Chick Flicks

Everyone who knows me knows I don't do chick flicks. I can't. I find most of them over-the-top, inane and just downright stupid. To like a movie, you need to buy into what it's saying, even if it's not believable-and there are not many chick flicks that can do that for me-and most of them are from the 30's and 40's. However, I watched two in the past two weeks (I'm not quite sure how that happened, now I need to watch The Terminator again) one of them was In Her Shoes. This was a really good movie-I was startled at how good it was. Cameron Diaz (last seen in that crappy movie The Holiday-the one that helped convince me I hate chick flicks) was really good. In g=fact, I got quite irritated as I realized that while she was really good in this, she's made not only terrible movies ever since, she's also chosen terrible parts. What happened? She plays a woman who is a mess-she's dyslexic (which means that she can't read the teleprompter for the job she wants), she's screwing people left and right-a guy she met at her high school reunion, some other guy she meets by chance, various and sundry guys who name she never learns. She can't keep a job and winds up crashing with her sister-the lawyer. The responsible one, who is a little overweight and wears glasses, played by the wonderful Toni Collette. However, this all goes to hell when Cam sleeps with a guy who was supposed to have a date with her sister and her sister walks in on them. Toni throws Cam and she doesn't know what to do-there's nowhere to go-Dad and his bitchy wife (their mother died when they were very young) are out of the question...but she manages to find a very old birthday from her Grandmother and tracks her down in a retirement community in Florida. The fact that Grandma is played by Shirley MacLaine also put me off. I've never liked her and all her movies annoy me-the "cute" ones she made in the Sixties, to the "hip" ones she made in the Seventies-and don't get started on the Eighties, because I HATED Terms of Endearment. The best movie of that year was The Right Stuff and I'll stand by that until the day I die. That said, Shirley was actually pretty good as the cranky Grandma who hasn't seen Cam in many years and is a little baffled as to why she's come to visit. In the meantime, while Cam is hanging out with the older folks, reading to them and actually earning some money, her sister has quit her job and taken up dog-walking to earn a living. She loses some weight, meets great guy-and freaks about her relationship with the great guy and the whereabouts of her sister-and runs away to meet up with Cam and Grandma. So, Cam finds her calling helping the older ladies find great clothes and accessories, she calls the boyfriend and brings him to Florida on a ruse and all's well that ends well. I admit that I wasn't really looking forward to this movie-but it was really good. Cam plays the lost girl very well-and you don't like her very much when she's sleeping with her sister's crush. But by the end of the movie, she grown up, a bit. She recognizes her faults and what she's done and she atones for it, while her sister, at first crushed by it, gains self-confidence and moves on-she forgives Cam and is a better person for it. And even Shirley is good as the cranky Grandma who is happy to see her grandchildren, even if it means coming face-to-face with how her daughter died. And I cried at the wedding scene. What's wrong with me?

My other chick flick was Nine Lives. I don't have much to say about this movies-it was very good, the performances in it were touching and really good (except when they're being acidic or mean) and it was REALLY depressing. Robin Wright Penn was wonderful, Holly Hunter was sexy and mean-they were all good but I couldn't watch it again, even for William Fitchner, who I can't take my eyes of of-I just couldn't do it. I hope my Netflix movie is something more cheerful...