She's The Man

As I was sort of in a gloomy mood on account of a bad sleep and the fact that my cheques STILL haven't been transfered to my account, I decided when flicking around to watch She's the Man on YTV. It is my guilty pleasure. I feel silly when I get into these kinds of movies, another one I like is Step Up (which also has Channing Tatum..) 

I am a sucker for anything to do with William Shakespear's 12th night, as this film is loosely based upon it. The first time I saw it my feminist mother watched it with me, and she not only approved of the movie, she thought it was really good because of Viola's determination to "Prove she can play soccer as well as the boys! And not care about the debutante ball!" all very good things in my mothers book. I still crack up at the part where Viola uses tampons to clear up nose bleeds. Needless to say, it made my day a little brighter.  

My Own Private Idaho

After seeing Milk, me and Katharine decided to watch another Gus Van Sant film, so we choose My Own Private Idaho.

The beginning of the film I was distracted by a sudoku puzzle I was trying to complete (45 minutes! Whoo... gotta work on that) but soon got entranced by River Phoenix's performance as a hustler with a condition of narcolepsy-the thing where you suddenly fall into deep sleeps when you're stressed, from a chemical imbalance in the brain-strive to find his mother. Accompanied by Keanu Reeves, who was not quite as good but still okay, another hustler who's father is a mayor.

About a quarter of the way in it was undeniable that there was influence from a Shakespeare play, it bugged us so we paused it and went on wikipedia, yes, it is (extremely loosely) based off of Henry IV.

The movie ends, in the same place it started, with not much hope, in the middle of  Idaho.

This movie is funny, surreal and heartbreaking. Especially when you painfully recall River Phoenix's death in the scenes where he is taken over by the narcolepsy, twitching in the streets. 

There's a good review here.