Favorite Film of 2008, Hands Down, No Doubt About It, I Really Mean it, Holy Moses.

So I've been sick, and have spent my time watching a LOT of movies. The best (by far) I hadn't seen before was Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) directed and written by Mike Leigh who also wrote and directed Secrets and Lies (1996) another film I really like, but haven't seen in years. Happy-Go-Lucky stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy, an optimistic English school teacher who loves life and the people in it, no matter their occasional unwillingness to play along.

Normally when I want to be put in a cheery mood, I go for a romantic comedy (Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, etc). I personally don't come across many sweet, happy movies that don't involve a happy romantic ending. I am also a connoisseuse of the female power film (if you can call them that....) but few of those leave you REALLY truly happy at the end. Usually those films (I'm talking things like Shirley Valentine (1989), The First Wives Club (1996), Sweet Charity (1969), An Unmarried Woman (1978)) are really great, but there's still a hint of a feeling at the end: these women are alone in the world somehow, unless they keep finding love. Sure, sure they're all optimistically looking into the future, and their relationships with friends and family might be there to a degree, but a part of me is left looking at these heroines, wondering, "Will she be all right?" once the credits start to roll. The movie Happy-Go-Lucky isn't about finding love and holding onto it, it's about giving love and being happy and grateful for life itself, finding the fun, the joy, experiencing it. At the end of this movie, I am not worried that Poppy won't survive if her new relationship fails. I'm not worried that she'll lose hope and be left alone. Poppy has faith in the world around her and faith in herself no matter the day of the week. What's more, I think the friend love story in this film is so believable and endearing, so beautiful. On a sidenote, it's funny because Sally Hawkins reminds me physically of Parker Posey but they play such totally different characters. If you're looking for a depressed girl romantic comedy to play double feature to this, I suggest Broken English (2007).

I am my own label: a true story

Once upon a time there was a girl who had but one top designer item, this being a vintage Ungaro skirt purchased for about ten dollars at a thrift store. Then one week this girl went to the Bon Marché in Paris and was dizzied by the things she couldn't afford, but too thirsty for shopping to not spend over twenty times what she normally would on a pair of Chanel sunglasses, thinking that her terrible luck with sunglasses would end with the blessing of Coco. A month or so later that same girl lost that same pair of Chanel shades in the vast city of New York. Surprise ending!! The girl was yours truly.

At first I was frightened, ridden with guilt over the ludicrous amount of money I'd spent, and then lost. I beat myself up, called myself stupid. Miraculously, the next day, a weight had been lifted and has never since returned. I've come to a wise conclusion that probably anybody can relate to: we are not defined by the material things in our lives. Value is not determined by cost or label. No, no, no, no, no. To let something like this haunt you is to admit to being weak and (pardon me if anyone takes offense) utterly, inexcusably ridiculous. Now, okay, I'll admit that if it had been a vintage Chanel suit or dress I lost, my heart might still be hurting. But at the end of the day, it is my earnest hope and desire that the tears I shed in life be over the love I've lost and gained, not over the things, no matter their label, no matter the money spent. And besides, the glasses always slipped off my nose when I put my head down, and they were very cute but I believe in my heart that the glasses and I were just not meant to have a long term relationship. I hope that some nice girl who couldn't afford them found them where I left them and was thrilled. It's a lovely thought, anyway.

The truth is that one of my favorite sweaters is vintage and cost me a mere 25 cents. Things don't have to be famous and mass-produced to be valuable or to make you look good, feel good or like yourself. I must admit that in Paris, I felt like an odd duck, too quirky and colorful to blend in somehow, but I feel it's time to embrace my weirdness yet again, to parade myself in my eccentric glory and not care what the magazines tell me a woman should be and wear. And after all, Coco Chanel was once a girl without money, who made her own rules, stuck out, and later became a fashion icon. Here's to karma, to the unpredictability of life, and to realizing that being yourself is far more special than owning expensive things.

je reviens...encore

I've been away in New York City and am home again, home again. Since being home I've made beautiful red velvet cupcakes and fallen ill. Today I'll be taking it easy and catching up on the last season of Mad Men (I love that so many of the bloggers I follow are equally enamored with this aesthetically scrumptious program). I think I'll just post some of my favorite photos of the trip. I edited them a little to make them even prettier.

Mean Red Dress Up

I've been awfully bored this summer. I seem to have a lot of fun followed by a lot more boredom. I've had a sore throat and a headache the past day or two so at least I can blame all my silly movie-watching and lying around on that. Today I watched The Seven Year Itch (1955). It was pretty entertaining, and I appreciate Marilyn Monroe even if she's not my favorite. A part of me feels sorry for her when I watch her films, because I see her as a woman who was so hugely objectified. I suppose all movie stars are, and women are objectified all the time no matter what, but anyway, I appreciate her for being so curvaceous. Right now, I am about three hundred miles from the gamine Audrey Hepburn physique, so it's comforting to see an hourglass figure in a movie.

What have I done today? Why, played dress up and put on lots of different hats of course!

Everything thrift or vintage, from antique stores/thrift stores, except the blue dress which came from the Sloane boutique, and the grey/black jacket which came from Myer in Melbourne.

...and they all go to the seashore!

Melina Mercouri as Ilya, followed by my attempt to channel her finesse....it's a small life I lead.

Never on Sunday (1960) is a Greek and English language film directed by Jules Dassin, starring Melina Mercouri and himself. Melina Mercouri was nominated for an Oscar and won the Cannes Film Festival prize for best actress for her role as Ilya, "the prostitute with no price." I never fully understood what was meant by "no price." I assume it meant that she does get paid for her work, but only by the men she chooses to...uh...work for/with. Ilya is a charming character. Everyone loves her and probably because she loves everyone. Her spirit is joyful, she's beautiful inside and out and her only enemy is the man who forces the other "working girls" to pay ludicrously high rent. I like this story more than the story found in Pretty Woman (1990), because in this story, the woman isn't rescued from her life. I don't know how to feel about the whole prostitution bit. Generally, I don't think of a prostitute as a happy person with a full life, good friends and a good roof over her head, but in this story, that is exactly what this...fille de joie is. When an American man named Homer (played by Dassin) comes along in the hopes of "saving" her from immorality, he tries to play Pygmalion. What I like here is that the woman wins. She's a powerful person, and truly grabs life by the jugular, living it and seeing it the way she wants to. She loves going to the theatre to see the Greek tragedies but in retelling the stories later, she twists them from her perspective so that they all end happily with the line, "and they all went to the seashore!" This woman is optimism, and love embodied and though she expresses it in ways that some would be incapable of understanding, one important line explains the message perfectly. "If anyone will save Ilya, it's Tonio." "Why Tonio?" "Because with love, it is possible."

I hate to give the movie away, but this scene is priceless. Here, Ilya discovers that Homer has been playing the Taming of the Shrew card with her. There's a man or two in the world I would LOVE to chase around a room with a broomstick whilst raising hell. In other words: I like this scene a lot.

shirt: Kohls, skirt: Nordies, belt: Goodwill

Ghost of yesterday

I've always been a nerd about anything to do with the past. I've always loved old movies, old fashioned style, old fashioned anything. For example, I started listening to Billie Holiday when I was eleven for absolutely no reason save the fact that Fred Meyer's exceptionally meager jazz section contained some of her cds. I'm a weirdo for things that happened long before my birth. This can also be seen in my love of photos of my paternal grandmother. She died before I could meet her and I know very little about her except that her name was Audree and she was a loving soul with great style. I can't remember where she grew up (Missouri?), but I feel she moved around a little (much as I did when I was a kid). After she married my grandfather, she lived in Virginia for the remainder of her life. I always love looking at her photos, especially when I'm feeling a bit down, and today I took it upon myself to finally scan all my favorites. Here's the link to all of them on flickr, if you'd like to see more.

Crime doesn't pay, but Hollywood does!

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty vs. the real Bonnie and Clyde.

A couple weeks ago I watched Bonnie and Clyde (1967), directed by Arthur Penn, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. I saw this film when I was a wee prepubescent (I'm guessing about ten or eleven) and had forgotten most of it. I mean, I didn't even remember that Gene Hackman had a substantial role (who doesn't love that guy?). I've been on a massive 1930s kick for the past year or more, and I put this movie on (thanks, Netflix) while I cleaned my bedroom. It's not one of my top favorites but it's another sinking ship story and I have a special place in my heart for those. I think the tragic criminal hero is one that draws people because we all feel like that a little bit, deep deep down. We make mistakes, we crave an escape from a world that isn't easy. Most of us don't go risking our necks for some idealized freedom, and we don't go ballistic when we get the urge. Movies about bank robbers during the Great Depression are very romantic in a sense. Desperate people doing horribly desperate things. It's like watching an addiction from the beginning to the end, a web that can't be un-spun. There's something I love about that. The characters are nutty, but you care about them, and when they die, it's more of a good feeling, like how I assume I was supposed to feel at the end of Thelma and Louise (1991). In conclusion, Bonnie and Clyde is a film I can get behind (at least once a decade).

In other Great Depression gangster movie news, I managed to see the new film about John Dillinger, Public Enemies (2009) directed by Michael Mann, starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale. I feel this film loses some of the 1960s warm and fuzziness of say, a Paul Newman-type criminal hero film. The only glamour can be found in the gorgeous costumes (oh baby those suits and hats and SUNGLASSES). The film lacks something, and I can't even tell you what. I felt it was well acted but maybe the more modern, attempted realism of the film made it lose a little heart. I read about John Dillinger here and it seems like the older ladies sitting behind me in the theatre were quite correct in whispering that the film was getting some facts wrong (as it happens, I read a little on the Barrow Gang, and there are many details missing from Bonnie and Clyde as well). The film was interesting, and very violent, and maybe the fact that I didn't care quite as much for it simply proves that it reminds the audiencethat (most?) people who kill other people are scary and dangerous....

Look at his SUNGLASSES! Oh, and there's the real Dillinger.

I also have to include the following picture for one reason and one reason alone: Look at the expression on this adorable man's face. There he is on set with his gigantic pretend killing machine and he has the face of a person who wouldn't hurt a fly. Le sigh....oh and that suit.

P.S. Here's the link to some Bonnie Parker poems. There's even a picture of a page from her notebook with her handwriting.