Monthly Archives: January 2014
Female Filmmaker Friday: Smithereens, 1982 (dir. Susan Seidelman)
I actually watched four films by Susan Seidelman last week (Desperately Seeking Susan, Making Mr. Right, Cookie and Smithereens). Aside from the film I am writing about today, I watched them in the order in which they were filmed. Thus, I have decided to spend the next four weeks of this feature discussing these films and the growth of Seidelman as a director. If I can manage to watch She-Devil before the series is over, I’ll discuss that film, too. Then I’ll have covered all of her work in the 1980s. I found a great podcast from 2009 in which Seidelman discusses the production of Smithereens, which you can listen to here. I really love what I’ve seen of Seidelman’s work and look forward to continuing her filmography. I discovered while reading about her that when she went to grad school she started out as a fashion major before switching to film, which is exactly what I did! I love little connections like that.
Movie Quote of the Day – Hope Springs, 2003 (dir. Mark Herman)
Colin Ware: Oh, God. Sorry. I didn’t know jet lag could be like this. I never had my hair hurt before.
Joanie Fisher: Oh, Mr. Ware. I don’t like to see one of our guests so gloomy. Why don’t you help yourself to one of our local-interest brochures there? You might find something to pick you up, give you a little memory or two to take back to England.
Colin Ware: It’s memories that I came here to forget.
Joanie Fisher: Memories. . .of something, or. . .someone?
Colin Ware: Oh, God. . .
Joanie Fisher: A woman. An English woman?
Colin Ware: Welsh. Well, half-Welsh.
Joanie Fisher: Half-Welsh and half. . .?
Colin Ware: Monster.
Joanie Fisher: My, we are in a bad way.
Movie Quote of the Day – Laurel Canyon, 2002 (dir. Lisa Cholodenko)
Jane: Are we ever gonna have a relationship?
Sam: We’re having a relationship. Here we are – having it.
Movie Quote of the Day – Cluny Brown, 1946 (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
Adam Belinski: What made you think you were out of place?
Cluny Brown: Oh, I didn’t think I was. It’s Uncle Arn. He’s always telling me, “Cluny Brown, you don’t know your place. Think of your place. Cluny Brown, you ought to learn your place.”
Adam Belinski: Where does Uncle Arn think your place is?
Cluny Brown: He didn’t say.
Adam Belinski: Because he doesn’t know. Nobody can tell you where your place is. Where is my place? Where is anybody’s place? I’ll tell you where it is. Wherever you’re happy, that’s your place. And happiness is a matter of purely personal adjustment to your environment. You’re the sole judge. In Hyde Park, for instance. Some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say nuts to the squirrels?
Movie Quote of the Day – The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1989 (dir. Steve Kloves)
Susie Diamond: So, did you find another girl?
Jack Baker: I didn’t look.
Movie Quote of the Day – Any Day Now, 2012 (dir. Travis Fine)
Paul: I’m from Walla Walla, Washington.
Rudy: “Walla, Walla, Washington.” Very fun to say.
Paul: When I graduated from college, I took over the family insurance business, I married my sweetheart and everything was perfect, except. . .
Rudy: Let me guess, selling insurance bored you to death, and you secretly longed to meet the drag queen of your dreams? Oh, it’s the oldest story in the book: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy kicks open the closet door and finally meets Mr. Right.
Movie Quote of the Day – Twilight, 1998 (dir. Robert Benton)
Harry Ross: You any tougher than you look?
Raymond Hope: Hell yes! At least, I used to be.
Harry Ross: I used to be. We all used to be.
Raymond Hope: Then have a drink. You still a bourbon man?
Harry Ross: I’ll take a ginger ale if you got one.
Raymond Hope: Do I look like a man who’d have a ginger ale?
Harry Ross: Water.
Raymond Hope: That I can handle.
Movie Quote of the Day – China Seas, 1935 (dir. Tay Garnett)
Captain Alan Gaskell: Who’s in there?
Dolly ‘China Doll’ Portland: China Doll, the gal that drives men mad.
Captain Alan Gaskell: What are you doin’ aboard?
Dolly ‘China Doll’ Portland: Nothing alarming. Just showering dewdrops off the body beautiful.
Female Filmmaker Friday: That’s What She Said, 2012 (dir. Carrie Preston)
I’m starting a new feature on the blog (I’ll bring Oscar Vault Monday back soon, I promise!) wherein I will discuss (sometimes at length, other times just with something brief) films directed by women. Sometimes I’ll talk about some of the bigger names and bigger films (Jane Campion, Nora Ephron, Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola), but mostly I will be focusing on smaller, lesser known films directed (and often times written) by women.
Movie Quote of the Day – Elizabeth, 1998 (dir. Shekhar Kapur)
Lord Robert: Marry me.
Queen Elizabeth: On a night such as this, could any woman say no?
Lord Robert: On a night such as this, could a queen say no?
Queen Elizabeth: Does not a queen sit under the same stars as any other woman?
the diary of a film history fanatic 