Category: Three Sentence Movie Reviews

I’ve been meaning to see this since its debut in 2003, because I knew it would be a good movie, but I also knew it would be a hard movie. And man, was it a hard movie, partially because it was written by a thirteen-year-old girl.  Super props for the mom character though, as she was well-rounded in a way mothers in film usually aren’t.

Cost: $11.00 (Half of the $22.00 POWFest double feature)
Where watched:  Hollywood Theater

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2003/thirteen.html

Thank goodness I signed up for the Hollywood Theater’s newsletter, or this opportunity would have passed me by.  Two movies I’ve been meaning to see– Miss You Already, Thirteen–plus a conversation with the director, Catherine Hardwicke? Yes please!

Hardwicke was interviewed by Melissa Silverstein, founder and editor of Women & Hollywood, the site where (among other things) you can sign up for a weekly email of movies about, written, or directed by women.

Hardwicke told us some great stories.  Among them:

• The movie treatment for Twilight was rejected by every studio.  Hardwicke thought it would be successful, given the online chatter.  She was told that the only market for a Twilight movie would be 400 teenage girls in Salt Lake City.
• After having the #1 movie in the country (Twilight) she did not receive a car or a three-picture deal from the studio, as is common practice for male directors.  Instead, there were balloons and mini-cupcakes.
• She was told that the 69 million Twilight made its first weekend was probably all it was going to make–that everyone who was going to see it had already done so.  Instead, it went on to make 400 million dollars.
• Hardwicke had the option of directing the second movie in the Twilight series, but declined.  She assumed the studio would hire another woman director.  They did not.  The next four Twilight movies, all four Hunger Games movies and all three Divergent movies have been directed by men.
• Movies made by women don’t get the advertising budgets that movies made by men do.   Hardwicke pointed out that we probably never saw an ad for Miss You Already.
• She wrote Thirteen with Nikki Reed when Reed was 13.  They mostly wrote the script over six days while Reed was on winter break.
• Hardwicke was also a production designer and worked on Tank Girl which she said was very fun.
• To be a director with a project that goes, you have to have about eighteen projects going.
• 

This was a great program and I was sad to note that most of the seats in the theater were empty.  Why weren’t more people attending?  Then I realized that I’m interested in women’s voices in film, yet I’ve never attended the POWFest.  I also don’t tend to prioritize watching female created/centered films in the theater, but rather wait for them on DVD.  I’ve made a pledge to return to POWFest next year and to make more of an effort to prioritize women’s films.

A good second viewing, though I had to keep reminding myself that Margo Roth Spiegelman would soon exit stage left and leave me to enjoy the movie.*  I enjoy watching the boys hanging out in this movie, and how true the end-of-high school emotions are.  And wouldn’t the Fault in Our Stars have been a different (and much better movie) if Mr. Nat Wolff had gotten the part of Augustus Waters?

Cost: free from library.
Where watched: at home with Matt. Film 4 of 3 of today’s scheduled Movie Palooza. (Matt and I were supposed to go on a date, but there was car trouble and he had a copy of this movie, so we watched it.)

*Didn’t like the character in the book and her translation to the screen didn’t do anything for me, either.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/index.html
I think this was one of those Fathom Events promotions, but it looks cool, so I put it up.

I’m going on record as saying that I remember my family watching this on VHS in 1987 and finding it hilarious.*  And while it wasn’t knee-slapping funny, I laughed throughout this viewing. If you are amused by two middle-aged men bumbling through the desert, you will quite possibly like this movie, especially if you ignore all the film-critic baggage that has attached itself to this picture.

Cost: $2.99 via Google Play
Where watched: at home on the tablet.  Film 3 of 3 of today’s scheduled Movie Palooza.

*So much so that I can still sing the “Tellin’ the Truth” song from the soundtrack.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/index.html

Eh, it was a little bit too “dramatic novel” and there was a little too much scene chewing by Eva Green.  There were also two abrupt shifts in perspective–one of which explained a key plot point–that were confusing.*  Although this also has a female who is in charge of her sexuality with none of the usual consequences, so that was a plus.**

Cost:  free from library.
Where watched. At home. Film 2 of 3 of today’s scheduled Movie Palooza.

*If 98% of the movie is from the main character’s perspective, and two scenes aren’t, does that mean the main character doesn’t know those scenes have happened and thus doesn’t know that key plot reveal?
**Also, much like Jennifer Lawrence, Shailene Woodley is fun to watch.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/index.html

So my mild infatuation with Oscar Issac continues.*  I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of this movie, as it was quite good–tense in all the right places.  It’s based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, and follows the usual pattern.

Cost: Free from library.
Where watched: at home.  Film 1 of 3 of today’s scheduled Movie Palooza.**

*And who doesn’t like a side of Viggo Mortensen?
**Side note.  When I watched the movie Frank, I was intrigued by the preview for this movie and White Bird in a Blizzard, the next film in today’s Movie Palooza.  I was amused to notice the previews for this movie and the next all played a small game of rotating through each other.  This had Frank and White Bird.  While White Bird had this and Frank.  Magnolia Pictures was pushing all the same movies at the same time.