, Hutchings “likes Cinderella stories.” We’re getting beaten over the head with something. Is that something really respect for the desires of the poor and aged?
  • Is this why, even though the focus keeps sliding away from Apple Annie’s story once she gets into the Marberry, the camera keeps trying to yank us back? This is the point, it insists. The whole plot seems to be trying its darndest to honor an old woman’s life ambition. Nice. But 1) it remains a subplot, 2) it’s a clear instrument of the Dude’s growth, 3) it’s doing weird work trying to restore family values to a nutty cast, and 4) it explains why Joy Boy can’t possibly be narrating the thing. Why on earth would Capra start us off with him as the storyteller?
  • Like this list, and as you point out, the movie is SO LONG. I enjoyed it, but it’s something like 140 minutes.

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Where Are The Miracles?

September 13, 2008 by 1 Comment

1.) The other best part of the strangest goat-belly compared fight scene ever? That after harshly throwing her on the bed (really, not okay–way to hard for a comedy), he says “Queenie! You have one thing coming to me!” and then he rolls her off the bed and they start making out (as you aptly described). I assume he means sex since she has been holding out on him for two years apparently? Maybe because she didn’t want to mix her body in with the debt she was paying off? And even more odd–she looks like she was somehow slipped a muscle relaxer once off the bed–or are we supposed to assume that his kisses are soooooo good that they have the same effect as Valium?

2.) What is wrong with Ann Margaret’s voice? She can’t say her fiance’s family name without slurring, and then the rest of the time she sounds like she is five-year-old. Also–if you had never ever seen your mother before, don’t you think there would be some deeper conversation going on, like “who is my father?” or something?

3.) Bette Davis can’t behave destitute. Her posture is too good.

4.) Was the pacing strangely slow for a comedy? It took forever for the shenanigans to begin. I really wanted the whole movie to be about Queenie in the nightclub. My favorite scene is her jumping around in that silver costume.

5.) David Foster Wallace died. I don’t know where this fits in, but it marked my night. I just watched a Charlie Rose clip from ten years ago, and it all fits strangely into our conversations earlier today. Thoughts?

CF

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The Thrill of it All!

September 5, 2008 by 2 Comments

Dear tollbooth phantom,

It’s Friday. My cat has taken a nap in the sun, behind my laptop, and is very much enjoying stretching herself into the gap between desk and wall. She also just took a bite out of an inspirational quote (yes, I do that) that I had taped over the laptop, as, well, ahem, inspiration. So many things to tell you this fine end o’ the week!

1.) The lissome redhead you describe–she reminds me of Joan from Madmen, probably because of the control she carries in body and presentation. I find that I can’t stop optically groping Joan when I watch the show. Redheads are famous for this quality, but then I feel like quite the objectifying jerk to even say that. But the redheads will also be extinct in a hundred years. Or so they say.

2.) I found out today that LA has flocks of green parrots (or parrot-like birds)! They all came to the tree outside my office, and I realized that parrots are loud visually and aurally.

3.) I think we should start a bi-monthly segment in our chit-chats where we examine the treasures of Netflix instant. Last night, I was grumpy and unmotivated, and perusing through my Netflix options, I fell upon a wonderfully sloppy Doris Day movie called The Thrill of It All.

I thought it would be some great clothes, some snappy lines, a lot of blond–but instead it was an amazing trip to the sixties of Madmen, but with none of the modern winks at how very depressing (and well-dressed) it all was. Here are some of my scattered thoughts about the crazy thing, below:

  • In short–the movie is about a happy housewife (Day) who gets the chance to become a successful spokes-model for a soap called “Happy.” Her husband (James Garner) is an obstetrician (hello fertility!), and they have a bunch of marital troubles because she works.
  • All major plot points include babies or baby-making. Day gets the job because hubby successfully got the aging couple that owns “Happy Soap” preggers. The knocked up CEO’s wife at one point says “There is nothing more fulfilling in life than having a baby.” This refrain plays in Garner’s head throughout the movie as he tries to seduce his wife so that she too can be knocked up, and the soap career will be squashed.
  • When his sexual stealth attack fails, he tries to emotionally break his wife by tricking her into thinking he is having an affair and is now a drunkard, all because of her success. This is, again, all to hopefully end her career.
  • CEO soap baby is born–both Day and Garner help deliver, which leads her to realizing that he really does get to do the most important thing in the world, and that she wants to help and just be a doctor’s wife again!
  • When CEO soap baby is born, CEO daddy looks at CEO mommy and exclaims “you are a genius!” I love how this suggests that a woman’s intelligence is all about pushing the babies out.
  • At the end, Day and Garner go upstairs to do it. Animated fireworks shoot up and explode as the credits roll.
  • I could go on and on about the reproduction/production theme in this movie, but there are some other amazing moments. One is the terry-cloth turban Day wears in the shower. I want one. NOW. Speaking of wants, I want Doris Day hair, every day. It’s blond, fluffy, and somehow sexy, elegant, and casual without directly trying to be any of them directly. She bottles ketchup in that hair (well, not in the hair) and then goes to a grand party thrown in her honor, same hair. And apparently, she never washes it, because that turban is there for a reason.
  • It does make you realize how spot on Madmen’s costuming and set design is.
  • There is an entire scene about a backyard filled with foam.
  • In short, the movie seems to want to appear modern for addressing women’s rights, but also has the overall message of, you can have rights, as long as you don’t really want to use them, kay?
  • It’s delightful, for all of its nonsense. It is, afterally, Mizz Day.

Maybe we could arrange a NetFlix instant to fall upon every couple of weeks, and then discuss the joys to be had? It would be like we almost were watching them together, except miles apart, and not at the same time? And I think the world needs our help in navigating Netflix, and what could instantly be had.

Lastly, your thoughts on celebrity were exact, and I am realizing how nice it is to find your letters every day, and enjoy the well-stitched quality of your observations.

Yours,

CF

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