Sideways to Neverland

I saw two movies today. The first was FINDING NEVERLAND which I liked very much. The boy who played Peter is an amazing actor. He had me in tears when he was smashing up the playroom. Very primal emotions from such a young actor and very real. I always adore Kate Winslet. I keep waiting to not like her in something and it has yet to happen. If you can think of something I would not like her in please let me know. And Johnny Depp was lovely. My spouse can not yet forgive him for 21 JUMP STREET, but since I knew better even then and didn’t watch that tripe it doesn’t cloud my judgment.

I took the boys and my 10 year old niece with me. They didn’t cry and I assume that is because a dying mother is less sad when your own is sitting near you hogging the popcorn and embarrassing you in public. But I wept and wept and fell in love with Julie Christie. I think I will rent MCCABE AND MRS.MILLER (Is that the right title?) or DR.ZHAVAGO or something this week, before school starts and I become movie deprived.

Anyway FINDING NEVERLAND gets **** from me. To review - that means I loved it and you are welcome to form your own opinion. But you must love SIDEWAYS *****or I don’t want to know you. (Family members and the stupid are exempt.)

What can I say about SIDEWAYS? I was assuming that it was going to be like IN THE BEDROOM **** or LOST IN TRANSLATION *** in that I had heard so many great things that I was expecting the second coming and was therefore disappointed. But no, it was brilliant and funny and lovable and perfect. I have liked Paul Giamatti since (dare I admit it) PRIVATE PARTS *** (Yes the Howard Stern movie gets the same number of asterisks as Scarlett Johansson’s underpants extravaganza. It was enjoyable, dammit, and LOST IN TRANSLATION was like an outfit that you know looks great on you, but is the slightest bit uncomfortable. I never got caught up in it. And these asterisks are purely indicators of my enjoyment level not the quality of the movie. ) and I loved him (Paul Giamatti – this paragraph is about him although you may not remember at this point) in AMERICAN SPLENDOR **** but this movie made me adore him.

Alexander Payne made ELECTION**** which is one of my favorites. Reese Witherspoon can go ahead and be legally bland for the rest of her career and I will still respect her forever because of that movie. Her little pinched up face saying, "Fuck me, Mr. B., fuck me." in that bossy tone is the most splendid use of the F word in the movies, ever. The same thing goes for Nicole Kidman in TO DIE FOR****, I knew she was amazing from that and it took others quite a long time to recover from FAR AND AWAY** and the racecar movie she made with Tom Cruise and the bomb movie she made with George Clooney. But I knew from TO DIE FOR that she was amazing. Lattice of coincidence - I was just trying to remember what movie I was looking forward so seeing Joachim Phoenix in (he who was deeply disturbing in TO DIE FOR) and it is the Johnny Cash biopic costarring Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. Hmmm...

Back to SIDEWAYS, it was stellar. All four of the leads were magnificent. I don’t even remember seeing Virginia Madsen in anything before. And Sandra Oh kind of irritated me in UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN *** but she was spectacular in this. And do not even get me started on Thomas Haden Church. Lowell Mather, indeed.