Movie Review Monday #6

Before Emily and I were even dating our current husbands, we planned to prepare for our weddings by watching all our favorite wedding movies. And sure enough, during my engagement, she sent me gifts of wedding movie DVD's and we had some great fun re-watching some of our favorites like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Fools Rush In, Princess Bride. Man, I must be forgetting tons, cause we had quite a list. Emily - why don't you work up a post of our wedding movies? Oh wait, you're about to deliver a baby. Scratch that. 


Emily's due date is coming up, and we really want Eiley to come early for insurance reasons. So Lobsters, I invite you to join with me in cheering Eiley on to get those contractions started and come quick and smooth before July 1 if at all possible. To cheer her on, I would like to provide a list of some of my favorite baby movies I enjoyed, leading up to my own delivery. 


1) Baby Mama. 

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a Tina Fey fan. What you may not have known is that I'm even more of an Amy Poehler fan. I ADORE Parks and Rec. Getting these two into a comedy about having babies together is movie genius. That's just all there is. 


2) Juno. 

Ellen Page and Michael Cera are just two adorable people. It doesn't hurt to have Rainn Wilson in there either, "That ain't no Etch A Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be undid, Homeskillet." Witty and endearing with delightful music throughout. "Anyone else but you" is one of my favorite songs, thanks to Juno. 


3) Away we Go. 

I probably mostly watched this because I am a fan of the Office and therefore John Krasinski. But I was delightfully surprised at how clever and insightful it was at capturing the anxieties of building a home for a young expecting couple [a phase of life I'm intimately familiar with right now]. Also, the stroller scene nearly made me wet my pants from laughing so hard. 


4) Life as We Know It. 

While I do not want to advocate for all of their parenting methods - like shoving a baby down when she's about to take her first steps for example - this movie wins as a fun romantic comedy and a touching baby movie all in one - double score. Furthermore, I'm a sucker for movies about women who cook for a living [for example, I love "No Reservations" even though I usually hate Catherine Zeta Jones] and it doesn't hurt that the baby's name is Sofie [my baby's name is Sofia].  


5) Bella

Ok. To be honest, I didn't get to watch this while I was pregnant, but I really enjoyed this film and have never quite heard as much praise for it as I think it deserved. It's more on the dramatic rather than funny end. I found it both thought provoking and endearing. Beautifully done. 


Huh - strange number of films here about adoption, but that's ok. I would urge pregnant women to stay away from movies like Shutter Island. Well done film and all. Complete and total mistake to watch that when I was hormonal and expecting. If you've seen it, you know why. Also Revolutionary Road was another bad decision during pregnancy, and Inception, though one of my favorite movies of all time, gave me intense nightmares during pregnancy. Something about Leonardo DiCaprio - weird. Anyways - I hope you can enjoy some of these in these final days, Pyg [and other pregnant or baby crazed Lobsters]. 


For Jeff - I recommend The Switch

Surprisingly thoughtful and endearing portrayal of a father's relationship with his son. With the stars from FRIENDS and Arrested Development in a movie together, you wouldn't expect something quite as sweet as what comes out. 


Lobsters, can you think of any great baby-themed films I'm forgetting?

Bossypants: A Conversational Review

We'd like to thank the wonder that is gchat for the following conversation about Bossypants by Tina Fey:





zoe: hullo!

emily: yo yo yo

zoe: so, you finished Bossypants, eh?

emily: indeed! i sat in barnes and noble for 2.5 hours on Saturday and finished it. so i didn't buy the book, but i was a sitting advertisement for them that whole time. i made sure the cover was visible and everything.

zoe: i did buy the book - a special splurge for myself. worth every penny.

emily: i almost wish i'd purchased it because i think it would be fun to read aloud to jeff.

zoe: so . . . do you not feel like her "voice" is similar to your personality/writing style? I just couldn't stop thinking of you the whole way through

emily: i feel horribly arrogant agreeing, but yes. not through the whole thing (i have not yet reached levels of comedic brilliance equal to something like her prayer for her daughter, for example), but occasionally yes.

i think what i loved about it was that i felt like i could be friends with her. she intertwines her thoughts on producing a major network television show with her struggle to plan a good birthday party with her daughter.

zoe: That writing device was so fun and also so profound. She effectively dignified motherhood as being similarly important as running a TV show and worth glorifying.

emily: exactly. i also plan to repeat one of her thoughts to myself whenever people say dumb things about my mothering skills (which i've heard happens to all mothers at some point). she said something like "no one ever says you HAVE to give birth when you're pregnant. if it's something you actually have to do, it doesn't need to be said."

zoe: that was so great - and unfortunately an important tool to have in your arsenal. i'm amazed at how everyone has an opinion about how to mother your child.

emily: blech, i'm not looking forward to that. i don't take criticism of any kind well.

zoe: i recently got a whole slew of that. everything from judgy-looks to full out comments. but the strangest thing was - they would be amazed at how good of a baby she was, then turn right around and tell me I was mothering her wrong. If I’m getting such great results, why are my methods so wrong?

emily: man. i would have punched them in the face.

zoe: another great comeback i can't get over is when someone uses a curse word to refer to her. She says, "No. You don't get to call me that. My parents love me; I'm not some[one] that's going to take that *%^&." No one ever calls her that word again - to her face at least. I love it. I really hope I can raise Sofia in such a way that if ever anyone dares say something so awful to her, she would have the same response. Someone should work that into anti-bullying programs!

emily: hahaha yes, that is brilliant.

other reasons i loved bossypants:

1.    i was either laughing or had a stupid grin on my face the whole time i was reading.

2. she is honest about what's rough about being famous (idiotic comments on the internet) and what's awesome about being famous (photoshoots)

3. she and her husband are still married and get to be fun and creative together.

4. her daughter's name is alice, and not carrot or beast or october or anything. (i realize that’s a reason i love tina, and not specifically the book, but still…)

and 5. i already had an affinity for the tina. i admit she could have written something less awesome than this and i would have still enjoyed it to some degree.

zoe: true. i think it did end up exceeding my expectations though.

just like Date Night - I thought "Steve Carrell and Tina Fey in a movie together? That's too brilliant to have any real possibility of being all that good/funny" but it really really was. so funny that i could not watch it after my C-section cause it hurt my abs so bad to laugh that much

emily: haha awesome

zoe: other female comedians believe this myth that only men can be funny - so in order to get a laugh - they try to tell jokes that men would tell. but the thing is, funny men are ones that name surprising, unspoken truths about their own personal experience. But the woman comic isn't personally experiencing being a man. Tina, on the other hand, is funny because she names surprising, unspoken truths about being a woman. so she cracks the male-comedian code and dispels the myth about female-comedians by being so effective herself.

  

emily: i totally agree. basically, she’s brilliant.

Zoe gives bossypants two claws up. So does Emily. That’s four claws up, Lobsters. Go buy (or read in the bookstore) Bossypants today. We command you!