You know a movie is feminist overkill
When the AP (not WORLD or NRO) says it is
AP - Blindly following society's edicts and becoming a housewife is bad. Thinking for yourself and following your own path is good. You don't need a degree from Wellesley to figure that out. But apparently the makers of "Mona Lisa Smile" think they need to educate you by beating you over the head with feel-good feminist platitudes. [Yahoo! News - Entertainment]
The article goes not to describe "Mona Lisa Smile" as "'Dead Poet's Sorority.'"
Aside from amassing an arsenal of talented young actresses... dressing them in sweater sets and pearls and finding just the right shade of red lipstick to match their skin tones, the film seems pointless.
Of Julia Roberts' character, "the words 'progressive' and 'subversive' are used so often to describe her, it could be a drinking game."
And the enjoyment goes on. From the Baltimore Sun:
But would it have been too much to ask director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) to peek behind the facade and offer something in the way of insight? Would it have been too much to ask writers Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal (the Planet of the Apes remake - now there's a pedigree!) to offer one character who isn't a cliche?
Apparently it would.
Or, from Newsday
In short, the only thing more obvious than the cast of period characters is the period soundtrack, which has all the subtlety of a duck call.
Or, from the Sun-Sentinel:
Does Julia Roberts hate herself, the intelligent movie-going public, or both?
This is about the only question raised by the insipid Mona Lisa Smile, which seems to have filtered the script of Dead Poets Society through some sort of bad-chick-flick software program. The result is a movie in which all problems have the complexity of a pleated skirt and can be solved with a heartfelt hug, and all characters fit dull and predictable molds.
Reviews of bad movies can be so much more entertaining than those of good movies.
December 19, 2003 10:32 AMThat is *funny*. The minute I saw this trailer I knew it would be a bad movie. Dead Poets on estrogen.
Do you get your movie reviews from an aggregated source, or from the individual sites?
Pondered by Greg at December 19, 2003 11:26 AMA couple of different places. Some of them were pulled off of a sunspot weekly movie guide mailing. The AP report was from the Yahoo! entertainment feed. And I also check on the NY Times Movies feed (http://partners.userland.com/nytRss/movies.xml)although I haven't seen what they say about Mona Lisa Smile
Pondered by maphet at December 19, 2003 11:55 AMMy wife & Janelle are going to see that while Holton & I see RotK tomorrow.
Pondered by JosiahQ at December 19, 2003 03:31 PMHere's the thing: I had to review this flick for a Chattanooga paper, and it's not that bad. Not even that feminist, actually. (My major complaint was that it wasn't feminist enough; all the characters wanted to find men.) The acting's surprisingly good (particularly Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the melodrama is cliched but entertainingly over-the-top.
I suppose I should note that when I walk into a theater I tend to drop my politics at the door; I don't really care if the movie is conservative or liberal, so long as it makes its case with style.
Pondered by mesh at December 24, 2003 12:53 PM