Fangirls Fall Guide to 2016: Movies Edition

Welcome back Fangirls! I hope you had a chance to check out the first entry to this joint series with Julie from TV Recappers Anonymous (where we are cross-posted) and if not, then take a look to see what we had to say about TV and then come on back because it’s time to talk movies!

Amy’s Picks

Movie you should see:  Earlier this year I saw the trailer for Sing Street in theaters a few times. Each time I would think, “This movie looks made for me! 80s music! Ireland! Cute boys in bands wearing eyeliner!” But for some reason I wasn’t interested and I couldn’t figure out why. Thankfully I ignored myself and watched it on DVD recently and let me tell you, it is delightful. Written and directed by John Carney who did Once (a favorite of mine) it hits all the right nostalgia buttons: teenage crushes and heartbreaks, discovering yourself and defining who you are, losing yourself in music and the connections you make through songs. I flat out loved it and the soundtrack is something that I would have owned in the 80s and will keep you humming the tunes long after the movie is over. Available: iTunes, Amazon, DVD

Movie I’m excited for: Allied. My Girl Crush Marion Cotillard? I’m in. Brad Pitt being dashing? SOLD! But then the trailer came out and it was the first time in a long time that I watched a trailer and got swept away. I watched it several more times. Maybe it was the epicness of it – love and war, intrigue and danger all set in WWII and the post-war era, two movie eras that I adore. It looks pretty grand and it has actual capital M, capital S Movie Stars and there are no damn superheroes to be seen. Pretty people + Gorgeous costumes + War time dangers + Romance + Hot car make-outs in sandstorms = my butt in the theater on opening night! Opening: November 23.

Julie’s Picks

Movie you should see: The Lobster. I’m just going to come right out and say it. This movie is weird. And it’s definitely not for everybody. But it’s the one “new” movie that really stood out for me in 2016, and it’s the one that’s sparked the most conversation amongst my friends and family after viewing. As a terminally single person who just plain sucks at relationships, you could bet that I would long ago have been turned into an animal in the fictional world that embodies this film. (I’d choose a cat naturally. I know it’s not the most creative answer, but I happen to think I have a lot of cat-like tendencies.)

The Lobster has a lot of interesting things to say about the way that society pressures us to couple, and looks down upon and/or often vilifies single people. That episode of Sex and the City, Bay of Married Pigs, comes immediately to mind. But it’s not all one sided. “The Loners” in this story don’t come off so hot either. Though, to be honest, I’m less certain about what the writers are trying to say about me. Hence, the endless discussions about the film with family and friends.

Apart from being an interesting social commentary, The Lobster is funny, quirky, and just flat out different than anything I’ve ever seen before. And in a world that turns out cookie-cutter films like the assembly line at Chips Ahoy, that’s saying something. Available: iTunes, Amazon, DVD

Movie I’m excited for: The Edge of Seventeen. I’ve always been a sucker for a good coming-of-age tale, probably because my level of maturity is irrevocably about on par with most sixteen year olds. Not that there’s anything entirely new or different on the surface, about the story of an awkward, wise-cracking, but intensely intelligent girl on the outer fringes of the high school social order trying to survive the sometimes unforgiving, and often ridiculous, world of adolescence. But this trailer made my smile, and reminded me of my own best friend from high school, who remains one of my favorite people in the world. Plus Hailee Steinfeld just seems so darn likeable here. How can you not root for her? Opening: November 18th

We hope you have your iPod ready because next up — Music!

For more check out Amy’s book The Fangirl Files: True Tales and Tips from the Fandom Frontlines and Julie’s novels on Amazon.

I’ve written a book!

So it is clear that my attention to this blog has fallen by the wayside the last few years. There are many reasons for that including, but not limited to: a real, non-imaginary-man boyfriend, a house and a dog.

There is another reason that will be far more interesting to you which is that I have been writing a book! If you’ve liked what goes on here (when things were, you know, actually going on) then I guarantee you will like

The Fangirl Files

True Tales and Tips from the Fandom Frontlines!

Click to connect to my new book-centric website!

The book is an expansion of this blog so if you enjoyed my tales of chasing Brandon Flowers on his Flamingo Tour, unapologetic love for Boy Bands, devotion to Pacey Witter and all things that celebrate being a Fangirl then get your copy and join the Fangirling Revolution!

May I interest in you a fabulous book trailer?

Buy now in Paperback or Kindle!

And follow along with #fangirlfilesbook on my social media (just look over there to the right, and up, and there you are!)

Female gazing at the boys of “Magic Mike XXL”

The PR campaign for Magic Mike XXL has been really entertaining so far.

There have been suggestive posters:

From Hollywire

Appearances at Pride Parades:

 

Viral videos… (bonus points to the lady who point blank answered “NO” to the question, “would you say you care about the story?”!)

And a whole lot of abs-tastic eye-candy being put out there:

From Entertainment Weekly

What has been the most interesting thing about all this is not even the sculpted pretty-boys flexing their oiled pecs for the camera but the fact that all the publicity is being aimed squarely at straight women and gay men, traditionally two audiences Hollywood doesn’t really give a sh*t about because they are not straight guys. This has been SO REFRESHING for a few reasons:

• Straight men aren’t the only people who like movies OR are titillated by sexy body parts
• The actors in the movies seem to be game for just about anything and don’t seem to care about how cheesy it may look so as a result everything about the movie and the press tour looks FUN!
• They are totally on board with flipping the standard “male gaze”  (women as objects in film that exist for the pleasure of the male eye) which just about every other movie in creation is geared to – over to a “female gaze” in which the men in the movie become the objects

Look, I’m totally going to see this movie. I saw the first one and I’m a straight lady with eyes, I like a strong set of shoulders when I see them and male strippers are basically Boy Bands minus the nudity and singing. But honestly a major part of why I want to see it is because I want to support a press campaign that is actively courting at an audience who is usually ignored when a studio is trying to sell something.

Well done Magic Mike and your band of Merry Strippers, thanks for letting us objectify you as if you were actresses!

“This is the story of four vampires who live in a flat and have their eternal lives taped…”

Last night I saw What We Do in the Shadows which is a HYSTERICAL “vampire reality TV documentary” (should such a thing actually exist!)

Here, just watch this:

I haven’t laughed so much at a movie in ages. It is so funny, so clever, so ridiculous that afterwards as I was trying to fall asleep I literally burst out laughing remembering one of the scenes. Just the idea of vampires having “chore charts” when one roommate isn’t pulling his weight or tricking people into thinking their spaghetti is worms because they learned it from The Lost Boys (!!!) is so brilliantly demented.

If my gushing hasn’t sold you – how about the fact that it’s by the same lunatics behind Flight of the Conchords? Or that Jemaine Clement stars and Rhys Darby has a supporting role as the alpha of a rival gang of werewolves (not “swearwolves” because they watch their language, OK?) Why don’t you watch this and remember how on-the-nose these guys are at parody and then go see the movie?

Band Dynamic Documentaries

Tonight VH1 is premiering the Backstreet Boys documentary Show em What You’re Made Of and I think you should watch it. I say this not as a BSB fan but as a fan of anything that involves uncovering the fascinating world of band dynamics.

I recently read Mick Fleetwood’s autobiography Play On: Now, Then and Fleetwood Mac because for my money there is no band with more incredibly complex, deranged inter-band dynamics then Fleetwood Mac. Marriage between members? Check. Affairs between members? Check. Break-ups between members who then make the person they dumped sing songs about how awful their break-up was on-stage to thousands of fans? CHECK. Their episode of Behind the Music is well worth 45 minutes of your life.

Less romantically tangled but just as fascinating to this U2 fanatic is the near destruction of the band pre-Achtung Baby detailed in Bill Flanagan’s U2: At the End of the World and explored further in the band’s own documentary on the experience in From the Sky Down. Coming off of a decade of unparalleled success the members find themselves on opposing sides when it comes time to define themselves for the 90’s and nearly fall apart until they stumble into One.

And the king of all band dynamic documentaries is surely Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster which details abrupt departures, rehab stints, long buried animosities, and the band partaking in some of the craziest “group therapy” you’ll ever see. I am not a Metallica fan but I was enraptured by this film and the exploration of the complexities of being in a band and staying in a band, sharing your life, livelihood, emotions and talents with multiple other people who may not always have the same agenda or investment.

Which brings me back to the Backstreet Boys and their documentary detailing the making of their latest album In a World Like This and the subsequent tour. I watched it on VOD when it as released a few months ago and it hits all the sweet spots of a good band dynamic documentary: the camaraderie and frictions, the long-standing tensions and love for each other and the music. There was always a lot of backstage drama with BSB – the contract lawsuits, Brian’s heart problems, AJ’s addictions, Nick’s arrests – they were basically a documentary waiting to happen. The group visits to each member’s childhood home reveals a lot about each guy not just to the audience but to their other band members (the one to Nick Carter’s elementary school and his reunion with a teacher who supported him is heartbreaking as Nick’s very raw breakdown at the memory of what a lonely little boy he was and what kindness and faith this woman showed him is difficult to watch.)

So I don’t think you have to be a fan of a particular band to find their story and their relationships interesting. In some cases seeing the non-glossy, not-so-glamorous reality of what being in a band is actually like makes me appreciate them in a way I wouldn’t have if it was just about listening to their music. Check out any of these docs I’ve mentioned and you can start tonight on VH1 🙂

Movies I Will Never Get Sick of

You know when you are flipping channels and you see a movie from the 80’s or 90’s and no matter how many times you’ve seen it you have to watch it again — or when you’re home sick and you want something silly and familiar to distract you — or just have that one movie that you can’t. stop. quoting? Well here’s a rundown of mine:

Parenthood: Steve Martin has a lot of siblings and a lot of kids. Wackiness ensues

Favorite quote: “I’m too young to be a grandmother. Grandmothers are old. They bake, and they sew, and they tell you stories about the Depression. I was at Woodstock, for Christ’s sake! I peed in a field! I hung on to The Who’s helicopter as it flew away!”

 

I Love You to Death: Kevin Kline cheats on his wife and she plots (badly) to kill him for it

Favorite quote: “If we keep shooting Joey, don’t you think he might get suspicious?”

 

Postcards from the Edge: Meryl Streep is an actress in recovery with a challenging mother

Favorite quote: “Well, maybe I was an alcoholic when you were a teenager. But I had a nervous breakdown when my marriage failed and I lost all my money…Well, I got over it! And now I just drink like an Irish person.”

 

Soapdish: Sally Field is a soap diva whose life on and off her show is one big melodrama

Favorite quote: “That’s depressing and it’s expensive, two words I hate. You know the words I like? I like the word ‘peppy’ and the word ‘cheap’. Peppy and cheap.”

Overboard: Goldie Hawn is a rich diva who gets amnesia and is led to believe she’s a housewife

Favorite quote: HOW CAN I CHOOSE!?!? As my mom puts it, “there’s an ‘Overboard’ quote for everything!”

“A falsetto child?”

“I’m a short, fat, slut”

“You shot a chicken?”

“It’s not us dad it’s Roy”

“But darling, if you have a baby, you won’t be the baby anymore.”

“Eat your checkers!”

“Oysters in a cold ocean at night? That doesn’t sound like me!”

Ahhh so many laughs — so many terrible trailers 🙂

James Dean is Still Cooler Than You

Today is the 59th anniversary of James Dean’s death. The man would be 83 years old now and who knows what he would have done with his life and career had he survived a car crash. He may have gotten fat or bald, made terrible movies or been hawking products in TV commercials. Instead he is frozen in time just like this:

Eternally young, handsome and cool. Recently my boyfriend and I watched East of Eden because we were going to the central California coast where the movie is set. I watched Dean’s movies a lot when I was a teenager and spent most of that time alternately swooning and grieving that he was so stunningly beautiful and so tragically dead. Watching it now with an adult perspective I really appreciated how incredibly talented he was and how he certainly was one of the first true archetypes of the Wounded Misunderstood Man Child Who Just Wants to be Loved that so many of us are drawn to (paging Dr. Doug Ross, looking at you Tim Riggins.)

On our trip we drove out to Cholame where Dean died and is memorialized around a shady tree next to a diner right out of a movie set. The first time I saw it in the early 90’s there had been small sort of cameos of his face as part of the memorial that had been filled over with plastic to keep them preserved. But over the years fans had chipped away at the plastic attempting to get to the image underneath. Those were no longer there and I figured that this long gone, not many people stop there to see the memorial anymore.

Inside the Jack Ranch Cafe next door with its walls covered in Dean memorabilia, country music playing in the kitchen and warm cherry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream we learned from our waitress that every single day people still come in there because of James Dean. EVERY. DAY. That’s some pretty amazing longevity for someone who is probably more well-known by Kids Today for merchandise with his face on it rather than his film work or cult of celebrity.

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So rest in peace James Dean – nearly six decades gone and we’re still watching you, talking about you and looking for you.

Say, that’s swell!

I know I mentioned earlier in the summer that I Am Your Grandma but really I’ve had a little bit o’ granny in me for a long time. When I was a teenager I got into old movies and fell in love with Fred and Ginger movies. You know the ones – the romance, the dancing, the glamorous sets and stunning evening wear:

There was a famous quote that he gave her class and she gave him sex appeal (there’s an even better quote from Ann Richards: “…Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels!”) and these movies were made to lift spirits during the Depression. But they are timeless in that they lift spirits over 70 years later. Astaire and Rogers films never fail to put a smile on my face – there’s predictable plots (lots of mistaken identity and boy-meets-girl-girl-hates-boy scenarios) and of course a bit of sexism but they are still essentially escapist fantasies.

In these films women were dames and men tried not to be heels. People got sore at one another and “gosh!” was the harshest exclamation. Isn’t there something so refreshing about that sort of simplicity? Before movies became dark and complicated, filled with explosives, sex and violence – there were people who danced their cares away and expressed their feelings to a delightful melody:

“Long as I can be with you, it’s a lovely day” HOW PERFECT IS THAT??

Fred was always seducing with dance, Ginger was always reluctantly falling for him and they were surrounded by a cast of characters who either conspired with them, or against them, were romantic rivals or bumbling idiots (I need to take a moment to rant about Randolph Scott in Follow the Fleet because this guy was a dick, OK? Lantern-Jawed-All-American “Bilge” – yes – BILGE! first ignores Ginger’s sister Connie when she wears glasses and isn’t a looker. Then she gets all dolled up and suddenly he’s in love! But then he ships out after promising to return to her aaaaand romances other women when he’s away. Meanwhile Connie refurbishes her father’s boat so when Bilge returns as a Captain he can sail it after they’re married. HOWEVER stupid Bilge has other non-Connie related romantic interests UNTIL he hears about the boat and then he’s back calling her “baby” again and generally making me shake my fists at the screen. Annoying Boy Shit existed always.)

But enough about THAT. What matters is that Fred was never less than impeccably tailored and Ginger had dresses that flowed like they were made of magic threads and everybody went to nightclubs with little lamps on the tables and there was always a happy ending and I’m so glad this thing of beauty exists in the world:

And just once in my life I WISH I could leave a room like this!

(If you’d like any recommendations from Grandma – I suggest The Gay Divorcee or Top Hat which these clips are from and are Astaire and Rogers films at the very pinnacle of what made them perfect.)

 

Oh my god I’m back again!

Sooooo – long time, no blog yet apparently people are still coming here to read old posts which is pretty cool considering I haven’t posted anything in almost 15 months!

When I left you I was swooning about The World’s Best Boyfriend who, I’m happy to report is still fulfilling that role. I still love me some Imaginary Men but of course spending time with a Real Guy does take away from my sitting-up-all-night-blogging-time (so does a new wake-up call of 6AM – ACK!)

What else? Oh I just, you know – bought a house. Yes after several years of commitment phobia I went and got a relationship AND a mortgage within a year of each other. You would think I am a GROWN-UP or something!

Don’t you love my new house?? (this is not my new house)

So plenty of energy that used to be dedicated to fantasizing about Pacey’s Pea Coats or Dreamy Vampire Brothers has been funneled into really sexy thoughts like bathroom remodels, caulking tools and home heating conversions (I know, I know – my life is VERY VERY COOL. Control yourself.)

And I guess some of my interests have changed and my need to write about them obsessively waned. I think that’s normal and I certainly still love a lot of things that are on this site (I’m looking at you Dowager Countess) and have discovered new interests because that’s what life is about – you grow and change and some things make the cut and some don’t.

I do have a confession to make and that is that I may now be less your Fun Sassy Girlfriend and more your Fun Sassy Grandma. The evidence: this winter I read two biographies of Frank Sinatra (speaking of obsessions – HOW could we not see Ronan Farrow is CLEARLY his kid?!) I got hooked on listening to the Cole Porter station on Pandora and when I saw The Fault in our Stars instead of getting all swoony for teen dream boat Augustus I kept thinking, “can we spend more time with Hazel’s parents? Because they seem really fun and awesome.” I’d like to think it was just residual feelings for Sam Trammell now that I’ve missed the last few seasons of True Blood – but I think it’s because I’m Your Grandma and Laura Dern seems really fun to hang out with (even when she’s pretending her daughter is dying of cancer so bravo for that specialized talent!)

But! I quoted the Backstreet Boys up above AND just saw them in concert (and got to keep my  Concert Bitch in check) and because Boy Bands are Never Not Awesome. I have some fun news coming up in the next week so I hope you’ll welcome me back into the big wide blogging world and that I remember how to link shit 🙂

 

Working Class Foo Fighter

Rick Springfield + Dave Grohl = AWESOMENESS!!!

I never would have guessed Rick’s catchy songs (that I’ve been singing along with since I was 9!!!) run through the Dave/Foo Fighters machine of Magnificent Loudness would work so f’ing well – but damned if it does!: