My wife is about to go off on her annual two-woman retreat with a Christian friend, and I draw on my vast knowledge of movies (cough, cough) to pick some for them.
So it just occurred to me I ought to draw on my vast audience of sisters to get some recommendations.
So? Tell me.
UPDATE: I'm really appreciating the flood of input. But please do remember also to tell me
WHY?
Posts
38 comments:
Well, she may have seen the ones I suggest, but here goes.
Sense and Sensibility. Great script, beautiful costumes, good love story.
I Am Sam. Dakota Fanning is adorable, Sean Penn is a good actor, and the story may make you cry.
A Walk to Remember. The teeny bopper crowd likes this, but it's got a happy ending, and it's romantic.
Pride and Prejudice. The Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle version. Great story again. The characters are really endearing.
They may have seen all of these, but they are ones I never tire of seeing.
The African Queen
Not necessarily a chick flick but a great movie is Babette's Feast. I think all christians should see this movie.
I agree about Sense and Sensibility. Also, the Emma with Gwynneth Paltrow is lushly filmed with a sense of fun. The actors have chemistry in that one.
The modern Sabrina is very watchable, even with Harrison Ford seeming way to old as a love interest for the main character.
You've Got Mail is another of the few I like to watch again.
And surprisingly, Ever After with Drew Barrymore is lots of fun, a feel-good film.
I second Babette's Feast!
I had to twist my husband's arm to watch it with me, but he loved it, too!
Kim from Hiraeth
OH, another one is Enchanted April.
Sleepless in Seattle is also good.
Chocolat with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche also good.
I don't ever remember considering The African Queen a chick movie, but apparently my wonderful hubby did!
Princess Bride.
When I picked up a copy some years back my wife watched it (it seemed like) 20 times straight.
The Count of Monte Cristo PG-13 (2002) with James Caviezel - Napoleon, reveng, fight over a girl, reveng, marrying the wrong guy, and reveng. And Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves, and Uma Thurman - a couple of nude and sex sceens, but, raltionships, revenge, sword fights, jilted girl.
North & South( (by the BBC, not any relation to our own Civil War)--a (clean) brooding costume/period piece set in a mill town in Wales (I believe), and the misunderstandings/tensions build towards my favorite closing scene in any movie (except possibly Roman Holiday).
Princess Bride--Why? Really?
The Phantom of the Opera (most recent, 200?)--Why? Wonderful script, breathtaking, soul-stirring music, intense storyline, captivating...
being raised by my father, and for other reasons, I never developed a strong appetite for "chick flicks", but these two are my favorites. Hands down. And my husband enjoys watching them with me, so that's always a winner!
Any novels made movies by BBC. Why? Thought, Dan. Thought. Filling pages of novels with "bang" and "boom" and "pow" (the stuff of modern movies) wouldn't work, so they had to have real storylines, characters, etc. Go figure, eh? And they'd never have a shrimp named David beat a team named the Giants.
Horation Hornblower movies are great, though perhaps not exactly chick flicks. They require at least a little thought, though.
BTW, the old Sabrina with Bogart & Hepburn is much better, IMO.
That would be "Horatio." With Ioan Gruffudd.
Speaking of movies, is Amazing Grace (also with Gruffudd) worth buying? Nobody around here has it to rent.
Ioan Gruffudd. Oh yeah. Love him. I mean Horatio.
Chris said: "not exactly chick flicks. They require at least a little thought"
Um, wow. :D
No fair, Beth. You deleted the "though," which was crucial to the sentence.
BTW, the fact that I've commented here doesn't make me a "Sister," Dan. Call me "secure."
Another? Little Women. Why? Four daughters. It's like my biography.
eh...it's the National Enquirer School of Editing. So sue me. ;)
[Sorry, Dan, just joking on your thread here.]
I'll add: anything with Cary Grant she hasn't seen yet.
Well, Chris has already beaten me to just about everything I wanted to add, including the part about being labeled a "sister" for posting here. Good grief, man, let someone else have some fun, will ya??? ;-)
The remake of Sense and Sensibility gets my vote, simply because it has the funniest one-liner I've ever heard in a movie (Harrison Ford's character asks Julia Ormond's character what people say about him when he's not around. Answer: "They say that you're the world's only living heart donor."). If the original doesn't have that line, then it can't possibly be better. ;-)
Also, definitely Little Women. Why? Cuz my wife says it's wonderful!
"Last Holiday" with Queen Lateffa (sp?).
Why? cause it's a "Cinderella" story about a simple working class single girl who isn't afraid to tell it like she sees it.
Really some heart-warming moments as she just tries to do what is right and encourage others to do the same.
I enjoyed the acting of people I'd never really known/seen much of.
Some "mature" humor, but I don't recall any offensive language or "skin" scenes.
From My Wife Michelle-
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers- Any musical is light-hearted and feel-good. It provides songs to sing, brings back memories from childhood.
Meet Me in St. Louis- Tudy is adorable, funny situations, has 'Ma Kettle' Marjorie Main.
Anne of Green Gables- Take you back to when you were a little girl. Enough said :)
My wife says Kate and Leopold and You Got Mail
Why? I think because they have that spunky Meg Ryan gal in them.
I think Gladiator has some chicks in it.
Fred
First time I've commented, but I've been reading for a long time, Dan. Here's my suggestions, a bit low-brow compared to Horatio and Austen, but hey. :)
First Knight (Sean Connery, Julia Ormond, Richard Gere), for epic knight story, great themes of loyalty and temptation, and best kiss (Lancelot and Guinevere).
Tombstone (Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer) for good vs evil, loyalty again, and total eye candy for us 40-ish chicks.
Movie musicals (Sound of Music, Oklahoma, The King and I etc) because we chicks may not admit it but we LOVE to burst out singing!
Oh, and I agree, the original Sabrina is much better than the re-make!
A&Es "Pride and Prejudice"
Excellently made film very true to the book. It's six hours long, but they did not truncate crucial aspects like Emma Thompsons "Sense and Sensibility".
I don't even see P&P as a chick flick/book. It's a story about people, and the intracacies of relationships, and misunderstanding one another, and...well, pride, and prejudice.
My wife and I also enjoy the BBCs "All Creatures Great and Small" as a fun set of shows fairly true to the books with lots of endearing characters, animals, and great scenery. They have captured James Harriots sense of humour to a "T" as well.
Not much out there off the top of my head beyond that that I or my wife would recommend.
Because the ne'er-do-well drunken river rat gets tamed by the spinster missionary lady. That's a chick theme.
And because there is an explosion.
The Man from Snowy River is one of the best movies ever, chick or dude. Great story. Great music. Great scenery.
I'll go out on a limb here. My favorite movie that could be described as a "chick flick" is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I absolutely loved Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet is good in anything she does. Anytime I feel pulled away from my husband, I remember this movie and it literally causes me to hold him tight and thank God that he's mine. Too cheesy? Too bad.
I also recommend Neverland with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet (notice a theme?). Again, both these actors could be filmed sleeping in pitch darkness and pull off an oscar performance. It is a sweet, romantic, and mostly true tale of the genesis of the Peter Pan story. Truly amazing cinematography, script, and the child actors hold their own.
I'm too lazy to post a huge treatise on Babette's Feast, but the self-sacrifice exhibited in the movie is very touching. I did paste wiki overview instead.
Babette's Feast tells the story of Babette Hertsard, a 19th century Parisian political refugee who flees on a boat to Frederikshavn in Denmark with the help of her nephew, and forms a relationship with two elderly and religious sisters. The sisters, Martina (named for Martin Luther) and Philippa (named for Luther's friend and biographer Philip Melanchthon), are the daughters of a pastor who has founded his own religious sect.
Babette, whose background as a great chef is unknown to the villagers, works as a cook and housekeeper for Philippa and Martina in their house in a small village on the remote and beautiful coast of Jutland. The sisters are shown, through flashbacks, to have once been beautiful women, who had given up their chance at romance and fame, taking refuge in religion. Babette goes on to spend fourteen years as their cook, (they "teach" her how to cook, primarily the incredibly bland fish soup on which they subsist), her only link to her former life being a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year. One day, she wins the lottery and decides to use the money to prepare a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation. More than just an epicurean delight, the feast is an outpouring of Babette's gratitude, with almost eucharistic echoes and an act of complete self-sacrifice.
The crux of the story (and of the humor) turns on the conflict between the congregation's austere religion with its denial of earthly enjoyments (but its requirement of charitable gratitude), and the sumptuousness of the meal Babette prepares, as well as on the assumption by those feasting that this meal is a going-away present from Babette.
Taxi Driver (two people go out on a date). Fargo (angst before baby is born). Deliverance (how to understand male bonding).
Why are you trying to get me in such trouble?
Sorry, but I have to object to The Man from Snowy River. I'd say it's one of the worst movies ever. Theme: Dad's a clueless jerk who ought to let his daughter do whatever she wants, and if he won't, she ought to run off and do it anyway. Sure, it's got great scenery and action, but substance trumps style--or it ought to.
Here are a few possible "chick" movies that I actually like:
The Family Man
The Importance of Being Earnest
Return to Me
The Lake House
Just Like Heaven
Why: Great movies, all funny, all (sniff) emotive (except Earnest), all relatively clean (Just Like Heaven has some slightly racy humor). None (as far as I can remember) include the currently obligatory token homosexual character.
"The Lake House"? Oh, dude, even my wife was laughing and groaning over making me watch that. I had some hope for it (plot sounded interesting, Bullock and Reeves = normally likable actors)... but oh, dude. BAD movie.
Oh, yes, the recent "The Painted Veil" based on a Somerset Maugham novel. A husband and wife fall in love in an exotic setting. Powerful feelings elicited. Self-sacrifice that leads to heartbreak. Beautiful filming in early 1900's China.
Salient, with a list like that, you should have added I spit on your grave. An ultimate feminist movie.
Fred
I like the old movies - North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, Night and Day,Bringing up Baby - all Cary Grant movies. I agree with Bugblaster re: African Queen. And I enjoy both Sabrina movies.
Also "Les Mis".
Hope she has a great time!
Thirsty David. I so agree with you about the obligatory homosexual character in movies these days. It really bugs me.
Candy, some of my favorite movies have been ruined by the necessity of overlooking the gay character in order to enjoy them. Blast from the Past comes to mind. A great family movie otherwise (the gay character is even likable and funny), but when we switched from VHS to DVD, we chose not to replace it.
Thanks, every one of you. I've sent her off with a few selections.
Good idea, Candy.
Here's the wiki of Enchanted April.
"Tells the story of four dissimilar women in post-World War I England who leave damp and rainy London to go on a holiday to a secluded coastal villa in Italy (Portofino). Two housewives, who belong to the same church but have never spoken, become acquainted. Each in her own way is suffering through an empty marriage and faces the prospect of a lonely and almost isolated middle age. After seeing a newspaper ad for a villa for rent on the Italian Riviera, the women set about finding two other ladies to share expenses. Joined by a beautiful young socialite and an elderly dowager, the four find rejuvenation in the tranquil beauty of their surroundings."
My small answer to the "why" question:
It is one of those movies where nothing much happens but everything is exposed, developed, or enhanced through the relationships that develop. Many-layered; starts slow so don't give up on it!! Definitely worth watching. And thinking about.
Oh, and you don't have to be a 40-something woman to enjoy this film. I first saw it when I was a young wife with no kids and I loved it. Memories of that movie have been poignant reminders to me during periods of my life.
Kim from Hiraeth
I thought my brain was swiss-cheesed for a moment there because I so didn't remember Harrison Ford in Sense and Sensibility.
I even went to check the video-sleeve. Read the rest of the thread and it all made sense. I thought you might have had some added extras in the US, and I was beginning to be put out :-D
Post a Comment