365 Days, 365 Movies: September [Charlie's Angels]

You guys! Watching an average of one movie a day has been a glorious experiment, but I'm almost positive that it's making me a dumber person. My reflexes are slower, my reading skills are diminished, and sometimes I space out for minutes at a time. I might be getting more film-literate, but at what cost!? Anyway, I still thought I would do a post about the movies that I watched way back in September, so that, if I end up turning into a real dumb-dumb, someone will be able to track my descent into dunce-hood through this blog.

September was the most fruitful month for me in terms of the amount of movies watched -- 62 in 30 days! I very quickly decided that my theme was going to be the films of the women and men of Charlie's Angels, the 2000 movie starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu. Surprisingly, there were a lot of films by those three women that I hadn't seen. Additionally, I watched the films of Bill Murray and Luke Wilson, because they're both fairly important to the movie as well.  Below are the movies I saw from each of them, and my thoughts on their filmography so far. Of the 62 movies I watched in September, 30 of them included some member of the Charlie's Angels family:

My Mom and I Review "The Skeleton Twins"

Television might be my one true love, but there's nothing quite as comforting as being in a darkened theater, popcorn in hand, to watch a movie with family.  So, when The Skeleton Twins, a dramedy starring Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, premiered, I knew that there was one person I needed to see it with: my mother. Thankfully, she was in town.

The Skeleton Twins tells the story of Milo and Maggie (Hader and Wiig), two twins who have lost touch over the years but are thrown together again due to circumstance. That circumstance is Milo's attempted suicide, which forces a reunion between the siblings and brings Milo back to his hometown and into the home of Maggie and her husband Lance (the always dependable Luke Wilson). Milo and Maggie are depressed and messed up by themselves but seem to function better together; they're like conjoined twins who are having trouble surviving without the other's constant affection and interaction. With Milo back home and falling back into a dysfunctional relationship, and Maggie trying to stay in her relationship and out of trouble, the reunion seems to come at exactly the right time.

Reese Witherspoon’s Arrest is the Best Thing to Happen to Reese Witherspoon Since Reese Witherspoon Won That Oscar

or

Reese Witherspoon's Arrest: Meditations on an Emergency

Reese Witherspoon is a gem. She is an American marvel. She’s got a Southern brassiness and an adorably large chin, and she’s won us over with her film roles that highlight her warmth, determination, and spirit. But sometime between Sweet Home Alabama and last week, our love of Reese Witherspoon has faded. Maybe it was her roles in Four Christmases or War Games This Means War. Actually, it was definitely those things. Much like a child outgrowing their cuteness and trying desperately to reclaim it by unrealistically turning ‘r’s into ‘w’s and adopting a very fake-looking ‘aren’t I precious’ face, Reese Witherspoon has been trying her darnedest to reclaim her rom-com stronghold and force herself back into the spotlight as America’s Sweetheart. The only problem is that, in doing so, she fundamentally

Why ‘Enlightened’ is the Best Show You’re Not Watching

You Need to Watch Enlightened

There are a lot of shows that I have loved that have been canceled too soon: Pushing Daisies, Arrested Development, Sports Night, and Firefly, to name a few. Recently The Hour was canceled after a terrific second season on BBC, and it seems more and more likely that the world is conspiring against me.

However, no show on television right now is quite as good as Enlightened, the HBO series from creators Mike White and Laura Dern, and I refuse to consider that it may soon join the pile of 'Gone-But-Not-Forgotten' shows of yesteryear. The show ends its almost perfect season on Sunday, and it's crazy to think that this may be the last time that viewers will get the chance to see Amy Jellicoe and her many attempts to right wrongs and quell her inner demons.

The show follows Amy (played brilliantly by Laura Dern), a woman who, after a nervous breakdown (above), attempts to get her life back together and enact change in the lives of people around her. The only problems are that she's maybe not that different than she used to be AND nobody really takes her well-meaning nagging coaching to heart. With a drug addict ex-husband, a mother who can't seem to bridge the emotional gap between herself and her daughter, a coworker who's love for her develops into a complicated friendship, and a bevy of comedians doing solidly emotional work, Amy's world is filled with unique and challenging characters. Thus, she attempts to pull everyone in new and different directions with her (often cloying) meditational wisdom.

After the end of the first season, I wrote that Enlightened was "awkward, depressing, lonely… obviously one of the best new shows on TV." The first season was contemplative, allowing viewers really soak in the sadness of the characters. This season it's been all about narrative propulsion, which took the characters (who had developed over 10 1st season episodes) and put them in situations that made them grow and change.

With the finale just a few days away, it's more important than ever that viewers tune in to the show. To help make that decision easier, I've outlined some of the many ways in which Enlightened is just so much better than anything else on television right now: