Conference bookie::movies

Drew Barrymore surprised me in this role - I think she's going to have a
pretty good career ahead of her.  I enjoyed this movie as well, even if I
did find some of it a little hard to believe.  And a bonus for me was that
one of my favorite actors (James Remar) was in it - he has done a lot of
secondary roles, but I keep waiting for that one starring shot I'm sure
he'll get someday.... sigh...

RE: .1  ..."a chick flick"??? 

..as compared to a "rooster flick"?????

:^)

wise_guy_mac_who_could_not_resist_that_one!!!!

    
    	I thought Drew was pretty good in "Poison Ivy", with Tom Skerritt,
    	Cheryl Ladd and Sara Gilbert.
    

    
    I saw this Friday night.  I was fully expecting to hate it cause
    there's been so much press and hype, but I actually liked it a lot. 
    Most of the storyline has been left out of the trailer so it is worth
    seeing.  Mary Louise Parker did a really good job with her character
    _but_ I didn't really like her character all that much.  The scene with 
    her and James Remar, however, was great!  Barrymore and Goldberg were
    great and I loved the scene at Barrymore's apartment with the baseball
    bat.
    
    Go see it.
    
    MJ  
    

    I have to amend to my own note (.4)....
    
    The more time that goes by, the more I hate this movie.  Could any film
    have tried so hard to be PC?
    
    Any thought's on that?
    
    MJ

    
    	Hmm... I was thinking of catching this one on your review stating it
    	had nice subplots not revealed by the trailers. You initially liked 
    	the movie but now you do not after time?

    	How did it try to be PC? The realization that came after was strong
    	enough to override your first impressions with the movie?

    	-Erik

    To answer that I would give away a lot.  And hate is a strong word.  I
    don't hate it, it's just that the more I think about it the more
    nit-picky I get with it.  I still think you should see
    it.  It has a lot of great moments.  It just seems to be very
    intentionally politically correct as often as it was possible for the
    writers to get it in there.
    
    On the other hand, you could say that movie must be pretty good if I'm
    still mulling it over 2-3 weeks later.
    
    Maybe I'm over analyzing.  Go see it and tell me if you agree.
    
    MJ

    
    
    I'm not so sure if it was trying to be PC or if some of the topics are
    just still too "touchy" for the American public.  After all, AIDS and
    gays are still not easily talked about subjects.  Maybe the directors
    were afraid to get to deep into one particular subject for fear they
    may touch a "nerve" with a particular group.  I don't know....
    
    I still liked the movie though.
    
    Just my $.02

    It was OK.   Not bad, Not Great, Better than fair, I'd say Good. (**.5 / 4)
    
    The plot had no big surprizes.  "Chick Flick"???  I suppose, given the
    focus on woman-woman relationships and the male bashing scene.  
                                                        
    -dave

  I was tremendously surprised by this movie...  I really liked it!! It was
  quite an involving and emotional movie experience with gritty 'real-life'
  characters who were also wonderfully likeable.  I can't even think of the last
  time a Hollywood film got me so emotionally involved.  [In other words, "not
  bad for a Hollywood film"].

  This film was a complete surprise on many levels.  From the Hollywood promo
  scenes with Whoppi Goldberg, I expected an extremely weak and watered-down
  made-for-pop movie that was a cross somewhere between a mindlessly over-happy
  "Sister Act" and a poor-quality copy-cat spin-off of "Thelma and Louise"
  except lacking any mind-engaging social or political commentaries.  What I
  didn't expect was a film with such powerful imagery, characters and film
  making.

  Another surprise was the title.  All I knew about the movie was that it dealt
  with AIDS and lesbian sexuality, and I felt that these two were subjects
  impossible for Hollywood to do right by on either ground, given the divisive
  political nature of the issues.  I immediately thought the "Boys on the Side"
  title was going to represent the Hollywood stereotyped view equating feminism
  with lesbian sexuality and even that with renouncing all contact with men and
  declaring them an 'unnecessary' attribute in their female lives, something
  they'd only allow as an unimportant trivial occasional sexual-organ pursuit
  on the outer fringe of their "women-power" happy central lives (having boys
  on the side).  Who'd have thought the title referred to the lecture the
  heterosexual mother gave her heterosexual daughter about the importance of
  men and sexuality in their lives.  [The mother seemed true-to-life as well.
  I loved the scene where the mother is bragging about how much of a new-age
  independent woman she was, while in the background her second husband is seen
  struggling with carrying all of her suitcases.  The scene rang true with
  several self-declared independent female relatives of mine :-)].

  Another surprise were the men in the film.  From the title, from having heard
  this film being billed as a 'chick flick', and especially from the promo
  clips that showed seemingly rip-off images of "Thelma and Louise", I was
  expecting to sit through a film with extremely negative imagery of men
  (pseudo 'anti-male').  Except for one drug addict, all the male characters
  were positive portrayals and were also very likeable.  In fact the main male
  character was more than just a positive portrayal, he went far beyond the
  point of compassion that most HIV-negative men or women in middle America
  would go to for an HIV+ person they just met of the bus like that.  It was a
  tribute to Mary Louise Parker's acting that she created a character with such
  dignity and depth that I could see another man instantly falling in love with
  her like that, the way I was falling for her too.  It worked for me, it was
  believable, purely because of the incredible job she did with that character.

  It was the three main female characters that made the film work so well for
  me.  Each one connected with the audience in their own unique but extremely
  likeable ways.  The characters hooked me in, and I began to care about them
  and their outcomes.  And then at moments, the wonderful film making and
  powerful imagery nudged you beyond the emotionalism for the characters into
  (OK, I'll admit it) tears.  The last shot of the interior door in the
  morning-after scene was powerful enough, but then the final scene shot in
  black and white just completely broke the dam.  The characters really
  connected with the audience.  And with me.  The theatre was only half-full,
  but everyone stayed in their seats for another couple of minutes after the
  credits rolled.  I went home in a completely different state than I came in
  with.  That doesn't happen very often.

  Three cheers to Drew Barrymore, Whoppi Goldberg and especially Mary Louise
  Parker for making an excellent film (I wasn't a fan of Parker before but am a
  big one now).  The movie was simple at times but the three of them really
  connected with the audience and made it a powerful experience...  funny and
  moving and real life all at the same time.  It'd give it 4.5 stars out of 5
  stars for its film making, but a clean 5 stars for its emotional impact.
  This was no superficial 'chick flick' (hate that term) a la "Steel
  Magnolias."

  -Erik

  PS- This is also from someone who thought "Philadelphia" was a typically
  weak watered-down Hollywood movie (3.5 stars) that didn't impact me very
  much.  "Boys" was very much a 'real' film in my book.

>    The more time that goes by, the more I hate this movie.  Could any film
>    have tried so hard to be PC? Any thought's on that?
&    
>    It has a lot of great moments.  It just seems to be very
>    intentionally politically correct as often as it was possible for the
>    writers to get it in there.

  I really didn't understand this view at all.  I was watching for something in
  the movie that might feel PC but I didn't find anything.

  The movie didn't feel PC at all.  Instead it felt like a very true and
  'gritty' slice-of-life to me.  Not like some Sunday-school language PC
  idealized Roman Catholic white-washed view of the world where everyone is
  speaking 'correct' proper biblical old-english like a "Davey and Goliath"
  Sunday morning cartoon that wouldn't offend anyone over seventy years old.
  "Boys" had real language and it had real people...  featuring realistic
  characters that were displayed with all their true faults and strengths
  plainly visible.  

  I can't see what could possibly be seen as PC.  I felt the film stayed away
  from the typical sermonizing Hollywood always puts into its films in case you
  can't figure things out for yourself.  "Boys" presented a simple slice of
  life as it exists, leaving you to draw whatever messages you want from it.
  To me it felt fresh and even anti-PC, very un-Hollywood.

  They presented three likeable characters.  Amoung all the qualities and
  attributes the three of the characters happened to uniquely have and be, one
  also happened to be a lesbian, one also happened to be HIV+, and the other
  happened to be a mental-lightweight free-spirit.  The only thing I could see
  someone mislabelling 'PC' is the fact that a lesbian or HIV+ person was shown
  as a likeable character with many other personal characteristics and
  attributes shown rather than being a simple cardboard cutout Hollywood-usual
  stereotype icon whose only scenes in the film are limited to those which only
  show her as "being lesbian"? That's the only fault I can see someone having
  with this film from either extreme in the political debate.  It doesn't seem
  like a realistic gripe ("the lesbian was presented as a realistic person")
  someone here would have in a film though, at least I wouldn't think so? So
  I'm back to just not seeing where PC comes in again. 

  I just didn't see "PC" in this movie.  (Whereas I could understand it if
  someone said that about "Philadelphia").  It was a simple realistic slice of
  life for three rather-ordinary believable characters I thought.  It didn't
  feel like something that was typical of the sterile and obviously
  over-calculated stripped-of-realism usual TV sitcoms which often feel
  fearfully 'PC' to me.

  What did you find PC in the movie? I just can't see it...

  -Erik

    from sombody from the old world:
    
    what do you mean with "PC" ?
    I think it has nothing to do with "personal computer" :-)
    
    Andrea
    

In case you really don't know..... PC = politically correct

(as in "vertically challenged" instead of midget, or "horizontally 
challenged" instead of fat)

    I really did not know. My mother tongue is German !
    thanks for information.
    A. 

    Finally saw _Boys on the Side_ this weekend and really liked it.
    Unfortunately, I saw it at the $1.50 theater in Nashua and they
    had a really bad print.  The sound was so bad I kept wincing.  I
    thought their speakers were blown, but my fellow movie-goers assure
    me it didn't sound like that during the preview.  Oh well, I guess
    I'll have to see it again sometime.
    
    I ran the gamut of emotions during this film.  Exasperation at the
    woman who wants to go back to her abusing boyfriend, joy at the
    various proofs of friendship, sadness and pain at the woman dying
    of AIDS, etc.  I particularly liked Whoopi Goldberg in this film,
    although I thought they all did a fine job.  I also enjoyed the 
    occasional nods to Thelma and Louise, such as "I'm not going over
    a cliff for you!"
    
    I give it 3.5 out of 4 stars and expect to see it again when it 
    comes out on video.
    
    Karen.

    I saw this with my pal, .15.
    
    
    I found the movie (bad print aside) pretty uneven.  I can see where a
    previous noters feelings of "over PC-dom" came from, although I have to
    admit I thought it was a case of silly dialog and a script that tried
    too damned hard to be a "woman's movie" than huge doses of that which
    is Politically Correct.  The attempt to balance seriousness with comedy
    didn't quite work for me, at least in the mix during the film.  
    
    Not a terrible film, but it certainly didn't qualify as a top-notch
    examination of the relationships between women.  
    
    ** out of ****
    
    
    kim

    

    I saw this last weekend...I really enjoyed it.....some really funny
    parts especially at the supper table....and Drew looked great at the
    very end.......definitely worth seeing...would watch it again too....
                                                             mary

    Under normal circumstances I would not have selected this movie from
    our local video store but it was the Easter weekend (everything was
    closed) and it was late in the day ... well it turned out to be a good
    selection.  I expected the movie to be focused on Whoppi Goldberg,
    after all she's the "big star" in this one but no... Mary Louise Parker
    and Drew Barrymore held their own.  I would even say that Mary Louise
    was the jewel in this movie.  I misunderstood the story from the very
    beginning - the clerk at the video store briefly told me the story is
    based on three women who get together one is abused by her husband and
    this is where I thought "raped" � la Thelma & Louise, this is not the
    case.
    
    I'm glad the clerk did not specifically state "it's a story about three
    women, an AIDS victim, a lesbian, and an abused partner" I would have
    most likely returned the box to it's shelf.  It's a good movie which
    both my husband and I liked.  I found it dragged in some spots but that
    may be due to simple exhaustion on my part (I worked in the yard most
    of the afternoon raking and pruning trees and today we have snow 8^) ).
    One small nit, they say the F word quite a lot.
    
    It's a good rental.  Try it.
    
    PChaplinsky