Daily Dose | Top Ten Holiday Flicks

It’s the holiday season, yes I know that here in the States, Thanksgiving is still three weeks away, but we’re already doing the holiday shuffle. We have two birthday parties, one to attend and one to throw. We’re hosting the family for Turkey Day or in our case, Honeybaked Ham Day. There are school projects and writer’s conferences, a book release and school vacation, not to mention a panel on vampires, a tea, a readers group, NaNoWriMo – okay, I’m getting tired just thinking about it. But beyond all the things to do and the places to go, the holiday season is about downtime too. Down time where we get to watch movies, such as our annual viewing of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a holiday classic when decorating the tree.

Holiday Top Flicks

It’s a time to revisit some of the best holiday and romantic holiday movies perfect for viewing anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My daughter has so many favorites now that we literally have to stack the decks with the films so that everyone gets to watch the ones they want to see before the big C day when we watch the parades, open presents and kick back to relax. So, in no particular order here are the top ten holiday flicks for 2009.

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Sandi Shilhanek |The Great Debate: Read the Book or Watch the Movie?

If you follow my contributions to this blog you know that I often get my inspiration from one of my many yahoo groups. Thanks to one of those groups I have my idea for this week…. what is your opinion of books made into movies?



The book being discussed is The Secret Life of Bees, which I personally have not read. I have not seen the movie either, but am being led to believe it shall soon be available on DVD.

So the dilemma is…do I read the book first or watch the movie first?

What would you do?

What about when you have already read a book, such as when I had already read The Pelican Brief by John Grisham, and then it was turned into a movie.

Naturally I had to see the movie, and I felt very satisfied that the movie followed the book.

However, when I read The Client (my personal favorite Grisham book) I was disappointed when I saw the movie because I didn’t think it followed the book well at all.

This leads to the idea of Harry Potter…the books versus the movies. Naturally they can’t put everything from such a large book into a movie. Should they break it into several movies, or should they do as Reader’s Digest does and show a condensed version?

As you can see I’ve got lots of questions and not many answers about books and the movies they turn into. I’m hoping that because you came here to read this week’s contribution that you can provide me with some good answers, or at least some interesting ideas to ponder.

Until next week...

Sandi
DFW Tea Readers
Readers 'n 'ritas...celebrating literary obsessions

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Gwen Reyes | 2009 Goals, Movies and Blathering...

2009 is going to be my year! I've set my goals, realistically of course, and already brainstormed how this is going to happen. I’m looking forward to it no longer being 2008, one of the most difficult and stressful years of my young life, however I’m more looking forward to 2009 being the year of Gwen. I’m ready to leave my comfortable shelter and venture out into the big, bad world.

But honestly before I start anything crazy or at least different, I still have some beefs to address. Yes, one of my goals this year is to stop getting dramatic over silly things (like celebrity gossip and my imaginary boyfriends), but that does not mean I can stop giving my opinion about bad movies and the ever overhyped “Awards Season.” I say that with very dramatic air quotes.

So far only the Golden Globes and a handful of Critics Associations have doled out their opinions and awards. The only one that matters to me is Independent Spirit Awards. You were thinking I was going to say the Oscars, but after watching half of the movies up for consideration, I vote no for the Oscars in 2009. I enjoyed THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJIMAN BUTTON when I saw it under the name of FORREST GUMP or FRIED GREEN TOMATOES. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD lost my interest after I saw the preview before MILK. BUT, that brings me to my favorite studio movie of the year (not counting DARK KNIGHT), MILK.

MILK is a beautifully detailed, however inaccurate some people will say, biography of San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official Harvey Milk. Sean Penn transforms himself into the title character. He completely loses his usual toughness and embraces a tenderness rarely seen from the actor. I could not stop leaning over to my movie buddy to announce how amazing I found the movie and how much I didn’t want it to end.

Just like in TITANIC, we know what happens at the end. Milk foreshadows his own brutal murder in the opening monologue, but by the end of the film you still can’t believe such an influential and prolific figure left us so young. This film unintentionally mirrors the current Proposition 8 controversy in California as Milk battles to stop Proposition 6—the right for companies, leasing offices, and schools to discriminate based on sexual orientation—from affecting the homosexual citizens of California. As the film spans 15 years of Milk’s life, we experience all his ups and downs, pleasures and pratfalls, and his eventual and untimely death. This is the best movie of the “Awards Season,” and I could not think of a more appropriate “thinking film” for 2009.

Gwen Reyes
DFW Tea Readers Group and FILM club

P.S. I Love You...

This weekend I went to see P.S. I Love You starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler based on the book by Cecelia Ahern. I prepared myself all week for a tearjerker, and that is definitely what I got. However, I never expected to spend the entire length of the film crying. And when I say crying, I mean, having to bite my lip to keep myself from sobbing uncontrollably in a theater full of people I did not know. Not that I like to cry in theaters full of people I do know, but that is beside the point. This movie was overwhelmingly sad; and however enjoyable, put me in a somber mood for the rest of the day. Now, I’m normally one for a good melodrama, because honestly there is nothing better than hugging a pillow and a box of Puffs while watching Lana Turner or Bette Davis crumple into balls of insecurity and heartbreak to make you feel better about your own life and romantic situation. But today, P.S. I Love You just tore out my soul.

The film revolves around Holly Kennedy (Swank) as she receives letters from her husband (Butler) throughout the first year of his death. The letters encourage her to not only celebrate Gerry’s life, but to also move on with her own. She tries desperately to find meaning in his death and a place without Gerry, but constantly encounters setbacks keeping her from healing. The tragedy in this movie is not Gerry’s death and Holly’s abandonment; it’s that the filmmakers never give the audience a moment to breathe between the dramatic scenes. So many times throughout the film I found myself unable to focus because I was just expecting another hysterical sobbing fit to overtake me. Even in the most emotional films, the director breaks the tension with periods of levity, but the lightest scenes in P.S. I Love You felt contrived and sloppy. More attention needed to be paid to balancing the tragedy with the comedy. The best quality of the film was its realistic portrayal of grief, and how death affects everyone, even those on the outside.

Oh, and P.S. Gerard Butler should do more old man strip teases...just sayin'