Pretty Woman – Rahab
Tweet (AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the only R-rated movie I’ve used in this series. I’ve only seen it on TV so some scenes may have been deleted. The rating code mentions sexual material, but since it’s about a prostitute that is a given. Made about 30 years ago, the version I saw is mild compared to current movies or TV.) The 1990 Garry Marshall-directed romantic comedy Pretty Woman is a semi-Cinderella tale. Except the sweet heroine isn’t scrubbing fireplaces and {Read More}
What Will I Leave in My Wake?
Tweet As I sit here, there are watercraft running up and down the lake before me. Each boat or jet ski that passes creates a wake behind it. That wake becomes a small wave the originates from one small place, but casts its impact all the way to the waters edge some hundreds of yards away. Everything in the path of that wake moves on top of the water because of the impact of the wave. I can’t help but wonder what {Read More}
Steel Magnolias – Two Mothers
Tweet Steel Magnolias (1989) is a movie about six women of varying ages in a small parish in Louisiana. We see glimpses of their lives and friendship over several years through times of joy and suffering. It is especially the story of M’Lynn Eatenton, Sally Field’s character, and her daughter Shelby (Julia Roberts) who is planning her (very pink) wedding. We get to know the women as they get their hair done and discuss life at the beauty shop {Read More}
Abigail and Ever After
Tweet What movie has a fairy godmother, a pumpkin that turned into a carriage and a glass slipper? Would you guess Cinderella? Walt Disney’s classic animated version of Cinderella is beautiful with the lovely blonde girl who sings like an angel and the little singing mice that wear clothes. But for a more believable story line, the best choice may be a modern version called Ever After: A Cinderella Story. It doesn’t have a pumpkin or a fairy godmother. The {Read More}
Anna and Titanic the Movie
Tweet What was the first movie to have two nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress—playing the same character? If you said Titanic, you’re right. In the 1997-released Titanic, two women played Rose. Kate Winslet played “Young Rose.” And 86-year-old Gloria Stuart, an actress most active in the 1930s, played “Old Rose.” Titanic garnered 11 Academy Awards. It won the first Best Picture Award for a film produced, directed, written and edited by the same person, James Cameron, {Read More}
It’s a Wonderful Life – Noah’s Wife
Tweet The 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life came out as the Second World War was ending and everyone needed a feel-good story. Produced in black and white (and colored later), it didn’t make much of a splash at the time, but it has become an enduring classic, played on many TV channels at Christmas and ranking 24th on an internet movie site’s survey of the best movies of all time. That is all the more remarkable because all the {Read More}
Gone with the Wind and the Widow of Zarephath
Tweet When you read the title, you may have gone: say what? At first blush there seems to be little resemblance between the movie Gone with the Wind and its main character Scarlett O’Hara and the biblical account of the widow of Zarephath. But, as I tried to think of stories where hunger was a significant issue for the main woman character, this movie came to mind. Gone with the Wind was the first book I ever stayed up all {Read More}
Baby Boom and Hannah
Tweet In the 1987 film Baby Boom, J. C. Wiatt, played by Diane Keaton, is the consummate career woman, an executive on the fast track to a vice-presidency with a large company. She lives with her boyfriend in a spotless ultra-modern New York apartment. But her life changes radically when she receives an inheritance from a cousin in England. Imagining it to be the deed to a castle or an exotic treasure, J. C. meets the bearer of the inheritance {Read More}
Women’s Rights and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Tweet Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a 1954 musical comedy based on the short story “The Sobbin’ Woman” by Stephen Vincent Benet. It’s one of those oldies and goodies that I’ve watched many times and that never grows old. When I showed it to my young teen granddaughters, who had never heard of it, they were entranced and amazed. Handsome (baritone) Howard Keel plays Adam Pontipee, the eldest of seven brothers, who leaves his backwoods home in the Rockies {Read More}
While You Were Sleeping ~ Leah
Tweet While You Were Sleeping (1995) is a charming chick-flick in which Sandra Bullock plays Lucy, a toll booth clerk on the Chicago elevated railway. Because she has no family, she usually works the holiday shifts. She is a plain girl (makeup artists tried to make Bullock look plain, but only succeeded in making her look shabby). Lucy thinks she is in love with a handsome commuter, Peter (played by Peter Gallagher), who takes the train almost daily. However, he {Read More}
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