Tuesday, March 30, 2010

(The) Shawshank Redemption

I shouldn’t like this movie. Almost the entire movie takes place in a prison, there are two scenes I find hard to watch, and the bad guys in this movie aren’t the ones you expect them to be….. BUT I do love this movie and I think you will too because Stephen King has created a collection of characters that are so interesting you want to follow them on their journey and find out what happens to each one of them along the way. There is the message too…there’s always hope.

I give you permission, as if you needed it, to close your eyes or go get popcorn during those two parts I mentioned, but you will want to keep them open for the rest. I promise; it is that good of a movie.

Special Note: This movie is based on a novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. There are some differences between the novella and the movie so you might want to read Stephen King’s piece too.

Quotes

(Cross-stitch on the wall of Warden Norton’s office which covers the prison safe): “His judgment cometh and right soon..”

Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't take that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.


Andy Dufresne: Get busy living, or get busy dying.
(Repeated by Red later in the movie)


Red: Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.

Plot Summary

It’s the late 1940s and banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), is accused and convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, based on circumstantial evidence. Calmly maintaining his innocence, he is sentenced to life in a Maine prison called Shawshank State Penitentiary which is run by a bible quoting warden named Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton).

Andy keeps to himself at first, but eventually makes friends with the prison’s “scrounger” (think the James Garner character in the movie The Great Escape) named Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding (Morgan Freeman). Red is serving a life sentence for a crime he committed as a very young man. Their friendship begins when Andy asks Red for a rock hammer, in order to maintain his rock collection hobby (Andy eventually makes a chess set). Later he asks Red for a full-size poster of Rita Hayworth which he puts on his cell wall and replaces over the years with various other “bombshells” like Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch.

While tarring the prison roof, Andy overhears the Captain of the Guards Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown) complain about having to pay taxes on an inheritance. Andy takes an incredible risk by walking over and explaining to Hadley how to legally reduce his tax liability on his soon-to-be windfall. Hadley accepts Andy's advice and rewards him and his fellow “work gang” (and soon-to-be friends) with a beer break up on the prison roof once the tarring job is done. Andy goes from doing laundry and other “menial labor chores” to giving out financial advice and doing the taxes of the guards – eventually he comes to the attention of the warden and does similar legal and non-legal work for him. About this time he also asks and is granted permission to start a prison library, where Red and some of his other friends work. He also helps more than one prisoner get their GED.

Life has taken an upward turn until Andy comes into the radar of the Sisters, led by inmate Bogs (Mark Rolston). Remember those scenes I told you about – this might be the time you want to go for popcorn, but they are not graphic – they are like the old movies of the 1930s and 1940s – you KNOW what is going to happen, but they pan away before it does (still I find them disturbing). Andy fights the good fight, but winds up in the prison infirmary. Hadley (captain of the guards) brutally beats Bogs, leaving the deviant paralyzed and the remaining Sisters finally leave Andy alone.

The bible quoting and self-righteous Warden Norton eventually creates a scheme to use prison labor for public works, undercutting the cost of skilled labor and discreetly receiving personal kickbacks for it. Norton has Andy launder the money under a false identity, in exchange for allowing Andy to keep his private cell and to continue maintaining the library.

In the 1960s, a habitual and likable petty thief named Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows) (the role was originally written with Brad Pitt in mind) winds up in Shawshank and becomes a member of Andy and Red's circle of friends. Andy takes a liking to the kid and tries to help Tommy get his GED. In turn Tommy, after hearing the details of Andy's crime, reveals that one of his old prison cellmates had claimed to have committed a murder just like the one Andy was charged with. Andy goes to Warden Norton with the information and you are going to have to watch the movie to find out what happens next.

Life Lessons

Life is a wonderful journey, but you and I are going to encounter some bumps along the way. Bumps are tests, catalysts of growth and change, and character builders to show us what we are made of – no one is immune to them and we can’t control them, but we can control how we react to them.

It comes down to this, you have two choices when something bad happens - you can take the “woe is me” route, lay down, and let them throw dirt on you or you can take the productive route create a plan and take action to find a way to turn this negative event into a positive.

Remember the organization MADD – it was created by a woman who lost her child to a drunk driver. She could have laid down and no one would have blamed her, but she CHOSE HOPE, she MADE A PLAN, she TOOK ACTION, and she MADE A DIFFERENCE in the lives of other parents and children while making her child’s death count for something.

(The) Shawshank Redemption Movie Cast

• Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne
• Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding
• Bob Gunton as Warden Norton
• William Sadler as Heywood
• Clancy Brown as Captain Hadley
• Gil Bellows as Tommy
• Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond
• James Whitemore as Brooks Hatlen

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Gaslight

I did not see this 1944 mystery masterpiece until 2009 and as the opening credits rolled, I thought, this has to be a Hitchcock film. It isn’t, but it has that feel to it – actually it is adapted from a Paul Hamilton play.

This psychological thriller is about emotional abuse, mind games, and what happens when you give your power away. Sit down with your daughters or your best friend and watch this one – then talk about it. Watch this one with your sons too – because even though this particular piece is about a woman, it can happen to them too.

This movie is scary, but not in the monster movie sort of way, but make no mistake this movie has a monster in it.

Quotes

Paula Alquist Anton (realizing she can’t find a brooch her husband gave her): Oh Gregory, I can't find it...I missed it when we were in the Tower...I know it was here. I can't understand it. I couldn't have lost it. It must be here...I must have pulled it out with something, I suppose. Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Gregory, please forgive me...But your present to me, your mother's brooch. And I wanted to wear it - always. I-I-I don't remember opening my bag...Suddenly, I'm beginning not to trust my memory at all.”

Nancy Oliver: Gonna work on your tunes again tonight, sir? You're always working, aren't you?
Gregory Anton: Yes. What are you doing with your evening out?
Nancy Oliver: Oh, I'm going to a music hall... (starts to sing 'Up in a balloon')
Gregory Anton: I've never been to an English music hall.
Nancy Oliver: Oh, you don't know what you've missed, sir...
Gregory Anton: And whom are you going to the music hall with?
Nancy Oliver: A gentleman friend, sir.
Gregory Anton: Oh, now you know, Nancy, don't you, that gentlemen friends are sometimes inclined to take liberties with young ladies.
Nancy Oliver: Oh no, sir, not with me. I can take care of myself - when I want to.
Gregory Anton: You know, Nancy, it strikes me that you're not at all the kind of girl that your mistress should have for a housemaid.
Nancy Oliver: [flirtatiously] No, sir? She's not the only one in the house - is she?

Gregory Anton: I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous to me.
Brian Cameron: I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous to her.

Plot Summary

The film opens up in London, England at the turn of the century and pans to the Number 9 apartment on Thornton Square. We see that internationally famous opera singer Alice Alquist (whom we never see in person) has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery gone wrong – a robbery interrupted by her niece Paula Alquist (Ingrid Berman), who has been living with her aunt. The robber/murderer gets away. Trying to put the awful night behind her and get on with her life, Paula decides to go to Italy to train (in opera) with her aunt’s former teacher.

Years go by and Paula meets, falls in love, and marries a suave and debonair song writer/composer named Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), who persuades her to go back to England and live in the vacant London townhouse that she had lived in with her aunt. She resists, but he “talks her into” the move and they head to England. Around this time Paula discovers a letter addressed to her aunt by a man named Sergius Bauer, dated only two days before the murder, tucked away in a music book. Gregory's reacts with unexpected anger when she talks to him about, but he quickly composes himself and shares that his anger was for her sake – because she had to relive the experience.

Upon her husband insistence (he says it is for her own good), Aunt Alice's things are packed away in the attic and the door sealed. Odd and unexplainable things start to happen to Paula which make her question herself and even doubt her own sanity. At the Tower of London, she looses a brooch Gregory had given her, which she had stored safely in her handbag, pictures disappear from the walls of the house and are found in odd places, Paula hears footsteps above her in the attic which has been sealed off, and the gaslights dim and brighten for no apparent reasons.

There is a small house staff, but you can see Gregory undermining Paula’s authority with them in settle ways. The head housekeeper/cook, while very kind to Paula, is deaf and goes to bed shortly after supper. Nancy (Angela Lansbury), the young housekeeper, who treats her mistress as if she is the one running the house, is either out for the evening or in her room -- neither of the ladies see or hear the things Paula does. Going between being the compassionate husband to being a stern “father-figure,” Gregory insinuates that Paula is responsible or more appropriately irresponsible. She tries to tell him that she is not, but comes to realize he does not believe her and then little by little starts she starts to believe he might be right.

Gregory does everything in his power to isolate his wife from other people, allowing her neither to go out nor have visitors. Somehow Paula still has a chance encounter with a stranger at the Tower of London, named Inspector Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotton), who has been an admirer of Paula’s Aunt Alice Alquist since his childhood. This is where I stop, but I promise you, you will be satisfied with the end of this movie and the journey it took you to get there.

Life Lessons

Gaslighting is a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and perception.” I have used this term in the “late night coffee and 'cheese on your hash browns' girl gab sessions” at the local 24 hour diners my friends and I used to go to after we had spent the night dancing -- it came up in conversations with my girlfriends when someone was “trying to pull something over on one of them” or "trying to make them believe something about themselves that simply was not true."

Even if you are not a fan of “old movies” watch this one and then etch its message of manipulation in your memory and make a firm promise to yourself that you will NEVER EVER give your power away to someone else – even someone you love.

In case you’re still not sure what that means, read this:

5 Behaviors of Manipulative People by Brett Blumenthal
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/5-behaviors-of-manipulative-people-549848/

Gaslight Movie Cast List

Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton
Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist Anton
Joseph Cotten as Brian Cameron
Dame May Whitty as Miss Bessie Thwaites
Angela Lansbury as Nancy Oliver
Barbara Everest as Elizabeth Tompkins
Emil Rameau as Maestro Guardi
Edmund Breon as General Huddleston
Halliwell Hobbes as Mr. Mufflin
Tom Stevenson as PC Williams
Heather Thatcher as Lady Mildred Dalroy
Lawrence Grossmith as Lord Freddie Dalroy

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A Bronx Tale

I saw this movie for the first time with my son. Wise soul that my boy has always been, he was the one that recommended we watch it together and I’m so glad he did. After it was over, my then teenage son and I talked about the movie and its message. Quoting a line from the movie, “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever.”

Moms and dads of pre-teens, teens, and young people heading for college make a bowl of popcorn, watch this one with your kids (there is profanity and violence, but please, please, please watch it anyway), and then sit down with them at the kitchen table and talk about it.

Quotes

“Lorenzo: The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.””

Calogero: It was great to be Catholic and go to confession. You could start over every week.”

“(‘C” as the narrator at the funeral) Calogero ‘C’ Anello: Sonny and my father always said that when I get older I would understand. Well, I finally did. I learned something from these two men. I learned to give love and get love unconditionally. You just have to accept people for what they are, and I learned the greatest gift of all. The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever.”

Plot Summary

This movies takes place the Bronx section of New York in the 1960s. Lorenzo Anello’s (Robert De Niro) elementary school age son, Calogero (Francis Capra) witnesses a murder in the street in front of his parent’s apartment stoop by the local mob lord Sonny (Chazz Palminteri). (Sonny is defending a friend of his who is being attacked by a man with a baseball bat.) The New York City police department is called to the scene and someone says the Anello boy witnessed the whole thing. The police officers come to the Anello’s apartment and want Calogero to ID the perpetrator in a line-up outside of the neighborhood bar next door. Sonny is in the line-up, but the boy refuses to point him out to the police so Sonny and the rest of his boys go free.

From that day forward, Sonny takes a liking to the boy, calling him "C." Sonny's men offer Lorenzo a job to make more money, but Lorenzo, a bus driver by profession, prefers honest work, and turns down the offer. Sonny, however, befriends Calogero, introduces him to his posse, and takes the boy under his wing – almost like a surrogate father.

Without his parents permission C slips over to the bar from time to time and earns tips amounting to “more than his dad makes in a week” doing odd jobs at the mob bar. Lorenzo finds out what his son had been doing behind his back and gives C a lecture on “honest work vs. easy money” and won’t let him keep the “dirty” money. Still fuming Lorenzo walks over the bar to speak to Sonny, returns the money, and warns him to keep away from Calogero.

Eight years later, Calogero (Lillo Brancato) has grown into a young man of about 17 and has secretly continued visiting Sonny regularly without his dad’s permission. Calogero is still connected to his childhood friends who are now part of a gang of racist Italian boys at the local high school. The catch is, he isn’t racist, but he does not share that fact with the others. In fact, Calogero meets an African-American girl, Jane, (Taral Hicks) and it is “love at first sight. " Jane and C make arrangements for a date, despite the tension between the Italians and Blacks, particularly at the neighborhood borders.

C, new to dating, asks advice from both Lorenzo and Sonny about the new girl he is interested in. His dad’s “head” advice is funny, but smart. Wanting to help C make a good impression, Sonny loans him his car and gives him some wonderful “door” advice as it pertains to women. Around the same time, Calogero's friends beat up a group of black cyclists passing through their neighborhood, and Calogero is powerless to stop them but does his best to defend one young man, who turns out to be Jane's brother, Willie. Willie, however, mistakes C for one of the Italian gang members and accuses him of beating him when Calogero and Jane meet for their date. In the ensuing argument, Calogero loses his temper at what he considers Willie's lack of gratitude and calls him a "horrible racial slur" which he instantly regrets. Heartbroken, Jane leaves Calogero and gets into the car with her brother.

At home, Calogero is confronted by Lorenzo, who saw him driving Sonny's car from the apartment window. An argument ensues, and Calogero storms out. Suddenly, he is confronted by a furious Sonny and his possee, who found a bomb in Sonny's car and suspect C of planning to assassinate him. C swears his innocence and is allowed to leave, but his feelings are really hurt that Sonny would accuse him of such a thing.

Sonny tries many times throughout this movie to persuade Calogero to keep away from the Italian HS gang, to think for himself and focus more on his schoolwork and look ahead to college. In the most amazing sequences of scenes which left me on the edge of my seat, we see the Italian HS gang in a car headed for a “revenge visit” to the black neighborhood where Jane lives. Calogero is “peer pressured” into going with them. I’m going to stop here, but I remember seeing the above series of scenes and the one in the funeral parlor and I thought about fate and how each of us come to a fork in the road where we can turn left or right and the decision we make can change our lives forever.

Life Lessons

If you grew up in a city, large or small, during the years prior to the 1970s you didn’t just have one set of parents you were accountable to – you had a dozen because everyone in the neighborhood watched out for all the kids on the block. You did not dare tell one of these “surrogate parents,” “you’re not the boss of me” because not only would they swat your bottom for sassing, when you got home you learned they had called your parents and you got your bottom swatted again for good measure.

It was called the old neighborhood system and when the multitude of moms entered the work force in the 1970s, it went the way of pop in a bottle, drive-in movies, popcorn on Sunday night while you watched The Wonderful World of Disney and Bonanza, card clubs, and cowboy tv shows. It’s too bad – it was a good system. We, as children, could run the neighborhood from dawn to dusk without parents worrying. Even with the occasional plastic spoon to the behind for running through someone's flower garden, it was comforting because we knew there were people in the universe, besides our parents, who would fix us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to tide us over ‘til lunch and loved us enough to make us responsible for our actions.

A Bronx Tale Movie Cast List


· Robert De Niro as Lorenzo Anello
·
Chazz Palminteri as Sonny
·
Lillo Brancato as Calogero Anello as a Teenager
·
Francis Capra as Calogero Anello as a Young Boy
·
Taral Hicks as Jane
·
Katherine Narducci as Rosina Anello
· Clem Caserta as Jimmy Whispers
· Alfred Sauchelli as Bobby Bars
· Frank Pietrangolare as Danny K O
· Joe Pesci as Carmine
· Robert D’Andrea as Tony Toupee
· Eddie Montanaro as Eddie Mush
· Fred Fischer as JoJo the Whale
· Dave Salerno as Frankie Coffee Cake
· And Others

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Benny and Joon

“Art” movies are gems. Quirky, sometimes odd, but always unique and entertaining; they are like eating a decadent double chocolate dessert for those of us who love movies. I happened on this movie jewel late one night as I was channel surfing. I stayed because I am a fan of actors in it - Mary Stuart Masterson, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Aidan Quinn, and Johnny Depp. Here it is 2010 and this movie was released in 1993, but I did not get the opportunity to see it when if first came out. That’s they way it happens with this type of movie – they sometimes get side-stepped for the flashier blockbuster fare.

Have you noticed there are some actors that are so gifted in their interpretation of a role that they just leave you wondering “how did they do that?” Johnny Depp as Sam does that in his “Buster Keatonish” type performance and his on-screen chemistry in this unexpected romantic comedy with the Mary Stuart Masterson character of Joon is wonderful to watch. Actually, to me this piece has more of a stage play feel to it than a movie, but a movie it is and one you should consider running out to rent at your local video store.

Quotes

Sam: You don't like raisins?
Joon: Not really.
Sam: Why?
Joon: They used to be fat and juicy and now they're twisted. They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they're just humiliated grapes. I can't say I am a big supporter of the raisin council.
Sam: Did you see those, those raisins on TV? The ones that sing and dance and stuff?
Joon: They scare me.
Sam: Yeah me too
Joon: It's sick. The commercial people they make them sing and dance so people will eat them.
Sam: It's a shame about raisins.
Joon: Cannibals.
Sam: Yeah. Do you like avocados?
Joon: They're a fruit you know.
Sam: Ruthie, do you got any avocados?


Joon: Why do you hate me so much?
Benny: I don't hate you.
Joon: You need me to be sick.


Sam: How sick is she?
Benny: She's plenty sick. Now listen to me, I've been doin' some thinkin'...
Sam: Because, you know, it seems to me that, I mean, except for being a little mentally ill, she's pretty normal.


Joon: Having a Boo Radley moment, are we?

Plot Summary

You get the feeling in the opening scenes of Benny & Joon that you are about to embark on a journey and it is going to be an interesting one. While the opening song and credits are running you see Joon “Juniper” (Mary Stuart Masterson) in her studio creating a painting, Sam (Johnny Depp) on a train peeking over a book entitled “The Look of Buster Keaton, and the traditional and “harried” multi-tasker Benny (Aidan Quinn) at his automobile repair shop working on one of his clients cars. The phone rings; it’s Benny’s sister Joon calling him “again” concerning an emergency at home - they are running low on peanut butter.

Benny comes home that night from work with a sack of groceries to find Joon, who has functional mental health issues, and her latest adult caregiver/housekeeper having a fight. The housekeeper tells the overprotective Benny, Joon “has fits, sudden outbursts and she is unmanageable” so she quits. When Benny asks his sister what happened she answers “she (meaning the housekeeper) was given to fits of semi-precious metaphors” and “she moves things.”

It’s poker night at his friend Eric’s (Oliver Platt) home, but Benny tells him he can’t come because he doesn’t want to leave Joon home alone. Eric talks him into coming and tells him to bring Joon, who reluctantly climbs into her brother’s El Camino wearing a motorcycle helmet. As they approach the house, she looks out the window of the car and sees Sam (Johnny Depp) sitting in a tree and they exchange glances for a moment. In the middle of the poker game Benny’s friend Mike (Joe Grifasi) offers a solution to Benny's housekeeper problem by offering the services of his cousin Sam - who came into town on a train and has taken up residence at this house. Mike shares “he’s 26 years old and he can’t even read, he spends his days polishing my forks…and keeps me up at night watching old movies.”

In the next scene Benny is at his sister’s psychiatrist, Dr. Garvey ( C.C.H. Pounder) who asks Benny how he and his sister are getting along to which Benny answers “fine.” The doctor wants him to consider putting his sister in a group home where she can be with her peers, but the devoted Benny says “she already has a home.” It is an old conversation between these two people who want the best for Joon. Against the doctor’s recommendation and despite the fact Benny is putting his life on-hold; he decides to find another housekeeper. Enter Sam who Joon “wins” (sort of) in a poker game. And the fun begins….

Life Lessons

There are millions of cookie cutter human beings walking around this world, but thank goodness for the unique people. The ones who run with scissors, color outside the lines, courageously rip those “do not remove” tags off of pillows, and walk down escalators when they could ride. They are the eccentric souls - the walk to their own beat boys and girls – the different drummers, who make life interesting and view the world through a unique pair of eyeglasses.

Years ago they used to be called “characters” and every small town had their own individual version with descriptive nicknames to match their various personas. Johnny Pop Bottle and Trash Can Annie were gentle souls who practiced no prejudice or noticed any class distinction – they usually smiled, waved, and said hello to every one they met as they rode their bicycle through town with their collection of treasures in their bike basket or pulled their two-wheeled shopping cart filled with their latest finds around the town square until they found their favorite bench to rest their weary bones and feed the pigeons.

I don’t know if it was a different time or the Iowa community I spent my early youth in, but back then people didn’t hassle them. They were card carrying members of the small community they lived in, no better and no worse than the "pillars" of said community, and people spoke to them when they passed and let them be the harmless souls they were. The people in town knew there was not a mean bone in their body and they would give you the last thing in their cart or basket and go without, if they thought you needed it. In fact, everyone sort of looked out for them and when a stranger would come to town and comment to one of the coffee clubbing farmers at the diner, he or she would answer “you should have known Johnny before Vietnam or Annie was a local beauty before she lost her husband and kids in that fire.”

Everyone has a back story – all of which has contributed to making them the person they are today. Compassion is defined as deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. It sometimes goes by another name too, it is called being kind. Something that is hard to be when you go around angry inside and hold other people responsible for your woes or your happiness – instead of looking in the mirror and saying “this life is what I choose to make it.” Johnny and Annie know exactly what that means, do you and I?

Benny and Joon Movie Cast


Johnny Depp - Sam
Mary Stuart Masterson - Juniper 'Joon' Pearl
Aidan Quinn - Benjamin 'Benny' Pearl
William H. Macy - Randy Burch
Julianne Moore - Ruthie
Oliver Platt - Eric
C. C. H. Pounder - Dr. Garvey
Dan Hedaya - Thomas
Joe Grifasi – Mike
and others.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Notting Hill

Do you like romantic comedies? I do because there is a really good chance when you sit down to one you will be entertained and walk away from the picture feeling a little more light hearted then when you entered the movie theater or slipped the DVD into your player. Let me introduce you to one of my favorites – Notting Hill.

Quotes

(At a dinner party with William’s friends as they decide whose life is the most pathetic – thus earning the last brownie.)

Anna Scott: Wait, what about me?
Max: Sorry, you think “you” deserve the brownie?
Anna Scott: Well a shot at it at least huh?
William: Well, you'll have to fight me for it, this is a very good brownie.
Anna Scott: I've been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I've been hungry for a decade. I've had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me. Ah, and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it's entertainment. And it's taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this.
Honey: Really?
Anna Scott: Really. And, one day not long from now, my looks will go, they will discover I can't act and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while.
Max: (long pause) Nah, nice try gorgeous, but you don't fool anyone. William: Pathetic effort to hog the brownie.

Plot Summary

William Thacker (Hugh Grant) owns a travel bookstore in London. His life has fallen into a routine of going to work, evenings with friends, dealing with his eccentric roommate Spike (Rhys Ifans), and telephone calls from his mother. It’s a pretty normal existence until a world famous American actress named Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) wonders into his shop.

Against all odds, a friendship starts to develop between these two, which begins to blossom into a romance, but life steps in through a series of funny and sad moments. Will Anna be able to let go of her past hurts? Will William be able to handle dating a woman whose life is splashed across the front pages of newspapers every time she steps outside to buy a cup of coffee? Are they both willing to take a chance on love just one more time?

One more thing… Spike, William’s roommate, is a hoot!

Life Lessons

Princess Diana and I had one major thing in common; we got married the same year. As I went about my life, I peripherally followed hers on the evening news. I remember when her son William was born and seeing her holding him when they came out of the hospital, she seemed so happy then, didn’t she?

Later, there were times I thought she had a “hunted” look about her and I could not imagine what it must have been like to live under the microscope like she did, where every mistake you made was made in front of millions of people. She was not a saint, but I think people loved her because she wasn’t perfect – we felt she was like us, living life and doing the best she could out there in the trenches.

I remember I was having my breakfast when I learned from a news show that she had passed away in an accident in France – something to do with her driver, an underpass, and the paparazzi who literally and figuratively hounded her to death. I remember thinking at the time – they finally got her – those gals and guys with the cameras who wait like vultures to photograph a celebrity taking their child to their first day of kindergarten or for an ice cream. Come on now – when they are at a “working function” all right – they are fair game, but when they are “off the clock” and in their private life - isn’t that stalking?

I remember George Clooney held a press conference and one of the things he said was (and I am paraphrasing) “Princess Diana is dead and who do we see about that?” Say what you want about Princess Diana’s driver, we all know the paparazzi played their part in her death. They also had a partner in this crime – us or to clarify anyone who buys the grocery store tabloids that these paparazzi pictures appear in. You see it is as simple as this – if there were not a market for these pictures, the paparazzi would not be able to earn a living doing it and they would stop doing it…. so you know what you have to do….take that $5.00 you would spend on the “rag sheet” and give it to your local food pantry.

Notting Hill Movie Cast


· Julia Roberts as Anna Scott:
·
Hugh Grant as William Thacker
·
Emma Chambers as Honey Thacker
·
Hugh Bonneville as Bernie
·
Rhys Ifans as Spike
·
Tim McInnerny as Max
·
Gina McKee as Bella
·
James Dreyfus as Martin
·
Richard McCabe as Tony
·
Dylan Moran as Rufus
·
Alec Baldwin as Anna’s actor boyfriend Jeff